University efforts to support interdisciplinary research Leadership and ...

University efforts to support interdisciplinary research Leadership and unintended consequences

John Pisapia, Tony Townsend and Jamila Razzaq

Working Papers  m  2013:03

Adam Smith Research Foundation Working Papers Series 2013:03 The Working Papers series is intended to reflect the diverse range of interdisciplinary research interests of staff in the College of Social Sciences at the University of Glasgow. By publishing papers as works in progress, it aims to encourage and promote the interdisciplinary research work of members of the College, and to provide a forum in which to share innovative ideas and approaches on interdisciplinary topics, and elicit feedback from peers before submitting to more formal refereed peer review in the form of conference papers or journal articles. To this end, the author’s contact details for correspondence are normally provided in each paper. Submissions: Papers authored by one or more members of College staff can be submitted to the ASRF (via the email address below) to be considered for publication. Texts should normally be no longer than 8,000 words, and should be submitted in a Microsoft Word-compatible (.doc or .rtf) file format. Authors are advised to keep in mind the generalist audience of the Working Papers series and avoid technical language and extensive footnotes as much as possible.

m The Adam Smith Research Foundation (ASRF) is based within the College of Social Sciences at the University of Glasgow, and aims to promote and sustain research within the UK, European and international arenas. The Foundation promotes the engagement of staff in key policy debates and in shaping policy for the future. It provides the environment in which to foster further links between the College’s disciplines and supports the development of interdisciplinary research both within and beyond the University. The Foundation seeks to honour the Enlightenment legacy of Adam Smith (1723-1790) with independent, original research that impartially advances knowledge in the Information Age. It aims to support and encourage interdisciplinary research and collaboration within seven cross-College Research Themes: .

Globalisation, Competitiveness and Sustainability

.

Governance, Policy, Accountability and Risk Management

.

Health and Wellbeing

.

Inequalities, Inclusion, Identities and Social Change

.

Justice, Rights, Security and Conflict

.

People, Places, Engagement and Change

.

Learning Across the Professions

Adam Smith Research Foundation College of Social Sciences University of Glasgow 66 Oakfield Avenue Glasgow G12 8LS Tel: +44 (0)141 330 7656 / 3494 email: [email protected] www.glasgow.ac.uk/asrf © University of Glasgow 2013 The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401

Working Papers  m  2013:03

University efforts to support interdisciplinary research Leadership and unintended consequences

John Pisapia, Tony Townsend and Jamila Razzaq

March 2013

Adam Smith Research Foundation  .  Working Papers Series

Abstract: The aim of this working paper is to describe the nature of actions to foster interdisciplinary research efforts at a major United Kingdom university. The focus was placed on the structures and processes that strengthen and inhibit interdisciplinary research in universities through the lens of leadership theory. The study employed a descriptive mixed method case study approach to collecting and analyzing the data used to draw its conclusions. A survey was constructed around dispositions, processes and practices, which facilitate or impede interdisciplinary research, gathered from the literature and initial interviews. The survey included open ended questions from which narrative data were collected. One hundred and twenty seven academic staff responded to the survey. The results of the survey were verified by 25 interviews with heads of colleges, heads of schools, research coordinators, research team leaders, and team members. These interviews were supported by document review to support the findings and draw conclusions from the study. Leadership is important. The ability to establish direction, alignment and commitment, and develop community is often the difference between success and failure. At the University direction has been established, commitment is partially established, but alignment and community development lag behind. There seems to be a working consensus recognising the importance of interdisciplinary research to solve the most intractable societal problems. There is less of a consensus as to whether the approach to accomplishing this should be forced or engineered. Good leadership and good decision making is required for interdisciplinary research to thrive. The University has done well with most of the big structures that enrich and support interdisciplinarity, institutes, centres and networks. Positive examples are noted in the text. However, the prevailing position is that clusters have made management easier but has not necessarily supported teaching and research. In this effort ‘small’ structures such as clarity of meaning, motivation of staff, misalignment of old structures, time and workload, and loss of identify have impeded the move to university wide interdisciplinarity. Three recommendations are suggested to move the interdisciplinary project forward: stay clear on focus, extend the benefits of serendipity to more people, and remember that one size does not fit all.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to express their gratitude to the Adam Smith Foundation, University of Glasgow, UK for the support of this research.

About the authors John Pisapia, Professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Research Methodology, Florida Atlantic University, and Adam Smith Visiting Research Fellow, Florida, USA Tony Townsend, Professor and Chair, Public Service, Educational Leadership and Management, University of Glasgow Jamila Razzaq, Research Associate, University of Glasgow

Address for correspondence

“ “

It is hardly possible to overrate the value … of placing human beings in contact with persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar. … Such communication has always been, and is particularly in the present age, one of the primary sources of progress.” John Stuart Mill (1848) Crossing boundaries is a defining characteristic of our age.” Julie Thompson Klein (1996:1)

M

uch has happened between 1848 when John Stuart Mill claimed that the primary source of progress was bringing diverse people together and 1996 when Julie Thompson Klein claimed that crossing boundaries was a defining characteristic of our age. Mill was prescient of what Klein observed. Collaboration and integration, they believed were the keys to progress. In the Academy this belief has emerged as a focus on interdisciplinary research. The purpose of this work is not to elevate interdisciplinary research over disciplinary research even though interdisciplinary thinking is rapidly becoming an integral feature of research as a result of the inherent complexity of nature and society, the need to solve societal problems, and the power of new technologies. These conditions have led funders of academic research and policy makers to accept the necessity of interdisciplinary research to deal with the complex problems facing society (Fayard 2010). In turn, these funders and policy makers have increasingly called upon universities to produce collaborative, interdisciplinary research focused on the larger societal needs (National Science Foundation 2004; Rhoten, 2003). This research reveals the manner in which The Great Western University1 in the United Kingdom responded to these tensions and the unintended consequences of their response. The Great Western University has vigorously and proactively moved forward to enhance interdisciplinarity in its research and teaching portfolios. As early as 2006 the notions of interdisciplinarity found their way into Great Western University’s strategic goals.

approach which is flexible and responsive to the dynamic nature of inter-disciplinary research, and supports the long-term sustainability of such activities (Ness, June 2006, p.6). Out of this suggestion for flexibility and responsiveness interdisciplinary research networks were formed and through these voluntary interdisciplinary associations, research and teaching were enhanced. In 2010, still in a proactive mode, the university issued its proposals for organisational change to support interdisciplinary research (Great Western University, 2010). The focus was clearly on students’ and research funders’ needs, minimising bureaucracy, extending global reach, and encouraging multi-disciplinary approaches by supporting and developing networks of researchers. “We’ll create world leading, multidisciplinary research institutes that meet our funders’ strategic needs.” With this gallant statement of intent

Across broad spectra of the University’s research portfolio, from Arts and Humanities to Science and Engineering, new and dynamic research is increasingly taking place at the interfaces between traditional academic disciplines. Recognising and responding to these opportunities requires a proactive 1 Pseudonym

3

Adam Smith Research Foundation  .  Working Papers Series

Great Western University moved boldly to restructure its colleges to support the development of interdisciplinary research; in many cases eliminating department structures, and predictably ran into dissent. Study Aims The purpose of this mixed methods descriptive case study was to examine the role of leadership in conducting and nurturing interdisciplinary research. One central question guided the research:

How is interdisciplinary research, at the Great Western University, organised, led, supported, and received? The results of this study will be of particular importance to universities for several reasons, not at least among them is the fact that academics tend to live in worlds where individual accomplishment is more recognised than service to colleagues, institutions, and students. While many scholars believe that the boundaries where disciplines intersect lead to new knowledge, and innovative approaches to problem solving (Fischer 2004: p.157; Huutoniemi et al. 2010: p. 85; National Academy of Science, 2004; p. 39), little empirical research has been conducted on the leadership practices and processes which support it.

