VOSS: Successful Collaboration between Researchers from Developing and Developed Countries in Virtual Organizations

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The advancement of science, technology and education depends increasingly on distributed international scientific virtual organizations that include researchers in both developed and developing countries. Yet little is known about improving the effectiveness of these collaboration networks. This study will extend the Theory of Remote Scientific Collaboration to partnerships involving developing and developed countries and empirically test this revised theory. Based on a review of the literature we will modify the Theory then use both qualitative interviews and quantitative questionnaires to test the revised Theory in three virtual organizations with researchers in developing and developed countries. We will better understand how to define success in these virtual organizations, what the factors contribute to successful collaboration, and the connections between success factors and success measures. This study identifies the conditions under which collaboration between researchers from developing and developed countries are likely to be successful. Results should illuminate the dynamics of partnerships between parties whose access to resources varies and may generalize to partnerships between U.S. institutions with differential access to resources. Many smaller U.S. institutions and those serving underrepresented groups may encounter difficulties similar to those faced by scientists from developing countries (low scientific capacity, poor communication infrastructure, etc.). Understanding the effects of differential access to resources on participation in scientific collaboration will help policy makers and funding agencies better support such virtual organizations and improve the probability of their success.