Too Many Cooks Can Spoil the Broth. Find Out Just How Many

New research co-authored by Yale SOM’s Taly Reich looks at how we perceive collaborations of different sizes. A recent article, ironically a  collaboration between eight scholars—Reich, Sam Maglio, Odelia Wong, Cristina Rabaglia, Evan Polman, Julie Huang, Hal Hershfield, and Sean Lane—studies what the perceptions mean for how companies describe the creation of their products. The research is published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, the article reveals that there is, in fact, “too much of a good thing”.

For companies, this means it’s important to know whether consumers hold different ideas than they do about how many people should be involved in creating a product.