Interdisciplinary Research Agenda Research Articles

Analyzing the role of social value in megaprojects: toward a new performance framework

Purpose Megaprojects stimulate and challenge public opinion across countries, generating extensive reactions from citizens. Given their ability to attract public attention, they may also influence public participation in collective choices and political decision-making. These issues are relevant for evaluating projects, but are unfortunately rarely discussed in the managerial literature. This study aims to open up a debate on social issues and how they could be taken into account within management studies. Design/methodology/approach This study carried out a systematic review of the literature on the social impact of megaprojects to identify different research areas related to the evaluation of megaprojects from a social perspective. Findings This study identified three different research areas related to the evaluation of megaprojects from a social perspective: the role of power and social issues; infrastructure and social space; and stakeholder engagement and endorsement. Originality/value This paper underlines the need to go beyond current understanding of the social impacts of megaprojects and calls for a more interdisciplinary research agenda.

The Sociological Implications of Climate Change: Community Adaptation and Resilience

Purpose: The general objective of the study was to explore the sociological implications of climate change, that is, community adaptation and resilience. Methodology: The study adopted a desktop research methodology. Desk research refers to secondary data or that which can be collected without fieldwork. Desk research is basically involved in collecting data from existing resources hence it is often considered a low cost technique as compared to field research, as the main cost is involved in executive’s time, telephone charges and directories. Thus, the study relied on already published studies, reports and statistics. This secondary data was easily accessed through the online journals and library. Findings: The findings reveal that there exists a contextual and methodological gap relating to the sociological implications of climate change. Preliminary empirical review revealed that sociological perspectives are crucial for understanding and addressing climate change challenges. It emphasized the significance of social capital, participatory approaches, and context-specific strategies in enhancing community resilience. By examining the interplay between social dynamics, power relations, and adaptive capacities, the study highlighted the importance of addressing socio-economic disparities and fostering collaboration among diverse stakeholders. Overall, it underscored the need for holistic and transformative approaches to climate change adaptation that integrate social, ecological, and economic dimensions. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The Social Capital theory, Risk Society theory and Ecological Modernization theory may be used to anchor future studies on the sociological implications of climate change. The study provided valuable recommendations that contributed to theory, practice, and policy. It emphasized the integration of sociological perspectives into climate change adaptation, highlighting the role of social networks, cultural norms, and power dynamics. Practical implications included advocating for community-based approaches, participatory decision-making, and knowledge co-production activities. At the policy level, the study underscored the importance of mainstreaming social considerations into climate change policy frameworks, promoting equity and participatory governance. Recommendations for future research included exploring socio-economic drivers of vulnerability, conducting longitudinal studies, and advancing interdisciplinary research agendas to inform evidence-based strategies for building resilient communities.

559 Ideation Jams: Catalyzing Interdisciplinary Teams to Maximize Research Impact

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: There is broad recognition that interdisciplinary research teams are uniquely suited to address complex research questions. At the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research, we recognized a significant gap in support services at the University of Michigan for coordinating interdisciplinary teams to advance translational research. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: The initial team science challenge we tackled was how to bring together cross-disciplinary groups, for the first time, to engage meaningfully and collaboratively with a ‘wicked’ problem of interest and create a shared vision. To address this, we developed Ideation Jams, which are facilitated experiences that help new groups build community, identify and prioritize research opportunities, determine how individual interests and other potential partners align with opportunities, and commit to next steps that will advance collaborative efforts. Ideation Jams leverage the methods and mindsets of design thinking, including divergence and convergence; making information visual; amplifying diversity; horizontal distribution of responsibility; and bias towards action. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: We have facilitated 11 Ideation Jams with 255 participants, including faculty, staff, health practitioners, and community members, who brought diverse expertise and insight to the research problems. Participant feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with Ideation Jams fostering shared vision and innovation, and positively impacting various measures related to team performance. Participants have reported that Ideation Jams catalyzed various outcomes, including submission and award of grants, the introduction of new and specialized clinical offerings, and development of an interdisciplinary research agenda for their field of interest. Most recently, we trained representatives from five Clinical & Translational Science Award hubs to implement Ideation Jams at their universities. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Ideation Jams are ideal for mobilizing new groups around complex research problems, moving them from blue-sky thinking to action planning in three hours. Ideation Jams will be integrated into a suite of facilitated experiences, trainings, and grant development services to provide iterative support as teams advance their research priorities.

