Collaboration has become an important feature of various industries, particularly when it comes to creative work. This comes amid growing interest in nonhierarchical structures with autonomous teams and the increasing prevalence of open innovation.

The benefits of collaboration—be it leveraging specialized expertise, sharing resources, or allowing people with different skills and perspectives to learn from each other—have been widely discussed. On the flip side, collaboration can sometimes yield less-than-desirable effects including groupthink, free riding, and conflict among collaborators.

Prior research has been generally optimistic about collaborative work, with the idea that individuals collaborate because it tends to increase output quality, despite the costs. This argument hinges on the implicit assumption that people prioritize work quality and that firms can rely on individuals to self-assemble into teams with the intent of maximizing the quality of the output.

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