Theoretical Considerations Constructs are lenses that people use to understand phenomena and guide their efforts in bringing about personal and organisational change. We have chosen to look at our data through the lens of leadership which we believe has special potential to assist universities seeking to create an interdisciplinary focus. Leadership, in its simplest form, involves establishing direction and supporting individuals that work together to move in that direction. Historically, leadership theory framed the tasks as the relationship between leaders, followers, and common goals (Burns, 1978; Bass, 1990; Blake & Mouton, 1961; Fiedler, 1967; Fu & Yukl, 2000; Hershey & Blanchard, 1988; House, 1971; Triandis, 1995). This theoretical position has served well in leading people in vertical relationships (e.g., leader – follower – common goals) where command, control and persuasion tactics are the levers of change. It serves less well in leading people and groups in horizontal relationships where collaboration, co-creation, coordination, minimum specifications,

4

chunking change, and generative processes are the levers of change (Pisapia, 2009). A much less robust set of studies frame horizontal leadership theory, which involves individuals working together in a collective effort. The move toward horizontal leadership requires skills to create direction, alignment and commitment, to work in teams, and to develop community, which is suggested by distributed leadership theory (Cox, Pearce, & Perry, 2003; Gronn, 2002; Pearce & Conger, 2003); complexity science (Goldstein, Hazy, & Lichtenstein, 2010; Lichtenstein, Uhl-Bien, Marion, Seers, Orten, & Schreiber. 2006; Uhl-Bien, Marion, & McKelvey, 2007); and relational theories (Drath, 2001; McNamee & Gergen, 1999; UhlBien, 2006). In the postmodern non-linear world increasingly found in university environments, linear change efforts, and command and control behaviours of leaders are less effective (Kezar, 2001; Kezar & Eckel, 2004). What seems to be effective are leaders working in command and coordination roles, or coordination and collaboration roles. The closer the leader is to the people who do the work, in this case academic staff, the more they should lean to coordination and collaboration influence actions that bring colleagues together around a common set of values and goals to rise above the individual differences and see the enterprise as a whole, and work with people rather than things. What this suggests for interdisciplinary research team and network leaders is that a key to success is to organise around the concept of a working alliance where there is agreement on direction, tasks and commitment (Drath et al. 2008; Pisapia 2009) and where leaders execute coordination and collaboration actions by focusing on the process more than the content of the work to engage their colleagues in the work rather than telling them what to do (Basadur, 2004). Such alliances are composed of individuals who interact interdependently and adaptively to achieve specified shared and valued objectives (Day, Gronn, & Salas, 2004; MacBeath & Townsend, 2011; Malhotra, Majchrzak & Rosen, 2007). Working in an alliance is different than working in a group. Within a group, participation is defined by professional roles. While there is a common function or focus no one person can speak for others. In an alliance, participation is based on a shared common purpose to which team members hold themselves mutually accountable to other members, thus individual members can speak for the others. For these alliances

University efforts to support interdisciplinary research  .  Pisapia et al.

to be successful, professionals must learn to work with each other and to learn from each other as they move from individual and group work to teamwork. This discussion leads us to the following proposition:

P1 – The leader’s ability to create direction, alignment and commitment, and develop community are important process skills to lead an interdisciplinary research team, an interdisciplinary research network, or a university.

Method Using a constructivist mindset we used a mixed method descriptive case study to examine the interdisciplinary dispositions of academic staff, and the processes and practices used to nurture interdisciplinary research at Great Western University.

The Research Setting This study was conducted on the campus of Great Western University in the United Kingdom. The university is a broad-based, research intensive institution with a global reach that is situated in an urban environment. The institution is in the top 1% of the world’s universities. It welcomes students from 120 countries worldwide who rate the university near the top in the UK for international student satisfaction. There are more than 23,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students who are served by around 6,000 staff. Great Western University, foreseeing an increasingly competitive environment and government and private funders who want their funds to be spent supporting ‘major social challenges’ with ‘research that has impact’, recently underwent a restructuring exercise to, as they say, ‘enhance our position as one of the world’s great, broad based, research intensive universities’. The big structures that comprised a main focus of their framework were Institutes, Centres, Networks, and Clusters. Departments for the most part were eliminated. The stated impetus for such a dramatic restructuring was that it had ‘relatively poor international and postgraduate student numbers, research which was not consistently published in journals with high impact factors’.

on the working of interdisciplinary research teams at the university and college levels, the fact that the restructuring efforts were only in their second year at the time of collection of our data added a confounding variable to our interpretations of the data, therefore the current study focuses on how interdisciplinary research was organised, led, supported, and received..

Research Design The case study method allowed for an intensive and rich description of the steps the University had taken to foster interdisciplinary research. This approach is most appropriate when the phenomenon of interest has a level of complexity that requires multiple data sources and methods to gain an in-depth understanding (Yin, 2003). In executing this design we followed Cresswell’s (2009: 22) suggestions. We began by collecting quantitative and narrative data with a broad survey. Quantitative survey data and narrative data were collected through an 18 question survey of academic staff based on the literature and initial interviews. The sampling strategy was purposeful in that participants were chosen for their relevance to the research question (Miles & Huberman, 1994) and the fact that we were not looking to generalise to all Universities. All research active academic staff in three of the university’s four colleges were invited to complete the survey. One hundred twenty seven surveys were returned for analysis. All respondents were promised confidentiality. Second, qualitative open-ended interviews were used to collect detailed views from participants in order to explore our results in more depth. Twenty five administrative and academic staff within the university were interviewed. Four interviews were held at the University level and included the vice principal of research and heads of three of the four colleges

Interdisciplinarity was a feature of Great Western’s profile prior to the restructuring but became a focal point as a result. While the focus of this research is

5

Adam Smith Research Foundation  .  Working Papers Series

in the university. Interviews were also held with five school heads in the College sponsoring this research. Additional interviews were held with college level research coordinators (2) and school level research coordinators (2). Six interviews were held with research team leaders and six with research team members. Yin (2003) describes interviews as essential sources of case study information and suggests they should appear to be guided conversations. Prior to the research being conducted an interview guide was created around three general questions related to interdisciplinary research (a) how were interdisciplinary initiatives formed, (b) what makes them work or not work, and (c) what was done to nurture and support them? During the hour long interview, the interviewer provided an overview of the research project and then posed the three general questions and used items on the interview guide to probe responses. This style was chosen to allow for a more informal conversational approach, to gather participants’ insights and to help illuminate findings from the survey (Yin, 2003). Archival data, collected from university websites, publications, and official university documents such as descriptions of institutes, centres, networks and clusters, as well as official university strategic plans and implementing documents and presentations to the governing board was the third source of data utilised. Data analysis for this study was guided by the conceptual framework, the research questions, and Yin’s (2009: 126) advice that data analysis “consists of examining, categorising, tabulating, testing, or otherwise recombining evidence, to draw empirically based conclusions.” Data analysis began as the data were collected. Survey, narrative, and interview data were coded by respondent group. This coded data and the archival data were then grouped to the research question prompt by the research team to form three evidence sheets. Themes that emerged from the survey, interviews and written narratives were triangulated with documents and the researchers looked for patterns and themes as well as contrasts and paradoxes (Coffey, Holbrook & Atkinson, 1996). When the evidence sheets were finalised, the research team used a process of constant comparison to identify findings under each of the research questions and then to identify the evidence that supported the finding. Findings were identified when the evidence from survey, interviews, and narratives extended beyond any one academic staff member.

