Trust, conflict and performance in scientific collaborations

Social Studies of Science

Volumn 31, Issue 5, 2001, Pages 681-730

  Shrum, Wesley ^a   Chompalov, Ivan ^b   Genuth, Joel ^c  

^a LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b EDINBORO UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA   (United States)

^c NONE   (United States)

Author keywords

Bureaucracy; Effectiveness; Organization; Outcomes; Physics; Technology

Indexed keywords

EID: 0035646696     PISSN: 03063127     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030631201031005002     Document Type: Article

References (92)

1. John Krige, 'Constructing Credibility at/of CERN: The Boson Bonanza' (paper delivered to the History of Science Society, Kansas City, MO, 21-25 October 1998).
2. See, for example, Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1994), esp. Chapter 1, 'The Great Civility: Trust, Truth, and Moral Order', 3-41.
3. Omission is constitutive of 'knowing', in the sense used here. The moral economy of trust, which has been treated by Shapin and others, is a starting point for the argument developed in this paper.
4. Data and measurement issues have been sequestered in the Appendix on Methods (above: pp. 719-723).
5. Ingrid Schild (of Linköping University) makes a similar argument in 'International Collaboration as Work in Polar Research' (unpublished paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science [4S], Tucson, AZ, 26 October 1997).
6. Shapin, op. cit. note 2, esp. 34-36.
7. Successful collaborations are said to require high interpersonal trust, 'close and respectful' relationships involving scientists, engineers, project managers, and administrators: Mark Dodgson, 'Learning, Trust, and Technological Collaborations', Human Relations, Vol. 46, No. 1 (January 1993), 77-94. Trust enhances organizational effectiveness and long-lasting relationships between partners through technical, epistemic, social, administrative and legal bonds: Hakan Hakansson and Jan Johanson, 'Formal and Informal Cooperation Strategies in International Industrial Networks', in Farok Contractor and Peter Lorange (eds), Cooperative Strategies in International Business (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1988).
8. Successful collaborations are said to require high interpersonal trust, 'close and respectful' relationships involving scientists, engineers, project managers, and administrators: Mark Dodgson, 'Learning, Trust, and Technological Collaborations', Human Relations, Vol. 46, No. 1 (January 1993), 77-94. Trust enhances organizational effectiveness and long-lasting relationships between partners through technical, epistemic, social, administrative and legal bonds: Hakan Hakansson and Jan Johanson, 'Formal and Informal Cooperation Strategies in International Industrial Networks', in Farok Contractor and Peter Lorange (eds), Cooperative Strategies in International Business (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1988).
9. Roderick Kramer and Tom Tyler (eds), Trust in Organizations (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1995); Shapin, op. cit. note 2, passim.
10. Ranjay Gulati, 'Does Familiarity Breed Trust? The Implications of Repeated Ties for Contractual Choice in Alliances', Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 38, No. 1 (February 1995), 85-112; Peter Smith Ring and Andrew H. Van de Ven, 'Developmental Processes of Cooperative Interorganizational Relationships', Academy of Management Review, Vol. 19, No. 1 (1994), 90-118.
11. Ranjay Gulati, 'Does Familiarity Breed Trust? The Implications of Repeated Ties for Contractual Choice in Alliances', Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 38, No. 1 (February 1995), 85-112; Peter Smith Ring and Andrew H. Van de Ven, 'Developmental Processes of Cooperative Interorganizational Relationships', Academy of Management Review, Vol. 19, No. 1 (1994), 90-118.
12. Catherine Alter and Jerald Hage, Organizations Working Together: Coordination in Interorganizational Networks (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993).
13. Larry D. Browning, Janice M. Beyer and Judy C. Shetler, 'Building Cooperation in a Competitive Industry: Sematech and the Semiconductor Industry', Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 38, No. 1 (February 1995), 113-51.
14. Karin Knorr-Cetina, Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 130-35; see also Karin Knorr-Cetina, 'How Superorganisms Change: Consensus Formation and the Social Ontology of High-Energy Physics Experiments', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 25, No. 1 (February 1995), 119-149.
15. Karin Knorr-Cetina, Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 130-35; see also Karin Knorr-Cetina, 'How Superorganisms Change: Consensus Formation and the Social Ontology of High-Energy Physics Experiments', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 25, No. 1 (February 1995), 119-149.