Participatory modeling for collaborative landscape and environmental planning: From potential to realization

Participatory modeling is a collaborative approach to formalize shared representations of a problem and, through the joint modeling process, design, and test solutions. This approach is particularly well-suited to address complex socio-environmental problems like climate change and its implications on equitable and sustainable resource management and landscape planning. Despite its potential to inform landscape and environmental planning and policy, participatory modeling has yet to become a mainstream practice in our field. The reasons are several. First, it is hard to standardize the approach, as it must be heavily tailored to the characteristics and context of each planning problem, including the stakeholders engaged in the process. It is also onerous, requiring long-term commitment and a broad range of skills that can only be attained through extensive training and collaboration. These and other barriers are currently being addressed with a resurgence of knowledge co-production and ethical participation in scholarship, in practice, and in funding agendas. While most of the participatory modeling scholarship has focused on modeling tools and engagement techniques, multiple other dimensions must be recognized and articulated for impactful planning support. Grounding this perspective on a more fully integrated picture of participatory modeling, I identify some of these gaps and suggest an interdisciplinary research agenda to further evolve and scale up this practice for landscape and environmental planning and policy. The agenda highlights aspects of interface design and model biases, value elicitation and inclusion, management of diversity and innovation through facilitation, and the potential of novel computer-assisted assessment methodologies.

Representing personal and common futures: Insights and new connections between the theory of social representations and the pragmatic sociology of engagements

AbstractTo understand social issues and practices such as those related to climate change and technological change that are clearly future‐oriented – collectively experienced events that are “not yet” – and co‐constructed by different actors, we need nuanced conceptualizations of how people think about, negotiate and co‐create futures that allow us to understand not only what people (can) think and do about future‐related issues but also how that happens, what for and with which implications. However, so far, one of the key theoretical approaches that has conceptualised how people make meaning in situations of change and uncertainty – the socio‐psychological social representations theory (SRT) – has not often engaged with the future or with different forms of temporality. By contrast, the French pragmatic sociology of engagements and critique (PS) has engaged with these notions, conceptualising them in relation to materiality and a plurality of moral orientations – two dimensions often seen as key to how collective futures are made and imagined. To offer a more nuanced and systematic conceptualization of how people represent the future and with what consequences, this paper will present, compare and synthesise SRT and PS, as a first step towards an interdisciplinary research agenda on social change and representations of the future.

Collective Creativity and Innovation: An Interdisciplinary Review, Integration, and Research Agenda

Collective creativity and innovation are key determinants of various important outcomes ranging from competitiveness of an organization to GDP growth of a country. As a result, this topic has attracted widespread scholarly interest from different disciplines, including strategic management, entrepreneurship, production and operations management, information systems, marketing, organizational behavior, sociology, economics, and psychology. However, this research remained isolated within disciplinary boundaries, which presents a major barrier for knowledge accumulation and cross-disciplinary learning. In this review, building on a new taxonomy of collectivity, we develop an integrative framework that organizes and synthesizes the fragmented research on the topic. The framework shows how antecedents related to the cognitive, social, and organizational architecture of a collective impact innovation depending on the collectivity type: attention-based, divergence-based, and convergence-based collectives. As a whole, our framework builds an integrative understanding of drivers of collective creativity and innovation and sets the stage for further theory development by facilitating communication across different disciplines. We conclude our review with an agenda for future research.