6

This research design contains several features that strengthened the validity of the findings. In particular, we obtained the data from three different sources: (a) academic staff, (b) work unit managers, and (c) organisational archival data, to reduce the likelihood of common method bias (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003) and strengthen the internal validity of findings. Moreover, we obtained data at three different time points to strengthen the evidence supporting the findings.

Results2 The results are organised as follows. First the sample is described; then the findings are presented. Verbatim quotes and other rich narrative data are provided in the findings to help readers determine the trustworthiness of findings and how the findings transfer to other settings. The narrative and interview data is reported by the roles the respondent filled at the university and this is displayed by the initials following their comments. Academic staff who did not identify themselves through the demographic information requested in the survey are coded as AS. Those that did identify their role on the survey or participated in the interviews were coded as CH = College Head; SH = School Head; CRC = College research coordinator; RC = School research coordinator; TL = interdisciplinary research team leader; TM = interdisciplinary research team member. We intentionally used quotes from numerous participants so that no one voice would dominate. This approach also helped us to note if there was a collective voice. For information taken from archival data, the document is cited.

The Sample One hundred and twenty seven research active academic staff responded to our survey. As seen on Table 1, the typical respondent was male, between 40-60 years of age, a professor or a lecturer, and was housed in the college of science/engineering or social science. The sample’s level of engagement in interdisciplinary research was substantial. Most respondents (64.8%) were interested in interdisciplinary research; 84.2% were actively involved in interdisciplinary research; and 73.2% had published in interdisciplinary journals. 2 Data Tables are found in the working paper and not duplicated here due to space limitations. They can be viewed at

University efforts to support interdisciplinary research  .  Pisapia et al.

Table 1: Description of Study Respondents* Category1

Category2

Gender

Male

63

67.0%

Female

31

33.0%

<30

2

2.1%

30-40

24

25.5%

40-50

29

30.9%

50-60

30

31.9%

> 60

9

9.6%

Arts

20

21.3%

Science/Engineering

41

43.6%

Social Science

33

35.1%

Professor

39

40.6%

Assoc. Professor

6

6.3%

Lecturer

35

36.5%

Researcher

16

16.7%

University administrator

0

0%

College administrator

0

0%

School administrator

0

0%

Interdisciplinary research team leader

Age

College

Rank

Role

Number

Percentage

33

33%

Interdisciplinary research team member 34

34%

Member of the academic staff

87%

87

*Total Respondents = 127. Thirty three (33) respondents did not report demographic information.

Findings

The Big Structures Great Western University organises its interdisciplinary research activities using four structures: institutes, centres, networks, and clusters. Research institutes, centres, and networks pre-date the restructuring plan of 2010. Clusters were introduced with the 2010 restructuring efforts. In the following paragraphs we describe these structures.

Centres or Centres of Excellence to create identity, community and leadership in specific areas of their research agenda. They are also expected to deliver postgraduate training at the masters’ level. They are formally constituted bodies with dedicated university funding, and have a competitively appointed director who manages the academic staff assigned to the

Institutes Research Institutes are autonomous units within the College framework and are not subordinate to Schools. They may cross college boundaries and are responsible for thematic, multidisciplinary research addressing strategic research questions demanding multi-disciplinary collaboration and dedicated orchestrated resources. They may establish research

7

Adam Smith Research Foundation  .  Working Papers Series

institute although these may also have teaching responsibilities within Schools within the University. The academic staff member’s annual Performance and Development Reviews (P&DR) is signed off by both the Director of the Institute and the Head of School. The University lists ten Institutes that are operational. Seven of the institutes are found in the College of Medical, Veterinary, and Life Sciences with at least one in each of the other three Colleges. Two new Institutes were identified for investment purposes the University’s restructuring plan. Academic staff comments from the open-ended survey questions and interviews were both supportive and critical of the role of Institutes in the development of Colleges and Schools. On the positive side, one school head sees them as the “top dogs here.” On the slightly cynical side, an interdisciplinary research team member put it this way: “On the ground, the assumption is that Institutes are where the ‘real’ research is conducted.” The major concern directed toward the Institutes stems from the perception that they take resources away from the Schools. For example, an academic staff member thought “the shift away from departments to Institutes will further undermine departments through ‘asset stripping’ by poaching the best researchers.” (AS17) This perception was shared by two School level research coordinators, one of whom said, “Academic staff members are invited to participate in the Institute’s research agenda. They can buy out of their teaching responsibilities and their employment status changes. Even when they are ‘bought out’ no money comes back to the school.” (SRC2) The second area of concern revolving around the issue of credit for research publications was presented by two respondents. “When it comes time to get credit for the research, they insist that it be published with Institute acknowledgement and credit does not work its way back to the school or the college.” (RC1; TL1) This condition was verified by the research team through a search of interdisciplinary research found in the university’s system for recording staff publications.

Centres According to University Policy (Constitution of Research Centres, n.d.), Research Centres and Centres of Excellence may exist within and/or between Schools, Institutes and Colleges. They do not need to be sub-divisions of these larger structures but most are. The mission of a Centre is more developmental than an Institute. It is charged with creating an identity

8

and a “shared environment for specialist thematic, normally multi-disciplinary, research bringing together academic staff and postgraduate students working on common interests.” Centres are formally constituted bodies, generally externally funded, and have competitively appointed directors. Unlike Institute directors, they continue to be line managed by their Head of School or Research Institute. Centres are evaluated on their reputation for leadership in the field, a competitive portfolio of research, a growing volume of income generated from external sources, and their output of trained, employable people at Doctoral and Postdoctoral level. Academic staff may be identified as ‘core’ if their research interests fully align with the Centre’s research aims and objectives and ‘affiliated’ if their research interests span more than one entity. The Centres have a long standing at Great Western University and did not generate many comments. The comments that were shared pertained to the closing of cherished Centres during the restructuring process.

Networks Networks are a recent University strategy to foster interdisciplinary research and multidisciplinary activities but predate the 2010 restructuring. They are affiliation oriented structures and conveners have no line authority over members. Problems arise when there are no immediate tangible benefits. Networks that work well have a clear role and provide immediate benefits to the staff members as well as to a constituency. There are two types of networks: visible ones that operate across the University and have a budget line of 7,000 pounds to be used for “scoping” activities and developing external partners, which cannot be used for paid or appropriated staff. Invisible networks are ones formed by academic staff either with colleagues at Great Western University or with colleagues in other universities. These invisible networks are generally formed for shorter durations and specific research purposes. In both visible and invisible cases, the work comes off “the academic staff’s backs,” and the work forms around common interests. Only the visible networks are explored in the following paragraphs; although the invisible ones were alluded to by respondents. The general perception is that the networks work when they are led by a passionate leader and have committed academic staff associated with the

University efforts to support interdisciplinary research  .  Pisapia et al.

network. Lack of administrative support is commonly cited as an impediment to greater productivity. These activities fall on the shoulders of affiliated academic staff, the network convener, interested students, and one individual in central administration who helps set up meetings and maintains the web sites for each of the four University Research Networks. Most of the visible networks have established a central coordinating group that meets 3 to 4 times a year to discuss operations, future activities, and identification of new opportunities for the network. Members of the governing group are generally selected by the convener but in one case, where external presence was strong, the group is more inclusive with positions allocated to partners. For a visible network to receive a budget they must have a business plan and submit an annual report describing the use of funds and outcomes achieved. Their main evaluation happens when “people stop showing up.” It is difficult to see research impact because unlike Institutes, research that ends in publication is credited to individuals, colleges, and schools rather than the network. The way networks move from development of interest to grant proposals and interdisciplinary research teaming could be characterised as follows. In the first year of theme identification they sponsor seminars, symposia, and workshops to identify specific research topics and build relationships. Respondents note, however, that one meeting is not enough to form a network. The strategy progresses from participants who express general interest, but follow-up meetings are generally limited to project applicants to ensure that people who will commit to delivering on a topic are in a working relationship with one another. Networks are not just formed in the host institution. Some of the most productive ones are invisible and formed with colleagues nationally and internationally. The process of networking in both instances is similar. At the centre of any network is a set of common interests and a committed group of individuals who seek answers to problems. The role of the network convener(s) is to find people who are not linked and find ways to link them. During the interviews several examples of the establishment of networks were offered. Most have common elements and use similar strategies to enrich the network. The following example illustrates these elements and strategies.

