Enhancing Research Collaboration Effectiveness

Professor Barry Bozeman of Arizona State University, USA, discusses his research findings on Research Collaboration Effectiveness at The Asian Conference on Business & Public Policy 2014 in Osaka, Japan.

Drawing from data from more than a decade of NSF-sponsored work on research collaboration dynamics, the implications of the research are examined to determine factors related to effective collaboration, at the individual level, on research teams. Results from more than 100 semi-structured interviews and from more than 1,000 questionnaire responses are examined to determine the relationship of a variety of factors to research collaboration effectiveness. A first question is simply the incidence of effective vs. ineffective collaboration and, especially, “nightmare collaborations” where the outcomes go very wrong in terms of intellectual property disputes, on-going legal controversies, career damage and exploitation. On the more positive side, empirically based strategies are identified that enhance the effectiveness of research collaboration. Particular attention is given to collaboration strategies, team crediting and decision-making dynamics, role specialization, and the gender dynamics of collaboration.

Professor Bozeman was a Conference Co-Chair and Keynote Speaker at The Asian Conference on Business & Public Policy 2014 (ACBPP2014) and The Asian Conference on Technology, Information & Society 2014 (ACTIS2014) in Osaka, Japan.


Professor Barry Bozeman

Barry Bozeman is Arizona Centennial Professor of Public Management and Technology Policy and Director of the Center of Organizational Research and Design. Previous positions include Regents’ Professor and Ander Crenshaw Endowed Chair of Public Policy, University of Georgia; Regents’ Professor of Public Policy at Georgia Tech and Professor of Public Administration, Law and Affiliate Professor of Engineering at Syracuse University where he was founding director of the Maxwell School’s founding director of the Center for Technology and Information Policy. Bozeman has had visiting appointments at University of Michigan, Columbia University, University of Copenhagen, and Universite Marne-La-Valle (Paris Est).

Bozeman’s research focuses on public management, organization theory and science and technology policy. He is the author or editor of sixteen books, including most recently, Rules and Red Tape: A Prism for Public Administration Theory Development (Sharpe Publishing, 2011) and Public Values and Public Interest (Georgetown University Press, 2007). The latter book won the American Political Science Association’s Herbert Simon Award for best book published in public administration and public affairs. Bozeman’s All Organizations Are Public (Jossey-Bass, 1987) helped establish a new research and theory approach to “publicness.”

Professor Bozeman’s research articles have appeared in every major U.S. journal in the fields of public policy and public management, as well as such diverse journals as American Journal of Political Science, IEEE Transactions in Engineering Management, Research Policy, Economics of Education, American Journal of Public Health, Social Studies of Science, Managerial and Decision Economics, and Human Relations. On many occasions, his research has been summarized in science publications, such as Nature, Nature Medicine, Science, and Issues in Science and Technology and mass media, including, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Economist, Chronicle of Higher Education, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Bozeman’s practitioner experience includes a position at the National Science Foundation’s Division of Information Technology and a visiting position at the Science and Technology Agency’s (Japan) National Institute of Science and Technology Policy. Bozeman has served as a consultant to a variety of federal and state agencies in the United States, including the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Commerce, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. He has helped in the design and evaluation of the national innovation systems of the Republic of South Africa, Canada, New Zealand, France, Israel, Chile, and Argentina. He is a member of the scientific council of the Institut Francilien Recherche, Innovation et Société (France).

Bozeman’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, NIST, Rockefeller Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, and Sloan Foundation. He is an elected fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement Science and the National Academy of Public Administration. Awards received include the Charles Levine Memorial Award of the American Society for Public Administration and the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration. Bozeman received the 2013 Public Management Research Association’s H. George Frederickson Award for “lifetime achievement and contributions to public management research.

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