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Vol. 38, No. 18
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2-19-2008
By: Emily Caldwell In nature, and maybe the corner office, generalists can thrive The assignment of duties in a single cell, ocean life or even a small business does not have to be defined by a division of labor where every individual has a specific role, according to Ohio State biologists.
The scientists have designed a mathematical model to describe circumstances that would allow generalists to endure in what is typically expected to be a specialist-only society.
“What this modeling showed me is that there are conditions under which it actually helps to have some generalists, especially for fairly small groups, some individuals that you might think of as Jacks- or Jills-of-all-trades or multitaskers,” said Tom Waite, associate professor of evolution, ecology and organismal biology at Ohio State and co-author of the study.
“You might actually have to pay them more and they might often do the wrong task, but if you don’t have them, this whole notion of specialization leading to greater economic productivity might actually be wrong.”
Existing biological theories about the division of labor suggest that individual members of a group gravitate to specialization to perform specific tasks toward a common goal.
According to this new model, which tweaks two assumptions of the existing theory, there is a place in small groups for generalists to exist and possibly even to thrive.
Because the model they designed pertains to biological systems with just a few individuals, the researchers caution against reading too much into its potential application to humans. But in a socially and economically complex world, they admit they find comfort in the model’s implications about humankind nonetheless.
The research appears online in the Journal of Theoretical Biology.
Anthony D’Orazio, a graduate student and lead author of the study, initiated the development of a new model with the hopes of determining what he can expect in his study of sea anemones. He was surprised to find that even using a simple model, he is unable to clarify why these marine animals behave as they do.
The species D’Orazio studies are genetically identical. But they exhibit two distinct types of roles: Warriors or reproducers. Warriors tend to gather on the outer edges of their groups to protect the masses, while others focus on reproducing.
D’Orazio hoped to create a model that would help determine the optimal allocation of these two types of specialists to ensure the group’s survival. And yet, even these brainless creatures confounded his plan.
“Sea anemones are simple, and yet we see complex behavior with them. If you put them in a lab, sometimes they attack, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they attack and run away. Sometimes they do nothing but attack. Sometimes they get attacked and don’t defend themselves.
“For something that you would think would be so simple, it’s much more complex. Behavior can’t be predicted even in this one group,” he said.
And that’s why it’s attractive to apply this concept of incomplete division of labor to humans, Waite said. Humans are, after all, animals that might be driven mainly by biological urges. But culture, rules, laws, race, class and gender make it hard to know for sure.
D’Orazio and Waite use a small cookie business to illustrate their findings.
If three individuals work in a group and all are specialists, two members make cookies and the other sells cookies. If the seller is out sick, the whole operation must shut down under previous assumptions about division of labor.
The business could hire a fourth person who can bake and sell, but that’s an expensive option. Another possibility is sticking with three employees but training one of them to do two tasks.
“So now you have a generalist,” Waite said. “You’ve lost something in terms of time and profit initially because you have to invest in training this person. You might even train all three people. But if you have even just one generalist, then you’re safeguarded against the possibility that the specialists don’t complement each other.”
For biological purposes, the new model will set a standard for future work, D’Orazio said. “We were trying to clarify confusion in the literature. We’re not saying any system should strive for incomplete division of labor, but that it exists and this is an example of it.”
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