The Social Ecology of Participation Customs: Competition and cooperation in Multidisciplinary Research Centers (S&S: Standard Grant)

这个为期两年的项目采用社会网络分析和民族志方法来研究两个新兴的多用途、多学科大学研究中心（mmurc）的创新和组织变革。mmurc涉及跨学科和跨机构的合作，并且正在成为推动美国基础研究和应用研究的越来越普遍的工具。通过研究研究人员如何适应mmurc带来的组织和智力挑战，研究人员旨在为协作科学和技术研究提供更好的评估和管理方法。本研究应用并扩展了参与、习俗和边界工作的概念，运用社会网络分析和民族志方法，以更好地理解竞争与合作的mmurc。以前对组织的社会网络分析对理解社会结构与创新和生产力之间的关系做出了重大贡献。该项目通过对社会关系的主观意义、它们如何变化以及这些变化的影响的仔细关注，补充和扩展了这些见解。通过将网络联系的动态作为参与习惯的分析基础，社会网络分析的见解将扩展到社会互动的研究。

This two-year project employes social network analyses and ethnographic methods to study innovation and organizational change in two emerging multipurpose, multidiscipline university research centers (MMURCs). MMURCs involve collaboration across disciplines and institutions and are becoming increasingly common tools for advancing both basic and applied research in the U.S. By studying how researchers adapt to the organizational and intellectual challenges wrought by MMURCs, the researchers aim to enable better evaluation and management approaches for collaborative science and technology research. This study applies and extends the concepts of participation customs and boundary work, using social network analysis and ethnographic methods, to yield better understanding of competition and cooperation MMURCs. Previous social network analyses of organizations have significantly contributed to understandings of how social structure relates to innovation and productivity. This project complements and extends those insights through careful attention to the subjective meaning of social ties, how they change, and the implications of those changes. By treating the dynamics of network ties as analytically grounded in participation customs, the insights of social networks analysis will be extended to the study of social interaction.