Skill complementarity enhances heterophily in collaboration networks
Files
Date
2016-01-08
Authors
Xie, Wen-Jie
Li, Ming-Xia
Jiang, Zhi-Qiang
Tan, Qun-Zhao
Podobnik, Boris
Zhou, Wei-Xing
Stanley, Harry Eugene
Version
Published version
OA Version
Citation
Wen-Jie Xie, Ming-Xia Li, Zhi-Qiang Jiang, Qun-Zhao Tan, Boris Podobnik, Wei-Xing Zhou, H Eugene Stanley. 2016. "Skill complementarity enhances heterophily in collaboration networks." SCIENTIFIC REPORTS, Volume 6, 9 pp. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep18727
Abstract
Much empirical evidence shows that individuals usually exhibit significant homophily in social networks. We demonstrate, however, skill complementarity enhances heterophily in the formation of collaboration networks, where people prefer to forge social ties with people who have professions different from their own. We construct a model to quantify the heterophily by assuming that individuals choose collaborators to maximize utility. Using a huge database of online societies, we find evidence of heterophily in collaboration networks. The results of model calibration confirm the presence of heterophily. Both empirical analysis and model calibration show that the heterophilous feature is persistent along the evolution of online societies. Furthermore, the degree of skill complementarity is positively correlated with their production output. Our work sheds new light on the scientific research utility of virtual worlds for studying human behaviors in complex socioeconomic systems.
Description
License
Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.