Newcomers, betweenness centrality, and creative success: A study of teams in the board game industry from 1951 to 2017

Abstract

This study examines how network characteristics affect the creative success of teams in the board game industry. Based on prior research, we argue that the degree of newcomers within a team affects the creative success negatively, while betweenness centrality affects creative team success positively. We test these assumptions with unique data on teams in the board game industry using two different measures of creative success (awards as well as user- ratings). The data covers 12,731 teams over a timeframe from 1951 to 2017. Results indicate moderately curvilinear effects of betweenness centrality as well as negative effects of the number of newcomers per team on creative success, suggesting that creativity is not only driven by network diversity, but also by trust and experience. This paper contributes to a better understanding of team-based creativity which also validates and expands on the prior knowledge of network-based origins of creativity in an industry-setting that has rarely been studied.