Recombinant Search at Temporary Gatherings

Temporary gatherings—such as conferences, trade shows, and festivals—create a forum where strangers meet one another, thereby helping people establish new social connections. The infusion of new social ties may permit knowledge transfers that facilitate recombinant search. However, knowledge transfer is not assured: ties newly formed at a temporary gathering may have low information carrying capacity. In this research project, we examine under what conditions temporary gatherings catalyze the creation of novel combinations. We study a large sample of novel technological combinations created at software development hackathons. We find that both the software developers’ prior knowledge and several attributes of hackathon context strongly influence the rate and direction of inventive activity at a hackathon.

Zoom link: https://eur-nl.zoom.us/j/97558207288