Social structure as a form of collective intelligence: a new framework

Brooker, van Leeuwen, and Clay argue that social structure is not merely the context for collective intelligence but an active component of it—the network topology itself processes information and shapes outcomes. This framework connects biological research on animal societies with organizational theory, suggesting that the way relationships are patterned within groups determines their cognitive capabilities as much as the intelligence of individual members. For product leaders, this offers a new lens on team design: rather than focusing solely on hiring smart people or creating good processes, the structure of connections between people becomes a design variable for collective problem-solving. The work builds on network theory but goes further by treating structure as cognition rather than just substrate. It provides theoretical grounding for why some teams consistently outperform others despite similar individual capabilities—the intelligence is literally in the network.