Abstract
Problem solving and innovation are important in many contexts, including academic research, policy-making, product development, and entrepreneurship. Broadly speaking, innovators come in two varieties: specialists and generalists. Specialists are people who have a deep knowledge of a very narrow subject area. Generalists are people whose knowledge ranges across multiple subject areas. In this paper, I examine the role of skill specialization in collaboration network structure, and individual position in the collaborative community. Using a model of skill specialization and collaboration network formation, I show that as disci- plines become less insular, the collaboration network becomes increasingly domi- nated by a small number of individuals. I compare specialists and generalists with the same number of skills and show that specialists will tend to have more links in the network than generalists with the same number of skills. However, I the show that generalists are more likely than specialists to occupy key central positions in the network.