16. Knorr-Cetina (1999), op. cit. note 12, 131.
17. Classic statements in the sociological literature include those by Georg Simmel and Lewis Coser: see Kurt Wolff (ed.), The Sociology of Georg Simmel (New York: Free Press, 1950); Lewis Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict (New York: Free Press, 1956). Examples in the literature on interorganizational relations include Henry Assael, 'Constructive Role of Interorganizational Conflict', Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 4 (December 1969), 573-82; Thomas DiStefano, 'Interorganizational Conflict: A Review of an Emerging Field', Human Relations, Vol. 37, No. 5 (May 1984), 351-66; Catherine Alter, 'An Exploratory Study of Conflict and Coordination in Interorganizational Service Delivery Systems', Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 33, No. 3 (September 1990), 478-502.
18. Classic statements in the sociological literature include those by Georg Simmel and Lewis Coser: see Kurt Wolff (ed.), The Sociology of Georg Simmel (New York: Free Press, 1950); Lewis Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict (New York: Free Press, 1956). Examples in the literature on interorganizational relations include Henry Assael, 'Constructive Role of Interorganizational Conflict', Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 4 (December 1969), 573-82; Thomas DiStefano, 'Interorganizational Conflict: A Review of an Emerging Field', Human Relations, Vol. 37, No. 5 (May 1984), 351-66; Catherine Alter, 'An Exploratory Study of Conflict and Coordination in Interorganizational Service Delivery Systems', Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 33, No. 3 (September 1990), 478-502.
19. Classic statements in the sociological literature include those by Georg Simmel and Lewis Coser: see Kurt Wolff (ed.), The Sociology of Georg Simmel (New York: Free Press, 1950); Lewis Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict (New York: Free Press, 1956). Examples in the literature on interorganizational relations include Henry Assael, 'Constructive Role of Interorganizational Conflict', Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 4 (December 1969), 573-82; Thomas DiStefano, 'Interorganizational Conflict: A Review of an Emerging Field', Human Relations, Vol. 37, No. 5 (May 1984), 351-66; Catherine Alter, 'An Exploratory Study of Conflict and Coordination in Interorganizational Service Delivery Systems', Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 33, No. 3 (September 1990), 478-502.
20. Classic statements in the sociological literature include those by Georg Simmel and Lewis Coser: see Kurt Wolff (ed.), The Sociology of Georg Simmel (New York: Free Press, 1950); Lewis Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict (New York: Free Press, 1956). Examples in the literature on interorganizational relations include Henry Assael, 'Constructive Role of Interorganizational Conflict', Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 4 (December 1969), 573-82; Thomas DiStefano, 'Interorganizational Conflict: A Review of an Emerging Field', Human Relations, Vol. 37, No. 5 (May 1984), 351-66; Catherine Alter, 'An Exploratory Study of Conflict and Coordination in Interorganizational Service Delivery Systems', Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 33, No. 3 (September 1990), 478-502.
21. Classic statements in the sociological literature include those by Georg Simmel and Lewis Coser: see Kurt Wolff (ed.), The Sociology of Georg Simmel (New York: Free Press, 1950); Lewis Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict (New York: Free Press, 1956). Examples in the literature on interorganizational relations include Henry Assael, 'Constructive Role of Interorganizational Conflict', Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 4 (December 1969), 573-82; Thomas DiStefano, 'Interorganizational Conflict: A Review of an Emerging Field', Human Relations, Vol. 37, No. 5 (May 1984), 351-66; Catherine Alter, 'An Exploratory Study of Conflict and Coordination in Interorganizational Service Delivery Systems', Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 33, No. 3 (September 1990), 478-502.
22. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1962; rev. 2nd edn, 1970); Randall Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1998).
23. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1962; rev. 2nd edn, 1970); Randall Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1998).
24. This point is also standard in organizational theory: see, for example, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Gerald Salancik, The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective (New York: Harper & Row, 1978).
25. As in organizational studies, where a plethora of concepts has emerged (effectiveness, efficiency, impact, outcomes), science and technology studies employ the participant notions of 'progress', 'advance' and 'development', and associated terms such as 'discovery', 'innovation' and 'results', to express a positive evaluation of some research activity or event.