Demystifying neurotourism: An interdisciplinary approach and research agenda

The academic discourse surrounding tourism's interdisciplinary approach has long piqued the interest of the scholarly community. More recently, attention has pivoted towards the intersection of neuroscience and neuromarketing within the realm of tourism, giving rise to the concept of “neurotourism”. This emergence requires a comprehensive elucidation of the relevance of neuromarketing and neuroscience to the field of tourism, thereby addressing the imperative to bridge existing knowledge gaps. In light of this, the present paper endeavours to fulfil this objective by synthesizing global research in this domain. The study adopts an interdisciplinary approach, employing a hybrid systematic review methodology that encompasses a literature review encompassing nine key indicators and a bibliometric analysis through co-word analysis of author keywords. In total, our investigation unearthed 45 papers from Scopus, each exploring the application of neuroscience and neuromarketing theories and methods within the context of tourism. Among these, three papers delve into the concept of neurotourism. In this paper, we underscore the deep connection between neuroscience, neuroscientific methodologies, and neuromarketing within the realm of tourism research. The outcomes of this research significantly enhance our comprehension of the current state of neurotourism research, revealing both existing voids and emerging areas of interest. Furthermore, this study introduces a pioneering methodological approach, fusing Scival topic prominence and hybrid systematic review techniques into bibliometric analysis. Ultimately, our findings illuminate a notable research lacuna, presenting a fertile terrain for prospective investigations. Additionally, we deliberate on current trends and propose directions for future research within the neurotourism landscape.

Interdisciplinary challenges associated with rapid response in the food supply chain

Purpose This paper aims to explore the interdisciplinary nature of coordination challenges in the logistic response to food safety incidents while distinguishing the food supply chain positions involved. Design/methodology/approach This adopts an exploratory qualitative research approach over a period of 11 years. Multiple research periods generated 38 semi-structured interviews and 2 focus groups. All data is analysed by a thematic analysis. Findings The authors identified four key coordination challenges in the logistics response to food safety incidents: first, information quality (sharing information and the applied technology) appears to be seen as the biggest challenge for the response; second, more emphasis on external coordination focus is required; third, more extensive emphasis is needed on the proactive phase in the logistic response; fourth, a distinct difference exists in the position’s views on coordination in the food supply chain. Furthermore, the data supports the interdisciplinary nature as disciplines such as operations management, strategy and organisation but also food safety and risk management, have to work together to align a rapid response, depending on the incident’s specifics. Research limitations/implications The paper shows the need for comprehensively reviewing and elaborating on the research gap in coordination decisions for the logistic response to food safety incidents while using the views of the different supply chain positions. The empirical data indicates the interdisciplinary nature of these coordination decisions, supporting the need for more attention to the interdisciplinary food research agenda. The findings also indicate the need for more attention to organisational learning, and an open and active debate on exploratory qualitative research approaches over a long period of time, as this is not widely used in supply chain management studies. Practical implications The results of this paper do not present a managerial blueprint but can be helpful for practitioners dealing with aspects of decision-making by the food supply chain positions. The findings help practitioners to systematically go through all phases of the decision-making process for designing an effective logistic response to food safety incidents. Furthermore, the results provide insight into the distinct differences in views of the supply chain positions on the coordination decision-making process, which is helpful for managers to better understand in what phase(s) and why other positions might make different decisions. Social implications The findings add value for the general public, as an effective logistic response contributes to consumer’s trust in food safety by creating more transparency in the decisions made during a food safety incident. As food sources are and will remain essential for human existence, the need to contribute to knowledge related to aspects of food safety is evident because it will be impossible to prevent all food safety incidents. Originality/value As the main contribution, this study provides a systematic and interdisciplinary understanding of the coordination decision-making process for the logistic response to food safety incidents while distinguishing the views of the supply chain positions.

Algorithmic Warfare: Taking Stock of a Research Programme

ABSTRACT This article takes stock of the ongoing debates on algorithmic warfare in the social sciences. It seeks to equip scholars in International Relations and beyond with a critical review of both the empirical context of algorithmic warfare and the different theoretical approaches to studying practices related to the integration of algorithms (including automated, autonomous, and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies) into international armed conflict. The review focuses on discussions about (1) the implications of algorithmic warfare for strategic stability, (2) the morality and ethics of algorithmic warfare, (3) how algorithmic warfare relates to the laws and norms of war, and (4) popular imaginaries of algorithmic warfare. The article foregrounds a set of open research questions capable of moving the field toward a more interdisciplinary research agenda, as well as by introducing the contributions made by other articles in this Special Issue.

