Pyramiding: Efficient search for rare subjects
The need to economically identify rare subjects within large, poorly mapped search spaces is a frequently encountered problem for social scientists and managers. It is notoriously difficult, for example, to identify “the best new CEO for our company,” or the “best three lead users to participate in...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Elsevier
2010
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/52457 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7235-1032 |
| _version_ | 1826195950670970880 |
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| author | von Hippel, Eric A. Franke, Nikolaus Prugl, Reinhard |
| author2 | Sloan School of Management |
| author_facet | Sloan School of Management von Hippel, Eric A. Franke, Nikolaus Prugl, Reinhard |
| author_sort | von Hippel, Eric A. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | The need to economically identify rare subjects within large, poorly mapped search spaces is a frequently encountered problem for social scientists and managers. It is notoriously difficult, for example, to identify “the best new CEO for our company,” or the “best three lead users to participate in our product development project.” Mass screening of entire populations or samples becomes steadily more expensive as the number of acceptable solutions within the search space becomes rarer.
The search strategy of “pyramiding” is a potential solution to this problem under many conditions. Pyramiding is a search process based upon the idea that people with a strong interest in a topic or field tend to know people more expert than themselves. In this paper we report upon four experiments empirically exploring the efficiency of pyramiding searches relative to mass screening. We find that pyramiding on average identified the most expert individual in a group on a specific topic with only 28.4% of the group interviewed – a great efficiency gain relative to mass screening. Further, pyramiding identified one of the top 3 experts in a population after interviewing only 15.9% of the group on average. We discuss conditions under which the pyramiding search method is likely to be efficient relative to screening. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:18:04Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/52457 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:18:04Z |
| publishDate | 2010 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/524572022-09-30T20:15:09Z Pyramiding: Efficient search for rare subjects von Hippel, Eric A. Franke, Nikolaus Prugl, Reinhard Sloan School of Management von Hippel, Eric A. von Hippel, Eric A. The need to economically identify rare subjects within large, poorly mapped search spaces is a frequently encountered problem for social scientists and managers. It is notoriously difficult, for example, to identify “the best new CEO for our company,” or the “best three lead users to participate in our product development project.” Mass screening of entire populations or samples becomes steadily more expensive as the number of acceptable solutions within the search space becomes rarer. The search strategy of “pyramiding” is a potential solution to this problem under many conditions. Pyramiding is a search process based upon the idea that people with a strong interest in a topic or field tend to know people more expert than themselves. In this paper we report upon four experiments empirically exploring the efficiency of pyramiding searches relative to mass screening. We find that pyramiding on average identified the most expert individual in a group on a specific topic with only 28.4% of the group interviewed – a great efficiency gain relative to mass screening. Further, pyramiding identified one of the top 3 experts in a population after interviewing only 15.9% of the group on average. We discuss conditions under which the pyramiding search method is likely to be efficient relative to screening. 2010-03-10T15:31:49Z 2010-03-10T15:31:49Z 2009-09 2009-07 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/SubmittedJournalArticle 0048-7333 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/52457 von Hippel, Eric, Nikolaus Franke, and Reinhard Prugl. “Pyramiding: Efficient search for rare subjects.” Research Policy 38.9 (2009): 1397-1406. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7235-1032 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2009.07.005 Research Policy Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf Elsevier Eric von Hippel |
| spellingShingle | von Hippel, Eric A. Franke, Nikolaus Prugl, Reinhard Pyramiding: Efficient search for rare subjects |
| title | Pyramiding: Efficient search for rare subjects |
| title_full | Pyramiding: Efficient search for rare subjects |
| title_fullStr | Pyramiding: Efficient search for rare subjects |
| title_full_unstemmed | Pyramiding: Efficient search for rare subjects |
| title_short | Pyramiding: Efficient search for rare subjects |
| title_sort | pyramiding efficient search for rare subjects |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/52457 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7235-1032 |
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