A Case in Point: A Cup of Coffee The XX Network started 3 years ago over a cup of coffee shared by two academic staff, who knew each other slightly, after a seminar both attended. It is now in its second phase of development with at least one more to go.

The Lunch. During the year after the “cup of

coffee” these two colleagues became friendly. They were involved in a similar network, and shared supervision of a PhD student even though they were in different schools. What began as a frustration with top down systems over a ‘cup of coffee’ grew into seeing things a little differently than their colleagues. A year later, they shared their visions over lunch and things really got rolling. The more they talked about how they could create something better than the networks they were associated with the more motivated they became to create something different. So, they sketched a plan and entered what they now call phase one.

The Launch. They decided to float their idea to

the University funder for networks and received an immediate response that the University would invest in some “scoping” activity. In retrospect, they think that since they were known quantities with previous administrative experience, good reputations, and were enthusiastic about what they wanted to create, they were not afraid to approach top management. Whatever the reason, they received a warm welcome. They got the money they needed and more important visibility in top management of the University. But they had to do the heavy lifting themselves. As one of the conveners stated, “I attended a huge number of meetings, drank huge amounts of coffee and reacquainted myself with old friends and made new friends.” At this point, one of their PhD students helped with the drudge work but the conveners didn’t shy away from it. They sent out invitations to networks in and beyond the University and asked others who >>

9

Adam Smith Research Foundation  .  Working Papers Series ran networks to send out the word through their sources. One hundred people showed up. At the seminar they set the scene with six presentations of fifteen minutes each. Three were made by academic staff and three were made by members of the public (organisations; policy heads etc.). After setting the scene they moved the people into prearranged groups with a facilitator and note taker. The facilitators were hand selected for their skills. The discussion centred on the big issues. Then they asked, ‘would you be interested in a network that focused on the issues you just identified?’ A report back session followed and a whole group discussion was held. As one of the conveners related, “It was good that some of the important constituents stayed until the end and described their belief that the University had some responsibility to share their knowledge in a way that the community understood.”

The Business Plan. After the meeting the two

Network conveners ‘hid’ out for a few days and wrote the report which led to a business plan – mission – vision – values and theme clusters (many of which did not work out and new themes had to be created downstream). They presented the plan to top management and received initial funding to conduct activities outlined in the plan. No funds were used to pay staff or buy out of their teaching. All participants – conveners, academic staff, and community professionals were to be volunteers. Their motivation? Well, one convener said, “It’s the most exciting thing that I have been involved in at the University.” As she expressed, people believed in the mission, values and goals of the Network and were willing to invest some time to make it work.

Tangible Action. Phase two began by focusing

on convening activities individuals were interested in around the general topic. These activities were led by academic staff and supported through some of the early funding provided by the University. A small number of activities were sponsored by external partners and were also led by academic staff. By seeking creative funding like the Rogers Scholarship3 (even though it’s built on the Science Model), and the RAISE scholarship which funds students who work with industry partners, the network was born and is flourishing. As Network partners talked and listened to each other, ideas began to sprout much like the initial idea of the founding conveners of the Network. Academic staff members have identified with the activities and several we interviewed seemed happy with and proud of their affiliation. >> 3 All names are pseudonyms

10

The drive to self-sufficiency. The Network has

entered Phase three. As the ideas stemming from phase two discussions are making their way into proposals to funders, the role of the conveners has expanded. They still do the leg work but they also now are mentors to academic staff with an idea. How to put the proposal together? Where to send it? Who needs to be approached? How to walk it through the system? The role of academic staff also is changing. They still convene workshops and seminars but now they have to do the research that is needed to impact policy or produce workable models for the practice community. The rest of the story is still being written. But the lessons of the case at mid phase seem to be: The University possesses strong convening power when it considers its relationship with practitioners. It takes committed enthusiastic academic staff to make it work. But no matter how enthusiastic, it won’t work unless early adopters establish relationships within the broader academic and professional communities. “It’s not like you hold a ‘scoping’ meeting, there is a puff of smoke and people come together. It takes hard persistent work. “ (TL6) The conveners need to work as gardeners and cultivate the soil so the involved participants can plant the seed and harvest the crops. Conveners have to be creative in how they acquire resources. This is volunteer work: as one convener said, “It’s my hobby.” She whimsically said, “It really would be nice if the University would recognise the work and let it count in my workload. It also would really be nice if upfront funding could be made available to have at least one full time administrative assistant to do the coordination work.” (TL3)

Clusters/Restructuring The research Institutes and Networks have seemingly been positively affected by the restructuring of the University. With the reorganisation however departments were eliminated in most Colleges and in some schools replaced with a Cluster to organise both research and teaching duties. They are seen as new pseudo departments. Academic staff were either assigned or voluntarily affiliated with a Cluster. Clusters unintentionally became perceived as another managerial level. As one academic staff member said, “Strategy and what actually happens are two different things.” (AS15) Clusters are also used to identify research areas similar to visible networks

University efforts to support interdisciplinary research  .  Pisapia et al.

at the university level. In fact similar tactics to the “cup of coffee” example at the University level were successfully used at the College level.

•

Provide benchmarking information and establish reputational yardsticks for use within the higher education sector, for public information and to inform student decisions about choice of institution; and 

•

Provide accountability for public investment in research and produce evidence of the benefits of this investment.

A Case In Point: “Critical Friends” As the Head of College explained, they held a day away for 25 people they had identified as having an interest in a major research effort. The meeting began with three proposals to implement the research effort with specific ways of addressing the problem under review and the resources needed to do so. Discussions followed each presentation for clarification purposes. Then the group went to a working lunch where three “critical friends” from outside the College gave their impressions of the aim of the project and offered suggestions. At the lunch participants were assigned to specific tables. The lunch started with a fifteen minute presentation by one of the critical friends. No discussion was held with the full group. The first course was served and table mates discussed the ideas presented. Then the second critical friend made their fifteen minute presentation. The second course was served. Again no full group discussion occurred. Then, the third course was served, again followed by the third critical friend, and then dessert. Following dessert, the three critical friends formed a panel and responded to questions from the floor and questioned each other for thirty minutes. After a break, the full group reconvened and over the next day developed the College’s plan to move the initiative along.

