The power of diversity over large solution spaces

Marco LiCalzi and Oktay Sürücü

No 206, Working Papers from Department of Applied Mathematics, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia

Abstract: We consider a team of agents with limited problem-solving ability facing a disjunctive task over a large solution space. We provide sufficient conditions for the following four statements. First, two heads are better than one: a team of two agents will solve the problem even if neither agent alone would be able to. Second, teaming up does not guarantee success: if the agents are not sufficiently creative, even a team of arbitrary size may fail to solve the problem. Third, "defendit numerus": when the agent's problem-solving ability is adversely affected by the complexity of the solution space, the solution of the problem requires only a mild increase in the size of the team. Fourth, groupthink impairs the power of diversity: if agents' abilities are positively correlated, a larger team is necessary to solve the problem.

Keywords: Problem-solving; Bounded rationality; Theory of teams; Groupthink. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C65 D23 D71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2011-03, Revised 2011-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Power of Diversity over Large Solution Spaces (2012)
Working Paper: The power of diversity over large solution spaces (2011)
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