Coordination and Success in Multidisciplinary Scientific Collaborations

نویسندگان

  • Jonathon N. Cummings
  • Sara B. Kiesler
چکیده

The research enterprise increasingly involves multidisciplinary collaboration, sometimes over geographic distance. Technological advances have made these collaborations possible, and the history of past innovations suggests these collaborations are desirable. Yet multidisciplinary projects can carry high coordination costs. This study investigated how collaborations address disciplinary differences and geographic dispersion to coordinate people and tasks to achieve success. We conducted an inductive study of 62 scientific collaborations supported by a program of the U.S. National Science Foundation in 1998 and 1999. Projects with principal investigators in more disciplines did not appear to suffer more coordination losses and reported as many positive outcomes as did projects involving fewer disciplines. By contrast, geographic dispersion, rather than multidisciplinarity, was most problematic. Dispersed projects, with principal investigators from more universities, were significantly less well coordinated and reported fewer positive outcomes than collocated projects. Coordination mechanisms that brought researchers together physically somewhat reduced the negative impact of dispersion. We discuss several implications for theory, practice, and policy.

برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

منابع مشابه

Collaborative Research Across Disciplinary and Organizational Boundaries

Scientific and engineering research increasingly involves multidisciplinary collaboration, sometimes across multiple organizations. Technological advances have made such crossboundary projects possible, yet they can carry high coordination costs. This study investigated scientific collaboration across disciplinary and university boundaries to understand the need for coordination in these collab...

متن کامل

میزان همکاری‌های علمی دانشگاه‌های علوم پزشکی تیپ یک در سطح ملی و بین‌المللی براساس مدارک نمایه‌شده در پایگاه ISI بین سال‌های 2004 تا 2008

Purpose: To investigate the scientific collaborations (for the papers indexed in ISI web of knowledge) among researchers from type-1 universities of medical sciences during 2004-2008, the present study was conducted. Methodology: Webometrics based upon the co-authorship index was used. The population under study included the Tehran, Shahid Beheshti, Iran, Shiraz, Isfahan, Mashhad, Tabriz, Jond...

متن کامل

Studying of Research Related to COVID-19 Vaccine in Iran and the World: A Thematic Analysis and Scientific Collaborations

Background and Objective: The purpose of the present study is thematic analysis and scientific collaborations of research related to Covid 19 vaccine in Iran and the world based on scientific products indexed in Web of Science (WOS). Materials and Methods: The present study is a descriptive-analytical study with a scientometric approach and using the methods of content analysis and techniques ...

متن کامل

A Systematic Approach to Setting Up Distributed Global Collaborations for Software-based Products in the Automotive Domain

There is an increasing need for organizations to collaborate with internal and external partners on a global scale for creating software-based products and services. Many aspects and risks need to be addressed when setting up such global collaborations. Different types of collaborations such as engineering collaborations or innovation-focused collaborations need to be considered. Further aspect...

متن کامل

Gender Disparities in Science? Dropout, Productivity, Collaborations and Success of Male and Female Computer Scientists

Scientific collaborations shape novel ideas and new discoveries and help scientists to advance their scientific career through publishing high impact publications and grant proposals. Recent studies however show that gender inequality is still present in many scientific practices ranging from hiring to peer review processes and grant applications. While empirical findings highlight that collabo...

متن کامل

ذخیره در منابع من


  با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید

برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

عنوان ژورنال:

دوره   شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2003