I was encouraged by the finding in favor of generalists, too. I think there is a time and a place for both, but in today's corporate world I think generalists are undervalued. I really liked the way Nagle described it. If you want incremental improvements in a narrow area, use specialists, but for disruptive change, generalists are preferred.

It's been my experience in the corporate world since the 1980s that many companies desire to promote things like "eliminating silos", "empowering employees" and "sharing knowledge", but (as with the article's example of cross-disciplinary activities), bureaucratic momentum often works in favor of specialization.

I share your hope that the new decentralized platforms will lead to a better balance between specialists and generalists.

One caution that I kept coming back to while reading, however, is that it was a single study of a single technology, so additional supporting research on the topic is definitely needed.