Abstract
While many studies of knowledge exchange have been undertaken in private and service organizations, government and R&D enterprises, few have studied scientific inter‐organizational collaborations. Furthermore, in the literature on international networks there has been a tendency to assume that knowledge exchange will be inevitably enhanced by global dispersion. Two linked dynamics deserving further study are the role of geographic proximity and the role of information and communication technologies in facilitating knowledge flow across international networks. Studies of intra‐ and inter‐firm knowledge transfer, managerial work values and cultural norms all point to China as being a fascinating counterpoint for the way knowledge exchange might occur in Europe. So in this study of the ATLAS collaboration, a ‘big science’ global network of 3,500 physicists, we explore the perceptions of two subgroups: UK physicists working in Europe and Chinese scientists based in Beijing and HeFei. Findings from 24 interviews and non‐participant observation reveal that face‐to‐face working at European Organization for Nuclear Research (Geneva) is not without its difficulties, but for a variety of sociocultural reasons, it is primarily the Chinese scientists who perceive themselves to be inhibited from full participation in effective knowledge exchange.
Highlights
Over the past decade, a strand of literature has forcefully proposed that due to globalization and institutional change, businesses that grow in isolation from the world economy are being superseded by universally applicable techniques (e.g. Geppert et al, 2002; Kostova and Roth, 2002; Dicken, 2003; Meyer et al, 2006)
While it is true that all scientists across the 137 national Institutes in the ATLAS collaboration are dedicated to discovering the Higgs’ boson, the passion is especially palpable at CERN: I think the driving thing is everyone’s here because they want to do this experiment, and if that wasn’t the case it would be really difficult to get them to work together
ATLAS appears to exhibit the key tenets of innovation one would expect of path-breaking physics, namely: open access to data supported by leading edge technology, an ethos of sharing not hoarding knowledge based on a built-in necessity of interdependence, peer review as the means to validate and celebrate new knowledge and a close working relationship between the producers and users of this new knowledge
Summary
A strand of literature has forcefully proposed that due to globalization and institutional change, businesses that grow in isolation from the world economy are being superseded by universally applicable techniques (e.g. Geppert et al, 2002; Kostova and Roth, 2002; Dicken, 2003; Meyer et al, 2006). Geppert et al, 2002; Kostova and Roth, 2002; Dicken, 2003; Meyer et al, 2006). They argue that new information and communication technologies (ICTs) have the effect of enhancing the flow of knowledge by blurring nationally distinctive idiosyncracies, not just organizational and institutional, and political and cultural. In the realm of knowledge exchange in international R&D, two questions remain unresolved (Howells and Bessant, 2012). The first concerns the degree to which face-to-face working afforded by geographic proximity is necessary for international networks given the increased sophistication of ICTs to facilitate connectivity across dispersed sites. The first concerns the degree to which face-to-face working afforded by geographic proximity is necessary for international networks given the increased sophistication of ICTs to facilitate connectivity across dispersed sites. Boisot et al (2011) argue that the assumed benefits of technology underplay the political choices of leaders; they maintain that, for all the advantages of common
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