26. Donald Pelz and Frank Andrews, Scientists in Organizations: Productive Climates of Research and Development (New York: John Wiley, 1966); John Irvine and Ben Martin, Foresight in Science (London: Frances Pinter, 1984). Productivity measures, to be applicable to collaborations, require some means for taking into account the idiosyncrasies of achieving results in different specialties. Efficiency measures require some means for taking into account the differences between collaborations that undertake significant instrumentation research and development, and those that take advantage of extant instrumentation.
27. Donald Pelz and Frank Andrews, Scientists in Organizations: Productive Climates of Research and Development (New York: John Wiley, 1966); John Irvine and Ben Martin, Foresight in Science (London: Frances Pinter, 1984). Productivity measures, to be applicable to collaborations, require some means for taking into account the idiosyncrasies of achieving results in different specialties. Efficiency measures require some means for taking into account the differences between collaborations that undertake significant instrumentation research and development, and those that take advantage of extant instrumentation.
28. It would be less than truthful to suggest that we did not expect to find this relationship.
29. Our retrospective interviews do not allow us to draw firm conclusions about this.
30. For more than 20 years now, trust has featured prominently in theories of social organization. Among the better known treatments are Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power: Two Works (Chichester, Sussex: John Wiley, 1979); Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989); Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995); and Adam Seligman, The Problem of Trust (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997). Many distinctions have been drawn with respect to the general notion of trust. Some authors, like Seligman, rely principally on the distinction between trust and confidence. In the business and management literature, some distinguish between reliability, predictability and fairness as components of trust: Akbar Zaheer, Bill McEvily and Vincenzo Perrone, 'Does Trust Matter? Exploring the Effects of Interorganizational and Interpersonal Trust on Performance', Organization Science, Vol. 9, No. 2 (March/April 1998), 141-59. Others distinguish contractual trust (adherence to agreements), competence trust (competent rôle performance), and goodwill trust (commitment not to take unfair advantage): Musterd Sako, Prices, Quality, and Trust: How Japanese and British Companies Manage Buyer-Supplier Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
31. For more than 20 years now, trust has featured prominently in theories of social organization. Among the better known treatments are Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power: Two Works (Chichester, Sussex: John Wiley, 1979); Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989); Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995); and Adam Seligman, The Problem of Trust (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997). Many distinctions have been drawn with respect to the general notion of trust. Some authors, like Seligman, rely principally on the distinction between trust and confidence. In the business and management literature, some distinguish between reliability, predictability and fairness as components of trust: Akbar Zaheer, Bill McEvily and Vincenzo Perrone, 'Does Trust Matter? Exploring the Effects of Interorganizational and Interpersonal Trust on Performance', Organization Science, Vol. 9, No. 2 (March/April 1998), 141-59. Others distinguish contractual trust (adherence to agreements), competence trust (competent rôle performance), and goodwill trust (commitment not to take unfair advantage): Musterd Sako, Prices, Quality, and Trust: How Japanese and British Companies Manage Buyer-Supplier Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
32. For more than 20 years now, trust has featured prominently in theories of social organization. Among the better known treatments are Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power: Two Works (Chichester, Sussex: John Wiley, 1979); Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989); Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995); and Adam Seligman, The Problem of Trust (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997). Many distinctions have been drawn with respect to the general notion of trust. Some authors, like Seligman, rely principally on the distinction between trust and confidence. In the business and management literature, some distinguish between reliability, predictability and fairness as components of trust: Akbar Zaheer, Bill McEvily and Vincenzo Perrone, 'Does Trust Matter? Exploring the Effects of Interorganizational and Interpersonal Trust on Performance', Organization Science, Vol. 9, No. 2 (March/April 1998), 141-59. Others distinguish contractual trust (adherence to agreements), competence trust (competent rôle performance), and goodwill trust (commitment not to take unfair advantage): Musterd Sako, Prices, Quality, and Trust: How Japanese and British Companies Manage Buyer-Supplier Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
