Year: 2010
Type: dissertation
Abstract: There has long been a concern about the research-practice gap within Library and\nInformation Science (LIS). Several authors have highlighted the disconnection\nbetween the world of professional practice, interested in service and information\nsystem development, and the world of the academy, focused on the development of\ntheory and the progress of the discipline. A virtual organization, such as a\ncollaboratory, might support collaboration between LIS professionals and\nacademics in research, potentially transforming the way research between these\ntwo groups is undertaken.\nThe purpose of this study was to examine how sociotechnical aspects of work\norganization influence the initiation, development, and conclusion of collaboration\nbetween LIS academics and professionals in distributed research projects. The\nstudy examined the development of three collaborative projects from the start to\ncompletion in two countries, Italy and another European country. The data analysis\naimed at deriving implications for the further development of theory on remote\nscientific collaboration, and for the design of a sustainable collaboratory to support\nsmall-scale, distributed research projects between LIS academics and professionals.\nThe research design, data collection, and data analysis were informed by Actor-\nNetwork-Theory (ANT), in particular by Callon’s model of translation of interests.\nQualitative interviews and analysis of literary inscriptions formed the key sources of\ndata for the three case studies.\nThe analysis of how and why collaborations between LIS academics and\nprofessionals initiated and developed revealed that the initial motivation to pursue\ncollaboration has to do with the lack of economic and organizational resources on\neither or both sides, and with a genuine interest in a topic by both academics and\nprofessionals. The case studies in this study were decentralized and bottom-up\nprojects in which LIS academics and professionals pursued collaboration because\nthey had a genuine interest in a given topic and not because they were mandated\nby their employers, or they hoped to be acknowledged and promoted by them on the\nbasis of their participation in the project. Market conditions and/or institutional\npressures did not exert much influence on the start and development of these\ncollaborations, although one project was influenced by political considerations and\nfunding conditions in healthcare.\nThe patterns emerged from the findings of the three cases underpin the\ndevelopment of a sociotechnical framework aimed at providing a better\nunderstanding of remote collaboration between academics and professionals not\nonly in LIS but also in other fields affected by the research-practice gap.
Author: Marisa Ponti
Language: English
Subfield: Management Information Systems
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1771778945