Navigating a Process of Integrating Co-Authors’ Diverse Mental Models
15 August 2009 at 10:17 am RussCoff 4 comments
| Russ Coff |
Not long ago, Peter mentioned his heavily downloaded SEJ article (with Nicolai, Yasemin, and Joe). They argue that entrepreneurial teams have a greater potential for competitive advantage than individuals if positive team dynamics allow them to draw upon members’ diverse mental models.
My related working paper unpacks positive team dynamics across the variance generation and selection stages of creativity. In a nutshell, the required group mood differs markedly between the two stages and many teams are unable to navigate the divide.
Ironically, this paper has, itself, been a journey to meld co-authors’ diverse mental models.My excellent co-author, Jill Perry-Smith, is a creativity scholar and has proven to be a terrific tour guide. More importantly, we have been able to open the black box just a bit to understand why entrepreneurial teams vary so much in their creative output. This also sheds some light on what elements of positive team dynamics may be sources of competitive advantage.
I have come away from this project wanting more. We are now examining how the optimal social network structure differs across the two stages. This, I anticipate, will push farther into processes that would be hard to imitate (e.g., without changing the composition of the team).
I believe there are many opportunities to work across such academic boundaries to generate valuable knowledge. However, many of the most elite schools frown upon such endeavors in favor of the mono-disciplinary work that can more easily be published in top Economics and Sociology journals. Even the silos within the Academy of Management contribute to the problem (e.g., strategy scholars can attend 5 days of the conference without seeing their micro colleagues). The trend appears to be gaining steam. As a tenured professor, I can afford the luxury of taking such an interdisciplinary trek but it makes me wonder about the efficacy of the path we are on…
Entry filed under: Austrian Economics, Entrepreneurship, Former Guest Bloggers.
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Organizations and Markets 
1.
srp | 15 August 2009 at 1:42 pm
On a related note, Scott Page, who comes out of an AI/Santa Fe-ish background, has a whole popular book (The Difference) laying out a large number of formal results about when team diversity is good and why. Most of these were originally published (over the last several years) in computer science and engineering journals. In addition, he recently wrote an article summarizing his findings for the Academy of Management Perspectives. Surprisingly, though, few in management seem to have heard of his work.
I agree with your general point that true interdisciplinary work is hard to advance. Given the disciplinary structure of the journals, the best bet strategy may be to present one of the disciplines as a “subcontractor” to the other and publish in the “contractor”s” journal. (I mean let one discipline [the contractor] frame the overall problem and specify one module where the tools of the other discipline (the subcontractor) go one reductionist level deeper but produce outputs in the language of the contractor.) Maybe you could then reverse the roles and get a second publication in the other field!
2.
Rafe Champion | 16 August 2009 at 4:20 pm
Great topic!
A few random thoughts.
There is a great parallel (which Lachmann picked up) between the approach of the Austrian entrepreneur and the Popperian researcher. In each case you are talking about problem-solving in conditions of uncertainty. But not conditions of chaos. The system is held together by two types of regularities (a) the laws that praxeology seeks and (b) traditions and institutions which exert plastic control through time.
The laws constrain what can be done.
Institutions can be changed, hence the scope for creative change (with lots of low-hanging fruit from good changes) but beware of unintended results.
The phases of creativity can be found in Popper’s tetradic scheme that he put about (along with world 3 objective knowledge) after his evolutionary or biological turn circa 1963.
Problem -> Trial Solutions -> Error Elimination -> New Probs
http://www.the-rathouse.com/poptheoryknow.html
Hamming is good on research strategies.
Click to access YouAndYourResearch.pdf
Administrative structures and procedures (institutions and traditions again) can help or hinder entrepreneurs of all kinds, the silo structure creates problems for interdisciplinary work unless people defy the structure and just follow problems where they lead regardless.
Interdisciplinary work probably got a bad name a few decades ago when it became a kind of vogue and peple set up mickey mouse courses and studies called “interdiscipinary” without realising that real interdisciplinary work is forced by following problems, not by exposing people to a mish mash of disciplines.
Etc.
3.
Peter Klein | 17 August 2009 at 10:54 am
Russ, I have seen the mental models of Nicolai, Joe, and Yasemin, I can assure you they are dark and scary places!
Seriously, I do think coauthoring relationships — even within a single academic discipline — provide interesting fodder for discussions of group dynamics. Some commentary and links here:
4.
Russ Coff | 17 August 2009 at 2:59 pm
Murray Davis referred to this as being interesting due to the “reflexive” or self-referential nature of the question. Here is a quote from his 1999 Annual Rev of Sociology article (the 2nd paragraph tells us what Davis is doing when he gets his most creative ideas ;-):
Erving Goffman begins his book Frame Analysis by discussing Prefaces, comments on Prefaces, comments on comments on Prefaces, etc. An infinitely reflexive algorithm like this one can make a theory compelling, for its momentum entices readers to follow it out while its complexity retards their actually doing so.
Marijuana users believe their thoughts are “profound” because each thought seems to have more implications than they can work out. For instance, marijuana can tempt its users to reiterate the reflexivity of metaphysical meditations, motivating the search for ever more inclusive answers:
* Why am I saying this?
* Why am I saying “Why am I saying this?”?
* Why am I saying “Why am I saying `Why am I saying this?’?”? etc.”