33. For more than 20 years now, trust has featured prominently in theories of social organization. Among the better known treatments are Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power: Two Works (Chichester, Sussex: John Wiley, 1979); Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989); Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995); and Adam Seligman, The Problem of Trust (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997). Many distinctions have been drawn with respect to the general notion of trust. Some authors, like Seligman, rely principally on the distinction between trust and confidence. In the business and management literature, some distinguish between reliability, predictability and fairness as components of trust: Akbar Zaheer, Bill McEvily and Vincenzo Perrone, 'Does Trust Matter? Exploring the Effects of Interorganizational and Interpersonal Trust on Performance', Organization Science, Vol. 9, No. 2 (March/April 1998), 141-59. Others distinguish contractual trust (adherence to agreements), competence trust (competent rôle performance), and goodwill trust (commitment not to take unfair advantage): Musterd Sako, Prices, Quality, and Trust: How Japanese and British Companies Manage Buyer-Supplier Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
34. For more than 20 years now, trust has featured prominently in theories of social organization. Among the better known treatments are Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power: Two Works (Chichester, Sussex: John Wiley, 1979); Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989); Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995); and Adam Seligman, The Problem of Trust (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997). Many distinctions have been drawn with respect to the general notion of trust. Some authors, like Seligman, rely principally on the distinction between trust and confidence. In the business and management literature, some distinguish between reliability, predictability and fairness as components of trust: Akbar Zaheer, Bill McEvily and Vincenzo Perrone, 'Does Trust Matter? Exploring the Effects of Interorganizational and Interpersonal Trust on Performance', Organization Science, Vol. 9, No. 2 (March/April 1998), 141-59. Others distinguish contractual trust (adherence to agreements), competence trust (competent rôle performance), and goodwill trust (commitment not to take unfair advantage): Musterd Sako, Prices, Quality, and Trust: How Japanese and British Companies Manage Buyer-Supplier Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
35. For more than 20 years now, trust has featured prominently in theories of social organization. Among the better known treatments are Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power: Two Works (Chichester, Sussex: John Wiley, 1979); Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989); Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995); and Adam Seligman, The Problem of Trust (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997). Many distinctions have been drawn with respect to the general notion of trust. Some authors, like Seligman, rely principally on the distinction between trust and confidence. In the business and management literature, some distinguish between reliability, predictability and fairness as components of trust: Akbar Zaheer, Bill McEvily and Vincenzo Perrone, 'Does Trust Matter? Exploring the Effects of Interorganizational and Interpersonal Trust on Performance', Organization Science, Vol. 9, No. 2 (March/April 1998), 141-59. Others distinguish contractual trust (adherence to agreements), competence trust (competent rôle performance), and goodwill trust (commitment not to take unfair advantage): Musterd Sako, Prices, Quality, and Trust: How Japanese and British Companies Manage Buyer-Supplier Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
36. Neil Smelser illustrates this 'sociological level' of trust with fiduciary rôles, in which actors are legally mandated to act in terms of trust, irrespective of their psychological orientation towards each other: Neil Smelser, Problematics of Sociology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).
37. Interpersonal and collective trust are not necessarily separate phenomena. Where, for instance, only a single boundary relationship exists, say, between leaders (and no others) of teams housed in different organizations, collective trust or distrust is an analytic distinction. Where multiple dyadic relationships exist between project teams it is possible to have high collective trust even though distrust characterizes certain dyads, as well as the reverse situation, where high interpersonal trust does not correspond to high collective trust.
38. Projects with moderate levels of trust in other researchers were viewed as slightly more successful than projects with higher levels. No association with any of our performance measures was significant at the 0.10 level.
39. Ironically, this collaboration had the development of electronic media as one of its major objectives.
40. The same informant explicitly identified three strategies employed at various points in the project to resolve the conflict: direct, indirect, and coercive: [There was] a kind of person-to-person strategy, so where... the X people have tried to identify someone who could quote 'get along with' unquote the personnel at Y and try to understand them and sort of deal with them one-on-one either face-to-face or over the phone. Then when that hasn't worked, we have tried to get influential intermediaries to try to identify to Y why it's in their best interest to go along with something. And then when that hasn't worked, we have simply fired shots across their bow by threatening not to renew their subcontract.
41. Note that the lowest category of trust towards project management has only two cases, while the lowest category of trust in other researchers has a single case. Excluding these categories does not change the significance of the results.
42. As Harry Collins has pointed out, given the absence of a relationship between trust and performance, Figure 1 is consistent with the notion that trusting collaborations are still 'better' in the sense that collaborators prefer them.
