Networks of Cooperation and Specialized Knowledge in a Metropolitan Regional Economy

• In Event: 318 - Regular Session. Economic Sociology 2

Abstract

Specialized knowledge and skills comprise the division of labor for the information technology sectors of advanced economies, but identifying and measuring the structural properties of this knowledge has proven difficult. We designed a longitudinal study that addresses this problem by modeling the content and structure of email interactions in an online community of technologists. Drawing on seven years worth of public email messages from participants in a large-membership tech startup community on Meetup.com, we analyze and visualize the evolution of specialized knowledge at both the individual- and group-level. Using automated text classification of the email content, network analysis of the cooperative interactions between members, and longitudinal statistical models to measure change over time, we show that individual participants in the email discussions became increasingly specialized at the same time that the group as a whole became increasingly diverse.

Authors

• Daniel DellaPosta, Cornell University

• Victor Nee, Cornell University