Slides from presentation at the Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy

1. Five Models for Interaction
Between Science Enterprises and
Organization Scientists
Nicholas Berente, University of Georgia
James Howison, University of Texas at Austin
John Leslie King, University of Michigan

2. A Research Coordination Network
RCN for Managing Collaborative Research
Centers (NSF# 1240160)
http://managingcenters.net

3. RCN activities
• Workshop 0 (Athens, Oct 2011):
– Managing Cyberinfrastructure
• Workshop 1 (Cleveland, May 2012):
– Managing virtual organizations as sociotechnical systems
(VOSS)
• Workshop 2 (Ann Arbor, February, 2013):
– Leading Cyberinfrastructure Enterprise
• Workshop 3 (Austin, February 2014):
– Managing software work in scientific research centers

4. What are Science Enterprises?
• From small science to large projects to organizations
with project portfolios
– many associated with Cyberinfrastructure
– many working at distance
• Include:
– FFRDCs (e.g., National Center for Atmospheric Research)
– Supercomputing centers (e.g., NCSA, TACC)
– Long-lived mission oriented projects (e.g., iPlant, Teragrid,
XSEDE, GENI)
• Exclude:
– Universities

5. Who are the Science Executives?
• Successful scientists and engineering researchers
– Derive vision from their deep science engagement
– Relate well to other scientists
"often the PIs that have the right personality to rally a large
community to really launch one of these large centers, that
skill set definitely doesn’t translate to becoming a good
manager for a large project.”
“The vast majority of scientists have no interest in becoming
a manager. They may be interested in succeeding at
managing things but … “

6. Significant management challenges
"I think as a new organization gets started... you get a
large project going and it’s sort of like here’s the first
paycheck … go!
It would be good, I think, to have a little bit of help or at
least a document for the managers or the organizers of
the project to go through and say oh, the first thing I
should do is probably think about measuring the
organization. Wait a second, I don’t know anything
about that... "

7. Executive vs. Project Manager
“…as managers rise, they must think more broadly,
understand more comprehensively, and act in a more
sophisticated manner.
They must shift from tactical thinking to strategic
thinking, from meeting objectives to conceptualizing the
nature of the business.
They must balance multiple forces, allocate scarce
resources, and maintain the cohesive integrity of larger
numbers of people and functions…
In short, the executive function is radically different from
the managerial function…” Harry Levinson (1981, p.84)

8. Executives seeking insight
• Focused on improving their organizations through actionable
knowledge and doing science, but interested in broad questions.
"Basically it’s wanting to hear, in some kind of nutshell, of course, how
people who have studied very many organizations over long periods of
time, you know, what’s the state of practice? What have people
learned?
What can be beneficial to someone who has never gone to
management school and is now, you know, managing large amounts of
people and large sums of money……
it’s interesting to me to hear that other people have approached things
in the same way, which leads me to think there’s a reason for that.
And I’m sure you all know what that is.”

9. Organizational scientists are interested
• Science as harbinger of change
• Science as crucial locus of innovation
• Science as multi-incentive world, money is
relevant and important, but doesn’t dominate
• Organizational sciences are interested:
– Management, Strategy, Information Systems
– Public administration
– Information schools and Software engineering

10. How do we interact?
Analysis of position papers and discussion
revealed five received models of interaction:
1. Engineering model
2. Research subject model
3. Educational model
4. Consultative model
5. Interdisciplinary research model

11. 1: An Engineering Model
• Organization scientists provide science enterprise
leaders with ‘off the shelf’ knowledge with which
to engineer solutions to problems.
• Solutions are conveyed through primary
publications read by practitioners
• Issues: Management knowledge is hard to de-
contextualize, science is quite specific, translation
research not highly valued in Org Science

12. An interaction
I mean I actually wanted to hear about what topics
were well understood and which are not because I
don’t study virtual organization research at all. I
don’t read any papers on it … I’m just doing
whatever the next job is. I’m not studying how …
… you need the abstracts …
… yeah. (pause) No, I want somebody to read the
abstracts … and just tell me what I need.

13. 2: Research Subject Model
• Science enterprises serve as subjects of study
for organization scientists
• Example:
– Many VOSS funded projects work this way
• Issues:
– Mismatch in questions of intellectual value to Org
Science and practical implications for a particular
science enterprise

14. 3: Educational Model
• Organization scientists educate enterprise leaders via
custom courses that focus on relevant theoretical and
empirical findings.
• Example: Business for Scientists and Engineers at
Kellogg (Northwestern)
• Issues:
– Often focused on “Bench to Market” and expensive
($7,300)
– High investment for syllabus development
– Teaching payoff not always attractive to best researchers
– Funding agencies must be happy to include in budgets.

15. 4: Consultative model
Organization scientists consult with leaders of science
enterprise to solve relevant problems. Highly
personalized, highly contextualized.
Example:
– Steve Fiore and Margaret Palmer at SESYNC
Issues:
– Could be expensive for Science enterprises
– Researchers don’t typically have whole-enterprise insight
– Time-consuming for research academics
– Unlikely to lead to research publications

16. 5: Interdisciplinary research model
Organization scientists join with leaders of science
enterprise as full partners in collaborative research
– addressing questions that are actionable as well as
academically interesting for organization scientists
"And from the point of view of [my VO]... I have a feeling that they
would be favorably disposed just for no other reason than well it’s a
form of research. We’re all about research and fostering collaborations
and all that, you know.”
Issues:
– Could be seen as “outside field” for both parties
– Hard to build trust
– Funders could see as distraction

17. Two meta-issues
1. Nature of management knowledge:
“Best practices” of management gurus
vs.
“Tools to think with” (Schön 1983; Flyvbjerg 2003)
– Management education focuses on Interpersonal
exchange and exposure to wide variety of cases.
– Research in Management not aligned with
teaching

18. 2. Misalignment of interests
• Reward system in Org Sciences focused on
abstraction for publication
– with vague hope for impact on practice
• but not usually even vague intent to influence science
• Reward system for Science Executives focused on
execution and speed.
– with vague interest in reflection on how their
organizations compare to others
• But not usually in management in the abstract

19. Ways forward for the RCN
• Benchmarking across science enterprises
– Org science academics as trusted clearinghouse
– Recent survey of Coalition for Academic Scientific Computing (CASC) member
organizations
• Embedded junior scholars
– “the value is not in consulting but the conversation.”
– Undergraduates, masters and executive doctorate students spending 2-3
weeks onsite.
– PhDs and Org Science PIs to synthesize
• Science Executive Education
– NSF funded, tailored course
– First prototype to be delivered at UGA in 2 weeks.
• VORTEX: clearing house for resources on managing virtual organizations
– Working with Science of Team Science team towards this.