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“Collective dynamics behind success” published in Nature Communications, is a collaboration with Federico Battiston (Central European University, Vienna), Emőke-Ágnes Horvát (Northwestern University), Giacomo Livan (Università degli Studi di Pavia), Federico Musciotto (University of Palermo), and Dashun Wang (Northwestern University).
Success is being increasingly studied as a collective phenomenon shaped by social networks of decision-makers. Here Dr. Mariani and colleagues review more than 200 papers from diverse disciplines, including sociology, marketing, computer science, and complexity science. They show how the social network perspective has deepened our understanding of success, uncovering surprising regularities and predictive signals across diverse domains, from viral content to entrepreneurs and job seekers. However, the authors also review instances where scholars found troubling biases that distort success, raising critical questions about fairness in education, careers, and policymaking. They stress that essential directions for future research include work on how cultural factors, inequality, interventions, and algorithms affect success, and argue that these efforts “could pave the way toward social systems where success better reflects quality, talent, and societal values–and where everyone has equal opportunities to flourish, regardless of their backgrounds”.
Read the full article:
Mariani, M. S., Battiston, F., Horvát, E. Á., Livan, G., Musciotto, F., & Wang, D. (2024). Collective dynamics behind success. Nature Communications, 15(1), 10701.