A Special Big Structure The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is an externally imposed ‘big’ structure strategy to assess the quality of research in UK higher education institutions which is having a major, strategic effect on all universities in the UK.  Great Western University’s position is that the criteria for the inclusion of individuals within the REF will be developed with a view to maximising the strategic benefit to the University and enhancing its research reputation both as a university, and within the different disciplines to which they will be submitting.  The exercise is important because its outcomes will: •

The REF works like this. Academic staff submits four items of research output for review by an in house panel and then, if included by the University in its submission to the REF assessors, it is reviewed by a second panel. The panels at both levels grade the submissions at 4, 3, 2 and 1 levels. Totals for each submitting unit of assessment and universities are calculated and compared with other universities using the scheme. Each unit of assessment must also submit a set of case studies demonstrating those impacts of the research beyond academia. So the effect on academic staff time can be significant when one considers the development of individual application packets, some staff serving on assessment panels, and others writing and reviewing case studies. The effect of the REF on interdisciplinary research is found by what counts, with the common theme being that disciplinary publications count higher than interdisciplinary ones. The practical implications of the REF are associated with what the results mean to the university. For example Individual Performance accounts for 70% of the assessment. If a faculty member achieves 3 units at level 4 it covers the professor’s salary for 4-5 years. If the units achieve level 1 or 2 they produce no money. The remaining 30% of the assessment includes assessment of research culture (e.g. PhDs, seminars, visitors etc.), and impact, which in this case means utilisation in the field (not impact factors).

Inform the selective distribution of public funds for research by the four UK higher education funding bodies, with effect from 2015/16; 

11

Adam Smith Research Foundation  .  Working Papers Series

Many academic staff, but not all, at Great Western University believe the REF is a major disincentive to doing interdisciplinary research primarily because of the way they believe research is graded by the panels. Many issues surround the way publications are judged. These concerns are offered here so they can be aired and appropriate staff can determine their validity. An interdisciplinary team leader said, “The REF is inhibiting because it rates publications in discipline journals higher than other journals”(TL1). “We are awarded for research in narrow areas/subjects only -- interdisciplinary research doesn’t fit the REF model.” (TM4) “A multiple author article doesn’t really count unless all collaborators are outside the unit of assessment.” (AS12) Another staff member elaborated on the difficulty:

“

The university wants both interdisciplinary research AND strong REF return. These are conflicting goals. REF reinforces the dominance of little subject fiefdoms really -- and the university cannot escape this reality despite the understanding that the real future lies in shattering these fiefdoms. Because you have to ‘tick’ the REF boxes with articles/monographs in relatively narrow fields (an interdisciplinary book on the future of the internet will not score well in my field) it means that people are not motivated to dedicate themselves to being interdisciplinary. And that is a real shame because in a complex world that is where the really interesting discoveries lie. . . . With these pressures it’s easier to stay in the discipline and potential is known.” (AS21)

An experienced interdisciplinary team member provides this specific example of how her work was judged by the assessment panels. While there is encouragement to do interdisciplinary research from the University and the research councils, there is a problem with regards to publications and how these are regarded by the University through the lens of the REF. I have a publication in a top graded Management journal. However, for the mini REF, the panel said that this was only a grade 3 publication as it wasn’t Sociology. Our publication will make a massive contribution to Management and will be highly rated by their panel, but again, it will be less highly rated by Sociology. So, while I enjoyed doing these projects and learned a lot from being involved in them and made an important contribution to them, the current REF system

12

is not going to reward me for this. I would have been better off just sticking to my own research area. (TM6) On the other hand, an interdisciplinary team leader provided documentation that the REF does encourage interdisciplinary research. Under the research environment section, the REF Guidelines state:

“

…within the environment template, institutions should provide information about how they support interdisciplinary and collaborative research, and panels will give due credit where these arrangements have enhanced the vitality and sustainability of the research environment or the submitted unit’s contribution to the wider research base.” (REF 2014: 23)

Yet even if the publication stories are true the REF seems to understand the value of interdisciplinary research but it only counts for 15-20% of the assessment.

The Little Structures When Great Western University restructured to support interdisciplinary research that appealed to funders and improve teaching offerings, it focused on the big structures of university departments, administrative support staff and paid less attention to little structures that make a university run well. These issues are played out through the incompatible alignment of staff time, cumbersome management systems, and unanticipated consequences of restructuring which were seen as impediments to the restructuring efforts of the University and slowed development of the restructuring efforts. Staff Time. A common refrain is that “people are busy.” In fact, “restrictions on staff time” was seen as the major impediment to undertaking interdisciplinary research by 49% and a minor impediment by 32% of the academic staff responding to the survey. Eighty one percent (81%) of the respondents in this study believe that restructuring has placed restrictions on staff time. With the overlap of university Networks, college theme meetings, school cluster meetings, management team meetings at each level, and the added pressure from the Research Excellence Framework, faculty feel beleaguered. It was expressed by an academic staff (AS14) member that “many things do not work at Great Western University because there is so little thought given to the workload being created or how people’s time will be managed.” Others characterised it this way: “In some ways it [the

University efforts to support interdisciplinary research  .  Pisapia et al.

restructuring] has restricted academic staff interaction. Before I worked across the college – under the new set up I deal more at the school level” (SRC1); “In practice … [there] has been a failure to think through implications of collaboration for workloads” (TM6); and “… As a result of the restructuring, I’ve been pushed into networks and institutes. I wonder though, if I’d have been more productive if just allowed to get on with research more than attending meetings (endlessly) across schools and colleges?” (AS16) An interdisciplinary research team member observes that there

“

…is no recognition in the system that to do things different you have to change work load expectations. You can’t keep doing all of what you did and still participate in interdisciplinary research teams; you shouldn’t have to do it on the faculty’s back. Workloads need to be realistic, and especially teaching loads need adjustment if other priorities are being addressed.” (TM4)

One creative suggestion came from an interdisciplinary team leader.

“

… It is less clear to me that the academic space exists to promote the conversation and the serendipity which generates good collaboration. Here is the challenge for the University -- you want us to be creative, produce papers in high quality journals and bring in grants. We want to be creative, produce papers in high quality journals and bring in grant funding. So, if we are in agreement on expectations, what’s stopping us? “From my perspective, you need to find ways to enable us to create ‘head space.’ Ask yourself, do administrative actions create more time or more work? Filling out forms here (including REF) is exhausting and when you see what use is made of the information, you question why so much of your time is devoted to that. If we are to meet your expectations and our expectations we need head space. We need to minimise form filling. For example, if you employ someone to oversee the gathering of information, do you say their job is to create a manual to teach academic staff how to gather the data and put it in the form and then write an overview report? Or do you say their job is to create the individual reports and free the faculty from this burden and write the final report? Think about it!”

Unanticipated Consequences. Over one third of the respondents (34.6%) felt that the systems at the Great Western University were cumbersome as the following comments indicate. “The new system has inhibited, not helped, conversations between disciplines” (AS7), and “The new structures make management easier. Research and teaching remains trapped institutionally in subjects/schools/colleges. The cumbersome arrangements for Research Centres reveal some of these problems.” (AS23) Respondents added some positive, but many negative, comments regarding the university’s attempts to foster interdisciplinary research. Positive comments included, “Well, you-all hired me and my research group so something is going well,” (AS4) and “I have found support for this at the College and University level to be excellent.” (AS20) Even so, many caveats were offered such as “good effort from the College already – need more support” (AS7), and “I think the University’s impulse with this has been good, but it’s an uphill battle. (AS16) Many of the negative comments related to the connection between the recent university restructuring and improving interdisciplinary research. For example, Great Western University’s “senior management seems to labouring under the misconception that the re-organisation would help interdisciplinary research – it doesn’t” (AS22); “… little real impact” (AS13), and “The SMG’s obsession with promoting this through reorganisation has hindered rather than helped to organise interdisciplinary research.” (AS19) Others suggested that this was something that was only being done for short term purposes “Sounds like a Holy Grail or another bandwagon,” (AS2) and “it’s only being promoted as a means to securing funding - it’s about money, not impact or knowledge.” (AS9) Still others were concerned about the perceived top down approach which suggested that all staff should

(TL5).

