Which inventors benefit from working in teams?

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to study which inventors benefit from working in teams, taking into consideration their level of specialization and their past experience. To answer the research question, it was analyzed inventors’ data collected from EPO-PastSat database from 1979 until 1999. The results show that, consistent to previous research, teams produce better inventions than lone inventors. Moreover, specialist inventors benefit from collaboration more than generalists, but only if the team have a significant number of coinventors. Lastly, the positive impact on invention quality is more relevant for experienced inventors.