Collaboration – in person vs online

Van der Wouden and Youn (as reported by Ayshford) studied “17 million scientific publications over the past 45 years find[ing] that researchers who collaborated locally were much more likely to gain new knowledge from their teammates than those who collaborated at a distance. The trend was especially pronounced for researchers in science and engineering, as well as early-career scholars. . . . being together physically—reading body language, mulling a problem at a whiteboard, and teaming up to use specialized laboratory equipment—is especially valuable when knowledge isn’t yet codified. . . . ‘If you want to be innovative, if you want to collaborate and learn from each other at the cutting edge,’ Youn says, ‘you need to be in person’.” Collaborations were  categorized as “local” when people worked about a 10-minute (or less) walk from each other.

Emily Ayshford. 2024. “Could Remote Work Hurt On-the-Job Learning?” KelloggInsight, https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/could-remote-work-hurt-on-the-job-learning