ML-Based Teaching Systems: A Conceptual Framework

As the shortage of skilled workers continues to be a pressing issue, exacerbated by demographic change, it is becoming a critical challenge for organizations to preserve the knowledge of retiring experts and pass it on to novices. While this knowledge transfer has traditionally occurred through personal interaction, it lacks scalability and requires significant resources and time. IT-based teaching systems have addressed this scalability issue, but their development is still tedious and time-consuming. In this work, we investigate the potential of machine learning (ML) models to facilitate knowledge transfer in an organizational context, leading to more cost-effective IT-based teaching systems. Through a systematic literature review, we examine key concepts, themes, and dimensions to understand better and design ML-based teaching systems. To do so, we capture and consolidate the capabilities of ML models in IT-based teaching systems, inductively analyze relevant concepts in this context, and determine their interrelationships. We present our findings in the form of a review of the key concepts, themes, and dimensions to understand and inform on ML-based teaching systems. Building on these results, our work contributes to research on computer-supported cooperative work by conceptualizing how ML-based teaching systems can preserve expert knowledge and facilitate its transfer from SMEs to human novices. In this way, we shed light on this emerging subfield of human-computer interaction and serve to build an interdisciplinary research agenda.

Mainstreaming civic tech and citizen sensing: a research agenda on co-creation methods, data interfaces, and impact pathways

In this perspective article, we propose an interdisciplinary research agenda that addresses citizen science approaches embedded in civic tech initiatives and citizen sensing scenarios. The proposed agenda builds on the multi-level perspective framework (Geels, 2004; Geels, 2019) to inform research on how such ‘niche innovations’ like citizen sensing become mainstreamed in broader socio-technical systems and modes of governance. To support research across use case scenarios and make analyses more comparable internationally, we identify three core areas of interdisciplinary future research and practice development: 1) uses of co-creation methods to develop project objectives and align stakeholders; 2) designs of interfaces for gathering, communicating, and archiving civic data for different types of users; and 3) modeling impact pathways of individual projects that include civic tech activists and citizen scientists, academic researchers, journalists, and policymakers. For impact pathways, we highlight the importance of collaborations with data-driven approaches in journalism.

Research on coupled socio‐ecohydrological systems—implementing a highly integrative and interdisciplinary research agenda in the Doctoral School “Human River Systems in the 21st Century (HR21)”

AbstractThe access to an adequate quantity and quality of water is vital to sustain healthy ecosystems and human socioeconomic development. However, the shift from an agrarian, solar energy based to an industrialized, fossil fuel‐based socio‐metabolic regime has put natural water resources under stress and led to dramatic transformations of riverine landscapes in the Anthropocene. Thus, we need interdisciplinary research approaches that integrate the knowledge and methods from ecology, humanities, and engineering. The Doctoral School “Human River Systems in the 21st Century” (HR21) studies riverine landscapes as coupled socio‐ecohydrological systems (SEHS) within four research clusters, that is, connectivity, metabolism, vulnerability, and governance. HR21 analyzes the transformation processes and coevolution of nature and society in rivers and their response to future environmental, social, cultural, and economic drivers of change. HR21 aims to improve the understanding of the coupling of the socioeconomic, ecological, and hydrological systems within industrialized riverine landscapes to support their urgent, more sustainable transformation. To discuss how this agenda can be implemented, five different HR21 PhD projects are presented, clearly routed in one scientific domain, applying a combination of the research clusters and addressing various topics: (i) hydropower effects in high alpine river ecosystems, (ii) wastewater impacts on carbon storage and greenhouse gas fluxes in tropical wetlands, (iii) the nutrient retention and ecosystem service potential of floodplains in large river catchments, and the influence of hydrometeorological variables on (iv) the runoff response and on (v) the transit time distribution of runoff, both impacting water resource management at the basin level. These examples highlight how disciplinary PhD research can be framed within an interdisciplinary research agenda to coupled SEHS.