43. Zaheer, McEvily & Perrone, op. cit. note 21.
44. The standard sociological wisdom, if such can be said to exist, is that conflict is positively associated with trust, but the reason is that multiple groups are involved. External conflict promotes internal solidarity.
45. We initially sought to examine a fourth axis of conflict, between junior and senior members of collaborations. However, since our informants were drawn from the senior members, we were unable to address this issue in a reliable way.
46. Larger projects are also more formally organized, which may imply more established procedures for conflict resolution.
47. The collaboration irradiated sodium in the reactor to obtain its intense source of positrons. It was convenient for the collaboration to set up the beamline within the reactor facility, but moving outside the facility became worth the bother when the Department of Energy instituted stricter security over researchers working within the reactor.
48. Danish and Swiss scientists also participated in GISP-1. Other Europeans worked extensively on an Antarctic ice core extracted by the Soviet Union.
49. Note that hierarchy as a means of scientific organization is not inevitable simply because of the size of the collaborations involved. In many cases, there is either no scientific leader or a scientific leader whose discretionary power covers only administrative matters that are not scientifically meaningful. In many instances, there is no external board to approve collaboration plans.
50. Consistent with this claim is a related finding (not shown) that conflict between scientists and engineers is highest where there were frequent communications.
51. One participant was sufficiently relieved by the change that he wished the engineers' administrative authority had extended into software for data analysis, but the other physicists drew the line there: There's a saying, 'how much leadership can physicists tolerate?' People tend to be a bit too individualistic. They do not like to submit themselves to a common structure. . .[ we] needed a czar of data analysis and we really didn't have that. Gradually it got straightened out, because everybody wants the software to work, so you just keep patching it up. We didn't do nearly as good a job as we could have.
52. Harry Collins' discussion of a 'working' gravity-wave detector is the classic sociological delineation of the central importance of disputes over the interpretation of timetables and specifications: H.M. Collins, 'The Seven Sexes: A Study in the Sociology of a Phenomenon, or the Replication of Experiments in Physics', Sociology, Vol. 9, No. 2 (May 1975), 205-24.
53. For a detailed analysis of this kind of tension, see David Edge, 'Mosaic Array Cameras in Infrared Astronomy', in Robert Bud and Susan E. Cozzens (eds), Invisible Connections: Instruments, Institutions, and Science (Bellingham, WA: SPIE Optical Engineering Press, 1992), 130-67.
54. A variety of methods have been developed to analyse performance in science, but no consensus exists on measures. For a review of methods based on counts, see John Irvine and Ben Martin, 'Basic Research in the East and West: A Comparison of the Scientific Performance of High-Energy Physics Accelerators', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 15, No. 2 (May 1985), 293-341. For one recent, promising method see Barry Bozeman, J. Dietz and M. Gaughan, 'Scientific and Technical Human Capital: An Alternative Model for Research Evaluation', International Journal of Technology Management (forthcoming).
55. A variety of methods have been developed to analyse performance in science, but no consensus exists on measures. For a review of methods based on counts, see John Irvine and Ben Martin, 'Basic Research in the East and West: A Comparison of the Scientific Performance of High-Energy Physics Accelerators', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 15, No. 2 (May 1985), 293-341. For one recent, promising method see Barry Bozeman, J. Dietz and M. Gaughan, 'Scientific and Technical Human Capital: An Alternative Model for Research Evaluation', International Journal of Technology Management (forthcoming).
56. A recent example of this ambiguity is the loss of the Mars Orbiter in September 1999, and the subsequent failure of NASA's Mars Polar Lander in early December. The Mars Climate Orbiter descended too rapidly and too far into the Martian atmosphere. According to one investigation, the wrong trajectory came as a result of a mathematical mismatch between the data that the Orbiter was sending to earth (in the metric system) and NASA's reply from the ground (in the non-metric English system). Both Lockheed Martin, which manufactured the spacecraft, and JPL, which was in charge of the whole mission, admitted that negligence led to the loss of the Orbiter: The Times (London, 12 November 1999). The mishap with the Mars Polar Lander is more difficult to explain, although it is generally agreed that something disastrous took place during the descent. What merits attention in this case are not only the causes of these two particular accidents, but how 'success' or 'failure' is defined. Thus, the broader argument focused on the feasibility of NASA's new strategy, adopted in 1993, of 'faster, cheaper, better'. One could argue, for example, that the success of Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor, in conjunction with the failure of the Climate Orbiter and the Polar Lander, was a reasonable return for $836 million, especially in view of the total loss associated with earlier 'grand missions' failures (for example, the Mars Observer).