13

Adam Smith Research Foundation  .  Working Papers Series

be involved in this kind of research. “Surely the idea is that if it is natural it should not be inhibited but equally forcing it when there is no demand is just as bad” (AS17); “Real interdisciplinarity has to grow from below, not be imposed from above.” (AS18) Finally, some saw the restructuring of the University and the promotion of interdisciplinary research as an attack on the previously held departmental structure and the research that emerged from that structure.

“

I think the University needs to reinstate departments where requested, and have a strategy to rebuild departmental identity where it has been lost. Interdisciplinary research should be seen as complementary to departmental research, not a substitute and not imposed. I say this as someone who is very actively engaged in interdisciplinary research and very much enjoys it. I think the University’s cack-handed restructuring process has been counter-productive.” (AS23)

There appears to be significant pent up emotion around the restructuring. For example, respondents say it is “destroying the subject integrity and disciplinary strength that is an essential prerequisite for genuine cross-discipline collaborative research. Threatening traditional disciplines does not promote interdisciplinarity; it only induces panic and short-term grant-chasing.” (AS2) A second unanticipated consequence resulted from the nature and number of research themes identified in most Colleges and Schools. For a myriad of reasons, some themes failed to self-organise and none are institutionalised. Respondents said, “The cross cutting themes are not meaningful and are not that present in my own research or that of my organisational unit.” (TM6) “Some people say they cannot identify themselves in these themes or that there are too many to manage or participate in. Individual research strengths are not matched by the clusters. The themes should be organised around things that match faculty interests.” (SRC2) A second school research coordinator explained why the themes were defective in this way. “Most of the schools have research themes. My perception in one school is they were crafted by studying what funders were funding. In my school I wrote them to coincide with the mission of our old departments.” (SCR1) A third unanticipated consequence centres on the accountability/freedom tensions that characterise

14

university traditions and debates of how to grow world class universities. While many times this debate occurs between universities and their political authorising agencies, it also is heard in the debate within the university between management and academics. This debate has taken several forms. One form centres on the wisdom of Great Western University “opting so vigorously for interdisciplinary research; will this be the winner that it seems to be assumed it will be?” (AS21) Those academics supporting a disciplinary approach advocate this way,

“

Don’t make interdisciplinary research mandatory or reward it more than single discipline research. . . . The best way to get the best research out of your researchers is to give them freedom to pursue whatever they think is most interesting and fruitful. That means that the University should be in responsive mode - not prescriptive mode. Thus, it needs to make room for interdisciplinary research to take place unencumbered, and to have funds available on an equal footing with single discipline research.” (AS3)

Grow from below. The third theme in the debate is the “grow from below versus impose from the top,” perspectives. From the academic staff perspective, real interdisciplinarity has to grow from below, not be imposed from above. The claim is that “The restructuring has made management easier, not research and teaching. Surely the idea is that if it is natural it should not be inhibited but equally forcing it when there is no demand is just as bad.” (AS12) Other comments echo this sentiment, “You don’t get good positive creative cultures where you have top down managerialism.” (AS9) “The management structure here is onerous.” (SRC1) “Forced collaboration rather than one which emerges organically due to research needs on interdisciplinary “research themes”, which are a turn-off for most members of staff, should emerge “from below”, not be imposed in this way from above.” (TL5) One School Head offered this perspective, “Great Western University is a heavily managed institution.” A school research coordinator counter balanced the effect of heavy management this way: “You can put all the management structures in place that you want but people – especially professors – will seek and mostly find ways around them unless they are committed to the vision.” (SRC2) Some academic staff do not want to engage and want to do their own thing. The perception is that a “ team cannot be pushed together in an academic

University efforts to support interdisciplinary research  .  Pisapia et al.

environment, it usually only works if it forms naturally, so I don’t think that having centralised strategic agendas for interdisciplinary research makes much sense, other than if incentives can be provided.” (AS15) A College Research Coordinator used this analogy to crystallise the debate from the faculty perspective. “It’s like the jazz band - we can agree on the direction but don’t tell me how to blow the notes or where to put my fingers.”

Progress Thus Far

point of view is the comment from a research Team Leader, who said,

“

I am agnostic to University restructuring, it really doesn’t affect my work - if it allows us to hire good people it’s good - if not it’s a wash. I believe you would find a strong correlation between the quality of people and the quality of research, and, perhaps the increase in interdisciplinary focused research. Truthfully, the key drivers to creating better research production come down to excellence in people and skills, and a willingness to collaborate. (TL3)

Great Western’s restructuring was only 2 years old at the time data were collected and according to some respondents, like this professor, it has had some positive effects in attracting new academic staff. “I have been at GWU for only six months and one attraction for coming here was the prospects of interdisciplinary research. I have found that the prospects so far have exceeded my expectations.” (TM4) Less ebullient academic staff members characterise this in a more cautious way. “I think we are getting there but it has been a slow journey” (TL4); “Early days, but so far unfulfilled” (SH4); “We have laid a solid foundation, but need a step change in commitment.” (AS12) These comments reinforce data from our survey of research active staff members in which many respondents were undecided as to whether the University’s (41%) or College’s (53%) attempts to introduce interdisciplinary research has been successful. We also found interdisciplinary advocates who, pointing to the silo-mentality of colleagues, put this twist on the discipline argument thus reframing why interdisciplinary research is needed.

“

One of the major barriers to the multidisciplinary approach is the long established tradition of highly focused professional practitioners cultivating a protective (and thus restrictive) boundary around their area of expertise. This tradition has sometimes been found not to work to the benefit of the wider public interest, and the multidisciplinary approach has recently become of interest to government agencies and some enlightened professional bodies who recognise the advantages of systems thinking for complex problem solving.

Discussion and Suggestions

From the outset our primary purpose was to document efforts to foster interdisciplinary research within the context of a major university in the United Kingdom through the lens of leadership theory. It should be noted that the study is limited by a single case and relies on the perceptions of academic staff and administrators responding to our invitations to participate. We made no assumptions about the value of interdisciplinarity and what it would look like within a major university. We also recognise that there are multiple lenses to interpret findings. Leadership is but one. Accordingly, caution is called for in generalising our findings. In the preceding paragraphs we have explored the big, special, and small structures that facilitate or impede the development of an interdisciplinary research focused university. We found that leadership is important if interdisciplinarity is to thrive in the academy. In its simplest form, leadership involves establishing direction and supporting individuals that work together to move in that direction. The evidence is that Great Western’s leaders have set a clear, concise and consistent

(TL4) Then there are academic staff that seemingly have avoided the argument altogether. Illustrative of this

