Research On Interorganizational Scientific Collaboration Process Toward MEGA Project

Research collaboration in the field of science and technology has increased dramatically in the past few decades. Policy makers have realized that multi-institutions’ collaboration has played an important role in large-scale, concentralized government funding multidisciplinary research projects. Although interorganizational scientific collaborations have captured a lot of attentions, sustainment from policies and investments, there still are a lot of unknown and important facets which haven’t been interpreted thoroughly, such as the longitudinal and complicated process, mechanism of multi-organization’s knowledge synergy, evolution of interorganizational network and the evaluation of collaboration effectiveness. In this paper, based on the existing research at home and abroard, a variety of theories and methods are used comprehensively to lucubrate the process of interorganizational scientific collaboration toward mega project, which not only could enrich theories of interorganizational scientific collaboration, but also could provide references for policy makers and scientific practitioners and managers.First, the connotation of interorganizational scientific collaboration is defined, and the essence and characteristics of the process of interorganizational scientific collaboration are illustrated.Secondly, the dynamic nature and complexity of interorganizationl scientific collaboration process was analyzed. The whole process is divided into four stages: foundation stage, formulation stage, sustainment stage, conclusion stage. Based on resource dependence theory, transaction cost theory, and organizational learning theory, various key variables, and typical activities at different stages of scientific collaboration were extracted and explored, so that the relationship and strategies of partners were illuminated.Thirdly, From the view of the dual relationship between partner organizations, the mechanism of knowledge synergy in the process of interorganizational scientific collaboration is explored. The connotation and characteristics of knowledge synergy in the interorganizational scientific collaboration are discussed; Based on theory of self-organization, relational absorptive capacity is determined as the order parameter of knowledge synergy, and its generation and evolution process is depicted; the operation distribution model of bas is proposed, and the micro-process of knowledge synergy in single ba is depicted, the mechanism of ba system ’s knowledge synergy as well as the dominating function of relational absorptive capacity are explained by the lights of self-organized criticality theory; By the lights of longitudinal case study method, knowledge synergy in the process of a major scientific and technological project is analyzed.Fourthly, generation and evolution of interorganizational network are depicted and explored. The generating resourse and substantive charicteristics of interorganizational network are revealed; Three key facors, knowledge interaction, qualities of collaborative agents, collaboration costs are interpreted, as a result, four motive forces of network evolution are extracted; The connotations of every stage in the evolution of interorganizational network if illuminated, with the analysis of influencing effects of four motive forces; through an empirical analysis of interorganizational network in a "973" project, the laws and characteristics of network evolving process are verified from two aspects, changing of whole structure and changing roles of all nodes.Fifthly, based on effectiveness theory, the construct of effectiveness of interorganizational scientific collaboration process is proposed, and the dimension structure of this construct is established through literature review and in-depth interviews, including four dimentions: collaboration basis, collaboration regulations, collaboration content, and collaboration results, and each dimension contains certain sub-dimensions; exloratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis are carried out to test the whole compositon dimensions, and results show that effectiveness of interorganizational scientific collaboration process is a complex construct containing three layers.Finally, taking the dimension structure of effectiveness of interorganizational scientific collaboration process as assessment indicator system, the connotations of indicators are explained; for outsiders could hardly obtain the true circumstances of scientific collaboration, the collaborators’ views are decided as the assessment angle, and multi-agents comprehensive assessment approach is designated as the optimal assessment method; the feasibility of the method is tested and proved in a scientific collaboration case; the promotion strategies to improve effectiveness of interorganizational scientific collaboration process are put forward.