Hierarchy, by contrast, accelerates rapid top-down communication and efficiency ( 6), but necessarily reduces symmetric coordination ( 7) and yields greater inequality in team member benefits, ranging from higher deaths in mountaineering expeditions ( 6) to uneven sacrifices in markets ( 8).ĭrawing on 89,575 self-reports of team member research activity underlying scientific papers published in PNAS, Nature, Science, and PLOS ONE from 2003 to 2020, we cluster the 25 most common research activities as a function of their cocontribution by authoring scientists. Previous experimental and observational studies of emergent team structure reveal that flatter teams with more balanced ( 2) or synchronous communication between members ( 3, 4) achieve higher performance in problem-solving ( 2), sales ( 3), trading ( 4), and healthcare ( 5) settings, partially because coordinated attention facilitates the adaptability needed to respond to uncertainty, complexity, and change ( 3). Despite the known importance of team structure in many domains of economy and society, little is known about how team structure in science relates to innovation and discovery outcomes, from a lack of consistent, large-scale data. Teams are the engines of modern science, having grown in prevalence and size across all areas of scientific and scholarly investigation ( 1). These results suggest the critical role flat teams play for sustainable scientific advance and the training and advancement of scientists. These effects hold within person-the same person on the same-sized team produces science much more likely to disruptively innovate if they work on a flat, high-L-ratio team. We find that, relative to flat, egalitarian teams, tall, hierarchical teams produce less novelty and more often develop existing ideas, increase productivity for those on top and decrease it for those beneath, and increase short-term citations but decrease long-term influence. The L ratio is validated through correlation with imputed contributions to the specific paper and to science as a whole, which we use to effectively extrapolate the L ratio for 16,397,750 papers where roles are not explicit. The hidden hierarchy of a scientific team is characterized by its lead (or L) ratio of members playing leadership roles to total team size. Drawing on 89,575 self-reports of team member research activity underlying scientific publications, we show how individual activities cohere into broad roles of 1) leadership through the direction and presentation of research and 2) support through data collection, analysis, and discussion.
With teams growing in all areas of scientific and scholarly research, we explore the relationship between team structure and the character of knowledge they produce.