15

Adam Smith Research Foundation  .  Working Papers Series

direction through their deliberations, pronouncements and actions. Thus far the evidence is they have been less effective in establishing commitment and developing community which are often the difference between success and failure. At the centre of success are three variables that work against or for change: culture – communication – commitment (Pisapia 2009). In some of the interdisciplinary research networks where leaders work in coordination and collaboration roles these variables have worked for change. It is less evident at the University level where leaders seemingly work in a command and control fashion in many cases and command and coordination roles in other cases. Our leadership lens suggests that the emphasis at this level should move from working with things to working with people (culture – communications – commitment) focusing on the content, process, and engaging academic staff in the work rather than telling them what to do (Basadur, 2004). While the restructuring has gone fast at the management levels it has gone slower the closer it got to the academic staff, where concerns remain even though there appears to be a working consensus on the viability of interdisciplinary research as a way to deal with our most intractable societal problems. The data indicate a willingness of staff to be involved in interdisciplinary projects and an enjoyment and satisfaction when they are. There is less of a consensus that this approach should be forced or engineered. Many respondents perceived that this best occurs naturally when people from different fields are allowed to meet, talk, socialise and discover common interests, rather than having this forced upon them. As the leadership research indicates the command, control and persuasion tactics of leading people in vertical relationships [e.g., leader – follower – common goals] are less effective in times of complexity such as those found in most modern universities. In such times, a leadership focus on collaboration, co-creation, coordination, minimum specifications, chunking change, and generative processes are levers of change (Drath et al. 2008; Pisapia, 2009) that are likely to be more productive. Good leadership and good decision making is required for interdisciplinary research to thrive. At the college and university levels, there is always the need to gain the attention of academic staff so forcefulness and attention to big structures (Colleges, Schools, Institutes, Centre’s, Networks, Clusters, and even the REF) is often required. Command is a natural and useful tool possessed by leaders at this

16

level. The option these leaders have is to combine command with control or command with coordination. Modern leadership theory suggests that command and coordination are the more productive influence actions at the enterprise level. The evidence we reviewed at Great Western University indicates that these leadership roles at the enterprise level need to be enhanced. The University has done well with the ‘big’ structures to enrich and support interdisciplinarity. Some of the big structures which predate the restructuring seem to have been unaffected; or in the case of Institutes and Research Networks may have been enhanced by the restructuring efforts. The prevailing opinion is that newer structures such as clusters have made management easier but not necessarily teaching and research. With most change efforts, difficulty comes from the details and Great Western University is still working through some bothersome details we call small structures. While discomfort is normal in large change efforts it cannot be left unattended. People do adjust and adapt to new circumstances as a review of the positive examples identified in the previous paragraphs (e.g., “a cup of coffee,” at the University level, and “use critical friends,” at the College level) attest. However things go smoother when leaders consider the human issues that impact people’s organisational lives when making changes from a transformative perspective. The details that have cast a dim glow of incredibility to the restructuring efforts are the small structures such as clarity of meaning, motivation of staff, misalignment of leftover structures, workload, and loss of identity. The University may be better served if leaders in the senior management group move from managing the change to facilitating the change represented by the restructuring. Facilitating the change means attending to the ‘details’ cited above by aligning structures and processes, and removing barriers that impede success. In the following paragraphs we examine these details and where appropriate offer some suggestions. Clarity was demonstrated as the restructuring initiative was presented (Great Western University, 2010). The focus was clearly on students’ and research funders’ needs, minimising bureaucracy, extending global reach, and encouraging multi-disciplinary approaches by supporting and developing networks of researchers. “We’ll create world leading, multidisciplinary research institutes that meet our funders’

University efforts to support interdisciplinary research  .  Pisapia et al.

strategic needs.” With this gallant statement of intent the university moved boldly to put it in place and ran into dissent. Sometimes the move to clarity has unintended consequences. For example, the university’s attempt to clarify that the target audience was to be funders, students, and internationalisation has left scars on academic faculty. As seen in the results section, many academic staff were turned off by the phraseology relative to funders’ needs. The emotional and psychological makeup of many academic staff members does not respond to these attempts at motivating action. Motivation is an internal state that directs individuals toward certain goals and objectives. Managers can not directly influence this internal state, they can only create expectations on the part of the employees that their motives will be satisfied by doing the organisation’s work and then providing the rewards that satisfy the employee’s needs. The respondents in this study clearly said that trying to motivate them toward interdisciplinary research because funders will fund it is the wrong message for them, even if it is the right message for the university. A lesson here is that the way leaders frame their messages is important and can lead to coalescence or devolution. Interdisciplinarity must compete with other social and organisational responsibilities within the structural framework of universities and the roles of their staff. At one end of the autonomy continuum are individuals who have few connections to their colleagues or the collective norms set by programs, departments, and colleges. The organisation and institution may actually be irrelevant to the daily work of these agnostics’ who protect their time and often justify their work (research, teaching, and service) in terms of academic freedom and social responsibility (Klein, Dansereau, & Hall, 1994). At the other end of the professional autonomy continuum are professors who make their programs, research, and students the foci of their role as professors. For these professors organisational positioning, structures and leadership are relevant. They are the main audience and must be turned into the owners of interdisciplinary research, so the narrative used by leaders is important. In university cultures, it’s important that one questions the assumptions, norms and values of the dominant logic and move in ways that seek not to crush it but adjust it, update it, or reset it. This effort will rest on clarifying and simplifying the models of change employed.

PDR process, it is a barrier to the introduction of interdisciplinary research, especially for young staff. If one is required to be a disciplinary expert for promotion purposes and if the REF process is aligned with units of assessment based on only individual disciplines, then interdisciplinary research will only be open to those who have already been promoted and have already achieved the required publications. The fourth ‘devil’ was the perceived increase in people’s workloads, without there being any incentives to do so, or consideration of ways to lessen workloads in other ways. Most large change efforts require the willingness of the staff to engage and own it. However, norms of reciprocity are in effect. From the academic staff’s perspective, if they are interested and committed they will engage willingly. If not, incentives must be applied rather than withdrawn such as in the case of removal of administrative support staff. If new priorities are to be addressed, workloads need to be thought through and addressed. The larger lesson however comes from social network theory which postulates the importance of exchange, reciprocity, and density, which allows information to be leveraged and trust to be established. In particular, density of the network is related to network cohesion which enables the organisation to act quickly and together. The overarching message is the need to find ways to bring people together; not through more meetings, but through interests, exchange, and sociability. We conclude our study with three recommendations. Stay clear on focus, extend the benefits of serendipity to more people, and remember that one size does not fit all. If research is to be the major emphasis, it must be at the centre of the enterprise and it must be resourced. We found that Great Western University does this well.

A third ‘devil’ is the impact of the REF model of determining quality research. Together with the

17

Adam Smith Research Foundation  .  Working Papers Series

However, attention must be paid to the unanticipated consequences major change efforts; in this case those seem to be issues of work load, REF alignment, and creating a motivational rhetoric. Furthermore, rather than more themes there probably needs to be fewer themes. The themes that are identified must be important enough to draw attention and big enough that large numbers of academic staff can identify with them. Second, ways must be developed to extend the benefits of serendipity to more people. Great Western University is geographically challenged by its current estate plan. The way in which staff are distributed across campus currently does not lead to informal interactions. The issue is that since much collaboration results from serendipitous events the way forward lends itself to suggesting that consideration be given to organising the estate plan and travel plans to enhance chance encounters. The simple fact is that academic staff must be able to develop both internal and external formal and informal networks. From the research cited earlier, we understand that keeping academic staff isolated in a building of like disciplines is less effective than finding ways for academic staff from different disciplines to interact, develop exchanges, and foster reciprocity. Therefore, as new buildings find their way into the estate plan there is an opportunity to develop a Convening Centre where Networks could be housed – and seminars and important conferences could be held. Some suggestions by academic staff we interviewed might be too difficult to accomplish, such as a common on campus gathering place for academic staff and administrators – with a bar – where people can meet after seminars or have lunch, but not just at open canteens. Other suggestions made by academic staff are not so difficult to employ, such as requiring that PhD students be supervised by researchers from different disciplines and in different schools as is done in one subject cluster at Great Western University currently. It could be as simple as the Head of College convening a college lunch every other Friday and the first 15 people who register get to come. No agenda – just share lunch – meet some colleagues and visitors to campus to explore common interests. Of course you would build in procedures so that the same people didn’t come each Friday. One academic staff member used this organising analogy, “You would have to have a cake – a really good cake that would attract people to the lunch – something special –to get them out of their silos.” These strategies have the potential to a

