Abstract
The aim of this paper is to analyse the sociocultural dynamics underlying collaborative research. The article is based on an international collaborative project on the everyday lives of working families in Italy, Sweden and the USA. The aim of this paper is to show that collaborative research does not necessarily produce collaboration: this is possible only with very strong rules between partners. It proposes a distinction between collaboration and cooperation, and uses this distinction to examine intergroup and intragroup joint activity. Through the analysis of the communicative exchanges occurring between researchers, the paper highlights conditions in which cooperation can become fruitful collaboration.
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Notes
Center on Everyday Lives of Families.
The Italian and the Swedish unit collected a corpus of data of eight families, and the US group studied 32 families. The three centers have similar goals and criteria for the selection of participants: families were required to be dual-income, homeowners with a monthly mortgage or with a monthly rent and they had to have at least two children living at home, with at least one child between 8 and 12 years of age.
The whole document is reported in the Appendix 1.
In order to show some of these steps, a number of excerpts have been selected from email contacts among the researchers involved in the project. Each excerpt is indicative of specific aspects occurring in the cooperative/collaborative processes.
For practical reasons, we don’t consider here the social activities, even if they are present in the selected excerpts. We think that this kind of activity could be analyzed specifically under a larger cultural perspective.
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Appendix 1: Guidelines for the International Collaborative Enterprise
Appendix 1: Guidelines for the International Collaborative Enterprise
Distinction between Specific Research Projects and Broad Thematic Domains
The suggested guidelines concern collaboration on specific research projects in an effort to sustain strong working relationships across our respective research centers. Research projects involve specific analyses of particular pieces of data that yield insights. Alternatively, thematic domains are simply broad areas such as those depicted by the key terms in our activity logs (e.g. school, bedtime, conflict, discipline, emotion, health, play). Co-authors of research projects have proprietor rights over their co-generated ideas. In contrast, no researcher or group of researchers “owns” a thematic domain.
International Data Corpora
All data that have been collected in research centers outside one’s own university are to be used only in collaboration with researchers from those centers.
Collaboration Etiquette
When researchers commit to a collaborative project, they are expected to adhere to a research time line agreed upon by the collaborative team. Collaborators are expected to be available and communicate on a regular basis to assure project success. Collaborators are expected to inform other members of their research team when they intend to translate or expand upon the collaborative project. Once a collaborative project has been initiated, center directors need to be notified of the collaboration.
International Collaboration Citations and Acknowledgement
Consistent with established academic protocol, international collaborative presentations, working papers, and publications need to explicitly acknowledge in the body of the text and through citation(s) topically relevant Sloan presentations, working papers, and publications.
Co-authorship on Publications and Working Papers
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(a)
International Collaborations Based on Prior Research of One or More Co-authors
When researchers working on a specific project in one center invite researchers in another center to join the project, the names of researcher(s) who initiated the project appear first. This order of co-authors assumes the topic of the project is sustained.
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(b)
International Collaborations Jointly Initiated
Co-authors are to jointly determine order of authors according to contribution.
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(c)
Translations of International Collaborative Research Papers
When a co-author translates a specific collaborative paper, the order of authorship is to be jointly determined by the co-authors and can take into account both the work of translation and new target audience of the paper.
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(d)
Outgrowths of International Collaborative Research Projects
A researcher who builds upon a previous specific collaborative project and takes it in a significantly new direction may be sole author.
Cross-Center Research Updates
For the Sloan conferences, CELF USA/Sweden/Italy all prepared lists of on-going projects in and across our research units. These lists are extremely informative. We propose that we send one another our lists of ongoing projects in the Fall and Spring of the years we are working together.
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Arcidiacono, F. Studying the Practice of Cooperation and Collaboration Within an International Research Project on the Everyday Lives of Families. Integr. psych. behav. 41, 139–153 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-007-9016-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-007-9016-9