Abstract
By definition, e-Research is one of the largest and most diverse laboratories pursuing interdisciplinary knowledge integration. Using a qualitative analysis of a prototypical e-Research collaboration, this chapter presents a theoretical model of knowledge integration across professional cultures. This model, supported by the theory of epistemic cultures, highlights three types of “gaps”: a collaborative gap results from cultural differences among innovators and entrepreneurial users; an entrepreneurial gap stemming from cognitive discrepancies between entrepreneurial users and mainstream adopters; and a systemic gap that is rooted in paradigmatic differences across fields of practice. Accommodating these gaps are three “bridges”, individuals, organizations and technologies that connect the otherwise separate cultures and facilitate the transfer of knowledge. Implications of gaps and bridges to e-Research and recommendations to technology development are suggested.
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Anderson, P., & Tushman, M. L. (1990). Technological discontinuities and dominant designs: A cyclical model of technological change. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35, 604–633.
Atkins, D. E., Droegemeier, K. K., Feldman, S. I., Garcia-Molina, H., Klein, M. L., Messerschmitt, D. G., Messina, P., et al. (2003). Revolutionizing science and engineering through cyber-infrastructure. Report of the National Science Foundation blue-ribbon advisory panel on cyberinfrastructure, National Science Foundation.
Barjak, F., Lane, L., Kertcher, Z., Poschen, M., Procter, R., & Robinson, S. (2009). Case studies of e-infrastructure adoption. Social Science Computer Review, 27, 583–600.
Berman, F. D., Brady, H. E., & National Science Foundation. (2005). Final report NSF SBE-CISE workshop on cyberinfrastructure and the social sciences. National Science Foundation.
Bowker, G. C., & Star, S. L. (1999). Sorting things out: Classification and its consequences. Cambridge, MA: MIT.
Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (2001). Knowledge and organization: A social-practice perspective. Organization Science, 12, 198–213.
Callon, M. (1986). Some elements of a sociology of translation. In J. Law (Ed.), Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St. Brieuc Bay (pp. 196–233). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Carlile, P. R. (2004). Transferring, translating, and transforming: An integrative framework for managing knowledge across boundaries. Organization Science, 15, 555–568.
Cummings, J. N., & Kiesler, S. (2005). Collaborative research across disciplinary and organizational boundaries. Social Studies of Science, 35, 703–722.
DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. A reader on strategizing, 48, 147–160.
DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1991). The new institutionalism in organizational analysis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Dosi, G. (1982). Technological paradigms and technological trajectories. Research Policy, 11, 147–162.
Dosi, G. (1988). Sources, procedures, and microeconomic effects of innovation. Journal of Economic Literature, 26, 1120–1171.
Fleming, L. (2001). Recombinant uncertainty in technological search. Management Science, 47, 117–132.
Foster, I. (2005). Service-oriented science. Science, 308, 814–817.
Galison, P. L. (1997). Image and logic: A material culture of microphysics. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.
Galison, P. L., & Hevly, B. W. (1992). Big science: The growth of large-scale research. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Garud, R., & Karnøe, P. (2003). Bricolage versus breakthrough: Distributed and embedded agency in technology entrepreneurship. Research Policy, 32, 277–300.
Goble, C., & De Roure, D. (2002). The grid: An application of the Semantic Web. ACM SIGMOD Record, 31, 65–70.
Goble, C., & De Roure, D. (2004). The Semantic grid. Myth Busting and Bridge Building, 16, 1129–1135.
Hey, T., & Trefethen, A. E. (2005). Cyberinfrastructure for e-science. Science, 308, 817–821.
Jirotka, M., Procter, R., Harstwood, M., Slack, R., Simpson, A., Coopmans, C., Hinds, C., et al. (2005). Collaboration and trust in healthcare innovation: The eDiaMoND case study. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 14, 369–398.
Knorr-Cetina, K. (1999). Epistemic cultures: How the sciences make knowledge. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Leonard-Barton, D. (1995). Wellsprings of knowledge: Building and sustaining the sources of innovation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Moore, G. A. (2002). Crossing the chasm: Marketing and selling disruptive products to mainstream customers. New York, NY: Harper Collins.
Nelson, R. R., & Winter, S. G. (1982). An evolutionary theory of economic change. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action; public goods and the theory of groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Owen-Smith, J., & Powell, W. W. (2004). Knowledge networks as channels and conduits: The effects of spillovers in the Boston biotechnology community. Organization Science, 15, 5–21.
Porter, M. (1985). Competitive advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance. New York: Free.
Prahalad, C., & Hamel, G. (1990). The core competencies of the firm. Harvard Business Review, 66, 79–91.
Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). New York, NY: Free.
Schumpeter, J. A. (1942). Socialism, capitalism and democracy. New York: Harper and Brothers.
Star, S. L., & Griesemer, J. R. (1989). Institutional ecology, translations' and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley's museum of vertebrate zoology, 1907–39. Social Studies of Science, 19, 387–420.
von Hippel, E. (1986). Lead users: a source of novel product concepts. Management Science, 32, 791–805.
Wouters, P., & Schröder, P. (2003). Promise and practice in data sharing. Amsterdam: Networked Research and Digital Information (Nerdi), NIWI-KNAW.
Zimmerman, A. S. (2008). New knowledge from old data: The role of standards in the sharing and reuse of ecological data. Science, Technology and Human Values, 33, 631–652.
Acknowledgements
Part of this work was supported by the National Opinion Research Center/University of Chicago through a grant from the European Commission (30-CE-0066163/00-39). I am grateful to informants interviewed for this study for contributing their time and sharing their deliberations. Special thanks to Julia Lane for her enduring support during this project. Any omissions or error are mine.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kertcher, Z. (2010). Gaps and Bridges in Interdisciplinary Knowledge Integration. In: Anandarajan, M., Anandarajan, M. (eds) e-Research Collaboration. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12257-6_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12257-6_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-12256-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-12257-6
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsBusiness and Management (R0)