Motivations for self-assembling into project teams

• We study individual motivations of team self-assembling for tasks in online games.
• Individuals collaborate with others with similar attributes and complementary skills.
• Individuals team up for difficult projects and do not stay together for a long time.
• Bipartite network approach integrates individual, project and network level impacts.
• Game team self-assembly provides insights on collaboration in virtual organizations.

This study investigates the self-assembly mechanisms of ad hoc project teams using a bipartite network perspective. Individuals and projects are modeled as two types of nodes and team membership as relations between them. This approach enables us to investigate factors that impact voluntary team assembly at the individual, dyadic, and team levels simultaneously. Using Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGM/p*), we study players’ combat teams in a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) as a case of self-assembled project teams. Empirical results show that individuals are motivated to join ad hoc teams to complete difficult projects but not projects with long durations. We also found that individuals tend to collaborate with specific teammates who have complementary skills, those who have similar age or skill level, and those who are affiliated with the same organizational entity.