57. Yehouda Shenhav, Wesley Shrum and Sigal Alon, '"Goodness" Concepts in the Study of Organizations: A Longitudinal Survey of Four Leading Journals', Organization Studies, Vol. 15, No. 5 (1994), 753-76.
58. Wesley Shrum, Fringe and Fortune: The Role of Critics in High and Popular Art (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 10-11.
59. To illustrate, the results of FNAL 715 collaboration (at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory) may be written off as one more confirmation of the 'standard model' for the structure of matter. Had results contradicted the standard model, they would be touted as the point of departure for exploring a previously unrecognized facet of sub-nuclear particles. Even so, such judgements say nothing about the quality of education FNAL 715 provided its graduate students, or the costs and benefits of close working relations between Soviet and American physicists in the 1980s.
60. Because many are academics and most are scientists, they are not as comfortable dealing with concepts, such as 'effectiveness', that seem managerial in character.
61. Our attempt to operationalize concepts through multiple interviews is described in the Appendix on Methods. It is worth emphasizing that this generates measures that are, in essence, collective perceptions.
62. For collaborations that build novel instrumentation advancing the state-of-the-art, timeliness and cost-effectiveness may seem trivial since, in the end, participants are able to collect novel data. 'Completion', moreover, can be flexibly defined: I consider it highly likely that we will be largely complete by the declared completion date. I consider it even more likely that by fiat there will be a declaration of completion on that date. I feel 100% confident that the project will not be truly complete on that date.
63. We emphasize that both measures refer back to the judgement talk of collaborators themselves. When we speak of external success, the reference is still to success as described by our key informants.
64. Since our measures were based on a selection of informants representing the leadership, it is unsurprising that most informants perceived their projects as very successful. After all, they had invested years of their professional careers, and were sometimes responsible for millions of dollars in research monies. More noteworthy, perhaps, is that many informants, when comparing their collaboration to others they had experienced, qualified its successes in various ways. The most damning qualification is to focus on the performance of the collaboration 'in context', that is, its success in view of the many constraints. Well, given the limitations of funding and the slowness and development of machinery, I think everybody would agree it's been very highly successful. Of course, any collaboration may be considered successful, 'all things taken into consideration'.
65. One of the advantages of the methodology employed here is the reduced likelihood of inferring causality from correlation. For example, after examining collaborations that utilized both external advisory committees and experienced delays in completion, it seemed clear that the relationship between them was an instance of a meaningful but noncausal relationship.
66. The central issue here is often that there must be a coalition of support (including both funding bodies and collaborating scientists) when a project begins to exceed its time frame. An external committee can marshal that support. In the private sector, the situation is parallel to continuous management support for a project. It's just whether or not the project is seen as adding value to [private firm]. A lot of that goes with the management structure. You had management in place who valued this thing. . . they'd go to their graves fighting for continued funding of this project. Well, when the people up there decide this is out of line, the only way to get rid of [project] is to move those managers. When they went away, the people who were protecting the programme disappeared. That was about it for the programme.
67. In fairness, the European project re-used the drill for GISP-1, which had been built by a group spearheaded by the Danish, to drill all the way through the glacier to bedrock in order to retrieve the oldest samples of ice.
68. Pfeffer & Salancik, op. cit. note 16, esp. Chapters 3 & 5.
69. For example, no matter how clever the experimental design, if the accelerator did not produce new phenomena for detection, then no discoveries were possible. The converse was also true. Participants considered a collaboration successful because it had the good fortune of taking data at a fertile accelerator, even if the design of the detector was not especially clever. However, such cases were rare in our sample.
70. The Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC) was an entrepreneurial, instrument-building collaboration in astronomy that was not 'highly successful', because some interviewees stressed that slippage in its schedule led not just to a delay in observatory operations, but to poorer operations than anticipated: I guess quite honestly I would have to say not very successful. Because it look too long; it's still not working absolutely satisfactorily. I think it will eventually be a nice facility, but it's been operating now for a number of years and it's still got serious troubles.