18

gradual shift in attitudes and values suggested by Great Western University’s guiding vision. Finally, when seeking frame breaking change it is easy to forget that one size does not fit all. The 2006 research strategy document established the need for a proactive approach which is flexible and responsive to the dynamic nature of interdisciplinary research. This approach – flexibility – responsiveness – is what is needed. For the most part, the Great Western University academic staff are positive about their own experiences of interdisciplinary research but many are negative about attempts to promote it forcefully as the dominant University logic. For some, it is seen as privileging interdisciplinary research over other types of research. For others, it is possible to see themselves working in an interdisciplinary fashion without necessarily collaborating with anyone. For the lone researcher, line managers and research coordinators should make sure that the opportunities are presented. It may be as simple as one College research coordinator said, “If you do the research alone and are good at it – that is ok as long as you are fundable and excellent in your work, and publish in ‘A’ journals.” Or perhaps it is as simple as the analogy to the jazz band offered by one of our respondents. “. . . we can agree on the direction but don’t tell me how to blow the notes or where to put my fingers.” Whatever stance University leaders and academic staff take, the key to promoting interdisciplinary work is to attract and retain academic staff who, whether in teams, labs, or libraries, are consumed by the academic life and are passionate about the work. The challenge for Great Western University is to continue to forge agreement on expectations, to understand the impediments to meeting these expectations and to correct them.

References Basadur, M.S. (2004). Leading others to think innovatively together. Leadership Quarterly, 15, 103-121. Bass, B. (1990). Bass and Stogdill’s handbook of leadership: Theory, research and managerial applications (3rd ed.). New York: Free Press. Blake, R. & Mouton, J. (1961). Group dynamics - Key to decision making, Houston: Gulf Publishing Co. Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Coffey, A., B. Holbrook and P. Atkinson (1996) ‘Qualitative Data Analysis: Technologies and Representations’, Sociological Research Online, 1 (1) retrieved July 10, 2012 from . Cox, J., Pearce, C., & Perry, M. (2003). Toward a model of shared leadership and distributed influence in the innovation process: How shared leadership can enhance new product development

University efforts to support interdisciplinary research  .  Pisapia et al. team dynamics and effectiveness. In C.Pearce & J.Conger, Shared leadership: Reframing the hows and whys. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Cresswell, J. (2009). Research Design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches, 3nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Day, D., Gronn, P., & Salas, E. (2004). Leadership capacity in teams. Leadership Quarterly. 15(6), 857-880. Drath, W. (2001). The deep blue sea: Rethinking the source of leadership. San Francisco: Jossey–Bass. Drath, W., McCauley, C., Paulus, P., Velsor, E., O’Connor, P., & McGuire, J. (2008). Direction, alignment, commitment: Toward a more integrative ontology of leadership. The Leadership Quarterly. 19, 635:653 Fayard, A. (2010). Multidisciplinary research: Challenging and rewarding or too damn difficult? Retrieved May, 2012 from Fiedler, F. (1967) A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness. New York: McGraw-Hill. Fischer, G. (2004). Social creativity: Turning barriers into opportunities for collaborative design. Proceedings of the eighth conference on Participatory design: Artful integration: interweaving media, materials and practices, 1, 152-161. Fu, P.P, & Yukl, G. (2000). Perceived effectiveness of influence tactics in the United States and China. The Leadership Quarterly, 11(2), 252-266. Goldstein, J., Hazy, J. K., & Lichtenstein, B. (2010). Complexity and the Nexus of Leadership: leveraging nonlinear science to create ecologies of innovation. Englewood Cliffs: Palgrave Macmillan Great Western University (2010) Organisational Structures: Proposals for Change. Retrieved June 10, 2012) from Gronn, P. (2002). Distributed leadership as a unit of analysis. Leadership Quarterly, 13, 423−451. Hersey, P., & Blanchard, K. (1988). Management of organizational behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. House, R. J. (1971). A path-goal theory of leader effectiveness. Administrative Science Quarterly, 16: 321-338. Huutoniemi K., Klein, J., Bruun, H., & Hukkinen, J. (2010). Analyzing interdisciplinarity: Typology and indicators. Research Policy 39 (1):79 -88.

McNamee, S., & Gergen, K. (1999). Relational responsibility: Resources for sustainable dialogue. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Miles, M. B. & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Mill, J. S. (1848). Principles of political economy with some of their applications to social philosophy. London: John W. Parker. National Academy of Sciences (2004). Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Retrieved May 15, 2012 from Ness, K. (2006). Research Strategy 2006 – 2010. Retrieved July 2, 2012 from Pearce, C., & Conger, J. (2003). All those years ago: The historical underpinnings of shared leadership. In C. Pearce & J. Conger (Eds.), Shared leadership: Reframing the hows and whys of leadership (pp. 1−18). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Pisapia, J. (2009). The strategic leader: New tactics for a globalizing world. Charlotte: Information Age Publishers. Podsakoff, P., MacKenzie, S., Lee, J., & Podsakoff, N. (2003). Common method variance in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 879-903. REF (2014). Assessment framework and guidance on submissions (REF 02.2011 July 2011). Retrieved September 02, 2012 from . Rhoten, D. (2003). A Multi-Method Analysis of the Social and Technical Conditions for Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Final report to the National Science Foundation. Retrieved July 4, 2012 from Triandis, H. C. (1995). Individualism and collectivism. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Uhl-Bien, M. (2006). Relational leadership theory: Exploring the social processes of leadership and organizing. Leadership Quarterly, 17, 654−676. Uhl-Bien, M , Marion, R. & McKelvey, B. (2007). Complexity leadership Theory: Shifting leadership from the industrial age to the knowledge era. The Leadership Quarterly. 18, 298-318. Yin, R. K. (2009). Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Yin, R. (2003). Case study research: Design and methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Kezar, A. (2001). Understanding and facilitating change in higher education in the 21st century. Washington D.C.: ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Reports. Kezar, A., & Eckel, P. (2004, July/August). Meeting today’s governance challenges: A synthesis of the literature and examination of a future agenda for scholarship. The Journal of Higher Education 75(4), 371-399. Klein, J. (1996). Crossing boundaries: Knowledge, disciplinarities, and interdisciplinarities. Charlottesville, VA: The University Press of Virginia. Klein, K., Dansereau, F., & Hall, R. (1994). Levels issues in theory development, datacollection, and analysis. Academy of Management Review, 19, 195-229. Lichtenstein, B., Uhl-Bien, M., Marion, R., Seers, A., Orten, J., & Schreiber, C. (2006). Complexity leadership theory: An interactive perspective on leading in complex adaptive systems. Emergence: Complexity & Organization, 8, 2−12. MacBeath, J., and Townsend, T. (2011) Leadership and learning: paradox, paradigms and principles. In: Townsend, T. and MacBeath, J. (eds.) International Handbook of Leadership for Learning. Series: Springer International Handbooks of Education (25). Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, pp. 1-25. Malhotra, A., Majchrzak, A., Rosen, B. 2007, Leading Virtual Teams, Academy of Management Perspectives, 21,(1), 60-70.

19

Adam Smith Research Foundation College of Social Sciences University of Glasgow 66 Oakfield Avenue Glasgow G12 8LS Tel: +44 (0)141 330 7656 / 3494 email: [email protected] www.glasgow.ac.uk/asrf © University of Glasgow 2013 The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401