Lin Ostrom on Multiple Methods Methodology and Team Work in Academic Research

|Peter Boettke|

 

HT: Jayme Lemke

Comments

[Niko]

Any transcript?

[K Sralla]

Something was stated in this interview, almost in an offhanded way, but it really caught my attention. Lin Ostrom states that in most cases, she did not pre-plan the formation of a collaborative group on purpose, but rather such working groups sometimes sort of spontaneously emerged out of necessity demanded by the pursuit of knowledge. Yet sometimes, these turned out to be extremely productive.

This speaks to a problem I have been thinking about regarding the scientific research that occurs in an idealized "free market" of ideas vs the usually planned research which often occurs in very large public corporations. In the setting of corporate research, most often teams of scientists are assembled by a supervisor or a manager. Too often these end up failing miserably. Yet designed governmental processes within an organization demand that the management structure within the company masterminds the construction of a team of specialists.

My own experience seems to bear out that the most productive collaborations in my career have likewise "just happened", and were governed only by certain shared "values" or work ethic, and a realization that through a division of labor, we might go further than we could be proceeding alone.