71. The inverse relationship between size and conflict seems contrary to Schild's view that the size and duration of polar-research collaborations increase the potential for conflict (op. cit. note 5). However, it may be precisely because of this potential that larger collaborations develop the means to control conflict.
72. Related support for this conclusion is found in Zaheer, McEvily & Perrone's work on supplier relationships in the electrical equipment manufacturing industry (op. cit. note 21). They show that complex trust is related to conflict while inter-personal trust is not related to conflict, and has no effect on performance. Further, in a study of Celltech's relationship with the Medical Research Council, Dodgson (op. cit. note 7 ) shows that difficulties with particular 'opinionated' individuals, labour turnover, and even the termination of an important project manager, did not ultimately damage the interorganizational trust between the two entities.
73. Related support for this conclusion is found in Zaheer, McEvily & Perrone's work on supplier relationships in the electrical equipment manufacturing industry (op. cit. note 21). They show that complex trust is related to conflict while inter-personal trust is not related to conflict, and has no effect on performance. Further, in a study of Celltech's relationship with the Medical Research Council, Dodgson (op. cit. note 7 ) shows that difficulties with particular 'opinionated' individuals, labour turnover, and even the termination of an important project manager, did not ultimately damage the interorganizational trust between the two entities.
74. Recall the negative relationship between trust and bureaucracy, and the positive relationship between conflict and bureaucracy in collaborations. Organizations that initiate a collaboration trusting each other are much more likely to be able to form a collaboration with low levels of bureaucracy, while collaborations that can build trust quickly among participating organizations with no prior history of trust are more likely to be able to avoid high levels of bureaucracy.
75. Knorr Cetina (1999), op. cit. note 12, Chapter 7.
76. Peter Galison, Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), 19-31.
77. Ibid., 22.
78. H.M. Collins, 'The TEA Set: Tacit Knowledge and Scientific Networks', Science Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2 (April 1974), 165-86; Brian Wynne, 'Sheep Farming after Chernobyl: A Case Study in Communicating Scientific Information', Environment, Vol. 31, No. 2 (1989), 10-15, 33-39.
79. H.M. Collins, 'The TEA Set: Tacit Knowledge and Scientific Networks', Science Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2 (April 1974), 165-86; Brian Wynne, 'Sheep Farming after Chernobyl: A Case Study in Communicating Scientific Information', Environment, Vol. 31, No. 2 (1989), 10-15, 33-39.
80. Jonathan Cole and Stephen Cole, Social Stratification in Science (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1973), 1-10; Nicholas Mullins, 'The Development of a Scientific Specialty: The Phage Group and the Origins of Molecular Biology', Minerva, Vol.10 (1972), 51-82.
81. Jonathan Cole and Stephen Cole, Social Stratification in Science (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1973), 1-10; Nicholas Mullins, 'The Development of a Scientific Specialty: The Phage Group and the Origins of Molecular Biology', Minerva, Vol.10 (1972), 51-82.
82. For a related but distinct approach, see H.M. Collins, 'The Meaning of Data: Open and Closed Evidential Cultures in the Search for Gravitational Waves', American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 104 (1998), 293-338.
83. Methodological details are available in a series of reports available from the American Institute of Physics (AIP), Center for the History of Physics, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3843, USA. See: AIP Study of Multi-Institutional Collaborations: Phase I: High-Energy Physics (New York: American Institute of Physics, 1992); Report No. 1: Summary of Project Activities and Findings (Joan Warnow-Blewett and Spencer Weart); Report No. 4: Historical Findings on Collaborations in High-Energy Physics (Joel Genuth, Peter Galison, John Krige, Frederik Nebeker and Lynn Maloney): AIP Study of Multi-Institutional Collaborations: Phase II: Space Science and Geophysics (College Park, MD: American Institute of Physics, 1995); Report No. 1: Summary of Project Activities and Findings (Joan Warnow-Blewett, Anthony Capitos, Joel Genuth and Spencer Weart).
