Research scientists have become increasingly dependent on collaborations across laboratories and organizations to maintain their productivity. While there is a growing body of research on the co-production of knowledge in collaborative settings, little is known about how that process happens in collaborations that are established and maintained through virtual organizations. To better inform our understanding of how virtual organizations enable scientific innovation, this project focuses on how virtual organizations change and affect the actual production of scientific knowledge. Previous research has looked at the role of virtual organizations in facilitating collaborative work processes, as scientists can now share data, workload and resources across time and space. One empirical research question that has not been addressed thoroughly with the rise of virtual organizations in recent years is: how does greater access to shared data, new collaborators and information across time and space help improve scientific production of knowledge, if at all? In previous studies it has been suggested that this is a double-edged sword: just as scientists in remote labs can share more of the workload in the data collection process, they can also generate a "surveillance" type of effect in the lab in which the experiments are being conducted.
Using a multi-method study of a network of 300 molecular biologists dispersed in laboratories across the world, this multidisciplinary project explores both the added sharing and surveillance aspects to virtual organizations and how that affects the production of scientific knowledge. Specifically, we will carry out three consecutive studies that build upon one another. First, in year one, we will conduct a deep qualitative examination, through ethnographic case studies of four laboratories that are part of an international group of biologists researching molecular chaperones and stress responses. These labs have undergone significant institutional transformations in past years, shifting from an independent investigator-driven research model to a more collaborative model of doing research through ?collaboratories.? Second, in year two, we will conduct a social network analysis, using the ethnographic data to generate hypotheses that will be tested in a survey questionnaire administered to a larger sample of scientists in the molecular chaperones and stress responses group about their work processes. Finally, in year three, we will conduct a series of follow-up interviews with selected scientists in the biology labs to understand how they choose their collaborators and what configurations of collaboration improve the outcome of the assigned task. This final interview phase will inform and clarify the findings from the ethnographic and social network analyses.
Our project builds on and contributes to two bodies of literature: first, the sociology of scientific knowledge, which views this work as collaborative and constructed through scientific practice and second, organizational theory, which views knowledge as a critical competitive resource. The goal of the project is not just to see how virtual organizations increase productivity or collaboration among scientists but rather, to see if virtual organizations have changed how scientific knowledge is generated and produced from data collection to analysis. As such, this project will inform both literatures as it specifically focuses on the influence of virtual organizations on the changing nature of scientific knowledge generation and the enduring social and organizational factors that potentially limit or hinder that influence. In addition to advancing theory, this research has important practical implications. By providing a general understanding of how scientists do their work in virtual organizations, our project aims at identifying the conditions under which virtual organizations can enable and enhance scientific production and innovation. We anticipate that these findings will provide helpful guidelines for creating and maintaining productive scientific collaborations.
