The impact of the autonomy and interdependence of individual researchers on their production of knowledge and its impact: an empirical study of a nanotechnology institute

Kasia Zalewska-Kurek, Peter A T M Geurts and Hans E Roosendaal

Research Evaluation, 2010, vol. 19, issue 3, 217-225

Abstract: This article discusses how to organise and manage research to get the best performance out of researchers in terms of use of their produced knowledge. To this end we extended the strategic positioning theory developed to predict the level of the production of knowledge. The strategic positioning theory considers researchers as agents who reach their goals by collaboration, i.e. by sharing their resources. In this way researchers acknowledge being strategically interdependent with other researchers, while at the same time retaining some autonomy in taking decisions. As it turns out in a test on researchers of an institute for nanotechnology, the higher the interdependence and the better this is aligned with autonomy the higher the impact and citations of their produced knowledge. The theory explains largely the variance of the impact and citations of produced knowledge. It is concluded that researchers need to share resources to be highly performing: research management is advised to stimulate this sharing in combination with a commensurate degree of governance in directing research. Given specific domains and organisational conditions, the theory can serve as a tool in setting research programmes as it gives insight on which settings could and should be created by research managers or policy-makers. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Date: 2010
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