84. Methodological details are available in a series of reports available from the American Institute of Physics (AIP), Center for the History of Physics, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3843, USA. See: AIP Study of Multi-Institutional Collaborations: Phase I: High-Energy Physics (New York: American Institute of Physics, 1992); Report No. 1: Summary of Project Activities and Findings (Joan Warnow-Blewett and Spencer Weart); Report No. 4: Historical Findings on Collaborations in High-Energy Physics (Joel Genuth, Peter Galison, John Krige, Frederik Nebeker and Lynn Maloney): AIP Study of Multi-Institutional Collaborations: Phase II: Space Science and Geophysics (College Park, MD: American Institute of Physics, 1995); Report No. 1: Summary of Project Activities and Findings (Joan Warnow-Blewett, Anthony Capitos, Joel Genuth and Spencer Weart).
85. Methodological details are available in a series of reports available from the American Institute of Physics (AIP), Center for the History of Physics, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3843, USA. See: AIP Study of Multi-Institutional Collaborations: Phase I: High-Energy Physics (New York: American Institute of Physics, 1992); Report No. 1: Summary of Project Activities and Findings (Joan Warnow-Blewett and Spencer Weart); Report No. 4: Historical Findings on Collaborations in High-Energy Physics (Joel Genuth, Peter Galison, John Krige, Frederik Nebeker and Lynn Maloney): AIP Study of Multi-Institutional Collaborations: Phase II: Space Science and Geophysics (College Park, MD: American Institute of Physics, 1995); Report No. 1: Summary of Project Activities and Findings (Joan Warnow-Blewett, Anthony Capitos, Joel Genuth and Spencer Weart).
86. Methodological details are available in a series of reports available from the American Institute of Physics (AIP), Center for the History of Physics, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3843, USA. See: AIP Study of Multi-Institutional Collaborations: Phase I: High-Energy Physics (New York: American Institute of Physics, 1992); Report No. 1: Summary of Project Activities and Findings (Joan Warnow-Blewett and Spencer Weart); Report No. 4: Historical Findings on Collaborations in High-Energy Physics (Joel Genuth, Peter Galison, John Krige, Frederik Nebeker and Lynn Maloney): AIP Study of Multi-Institutional Collaborations: Phase II: Space Science and Geophysics (College Park, MD: American Institute of Physics, 1995); Report No. 1: Summary of Project Activities and Findings (Joan Warnow-Blewett, Anthony Capitos, Joel Genuth and Spencer Weart).
87. Methodological details are available in a series of reports available from the American Institute of Physics (AIP), Center for the History of Physics, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3843, USA. See: AIP Study of Multi-Institutional Collaborations: Phase I: High-Energy Physics (New York: American Institute of Physics, 1992); Report No. 1: Summary of Project Activities and Findings (Joan Warnow-Blewett and Spencer Weart); Report No. 4: Historical Findings on Collaborations in High-Energy Physics (Joel Genuth, Peter Galison, John Krige, Frederik Nebeker and Lynn Maloney): AIP Study of Multi-Institutional Collaborations: Phase II: Space Science and Geophysics (College Park, MD: American Institute of Physics, 1995); Report No. 1: Summary of Project Activities and Findings (Joan Warnow-Blewett, Anthony Capitos, Joel Genuth and Spencer Weart).
88. Only 16 of the collaborations from the first phase were employed in the present analysis. We excluded a collaboration that conducted a non-accelerator experiment in an abandoned salt mine, one that used a rare emulsion detection technique, and one for which we were unable to obtain a sufficient number of interviews.
89. Two hundred interviews were conducted with scientists, plus additional interviews with policy-makers and funding programme officers.
90. These consisted initially of 11 broad groups of factors, with 90 subcategories. The collaborations in the first two phases of the project were also used for the analysis presented here. Although the original interviews were relatively unstructured, this was possible since they were used as the basis for the identification of dimensions in the third phase. Where there were gaps in the data, we used telephone and email to clarify issues with our original informants.
91. Our goal was to interview at least three participants in each project. Personal interviews were conducted with 78 researchers. The number of interviews ranged between two and six per collaborative project, with a mean of slightly over three.
92. Joel Genuth, Ivan Chompalov and Wesley Shrum, 'How Experiments Begin: The Formation of Scientific Collaborations', Minerva, Vol. 38 (2001), 311-48.