Consumer cynicism: Interdisciplinary hybrid review and research agenda

AbstractOver the years, consumers have been questioning the intentions and actions of firms, resulting in a cynical attitude and behaviour. Due to the severity of the outcomes that cynical consumers may display, reputed journals and prolific researchers have addressed the core issue in their own unique ways. However, no single study offers a uniform, comprehensive, and contemporary review of consumer cynicism literature. Thus, we use an interdisciplinary approach to study the literature spanning 47 years (1976–2022) on cynicism in consumer research, psychology, and organizational domains through a hybrid review involving bibliometric and systematic literature reviews. Following the SPAR‐4‐SLR protocol, this review shows the most cited and co‐cited articles, researchers, and keywords in cynicism research. We infer that the consumer cynicism construct draws heavily from the organizational behaviour area, possessing the potential to be correlated with, and extended to interdisciplinary research. Also, we offer an all‐inclusive model of the predictors and predictands of consumer cynicism based on the ADO‐TCM framework. We close this study with its academic contributions, practical implications, and future research directions using the ADO‐TCM framework.

Loss and Damage from Climate Change: Knowledge Gaps and Interdisciplinary Approaches

Loss and damage from climate change have risen to a prominent position on the international agenda. At COP27 in 2022, the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ratified a decision to establish a loss and damage fund to compensate low- and middle-income countries that are suffering negative impacts from climate change. The fund is meant to address the Global Adaptation Gap, which describes the rising cost of adaptation needed to cope with climate change impacts due to delayed action to curb greenhouse gas emissions and remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. This essay highlights issues around loss and damage from climate change from a variety of natural and social science perspectives. From three months of discussions, an interdisciplinary perspective and research agenda on this topic have crystallised, which is outlined here. Given that the implementation of the loss and damage fund still needs negotiation and commitment from signatories to the UNFCCC, it is timely now to address some important knowledge gaps on how loss and damage can be measured, quantified, valued, understood, communicated, and adapted to. Hence, it is necessary to understand the complex interactions between people, politics, nature, and climate in this interdisciplinary context.

Degrowth vs. Green Growth. A Computational Review and Interdisciplinary Research Agenda

Degrowth vs. Green Growth. A Computational Review and Interdisciplinary Research Agenda

To boldly go where no one has gone before: a critical realist approach to space accounting

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how critical realism can be mobilised as a meta-theory, or philosophical under-labourer, for research on space accounting and how this may further inquiries into the known as well as the unknown implications of space exploration and commercialisation.Design/methodology/approachThis is a conceptual paper that applies critical realism to the field of space accounting using cost management in space contracts as an illustrative example.FindingsAdopting a naturalised version of critical realism that recognises the complex interplay between natural and social realities, the author nuances the distinction between intransitive and transitive objects of knowledge and advances a framework that may be used as a starting point for a transfactual mode of reasoning. The author then applies this mode of reasoning to the topic of cost management in the space sector and illustrates how it may enhance our insights into what causes cost overruns in space contracts.Research limitations/implicationsBy adopting a naturalised version of critical realism, the author establishes a philosophical framework that can support the broadly based, inter-disciplinary research agenda that has been envisaged for research on space accounting and possibly inform policy development.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to apply a critical realist perspective to space accounting and lays a philosophical foundation for future research on the topic.

The academic landscape of sustainability in management literature: Towards a more interdisciplinary research agenda

AbstractSustainability research is vast and complex, making it difficult to grasp the big picture. To help researchers understand the field better, we created a comprehensive knowledge map of sustainability in management literature by utilising citation‐based clustering and text mining techniques to analyse 25,737 sustainability‐related papers across 22 academic disciplines, as categorised by the Chartered Association of Business Schools (ABS)'s Academic Journal Guide. We identify 23 research streams, with the top three being corporate social responsibility, operations & supply chain and tourism. Each research stream has varying degrees of definition coverage, levels of analysis, levels of interdisciplinarity and connections to the 17 United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Goals #9, #10, #12 and #13 receive more attention than Goals #3, #14 and #15. Our findings suggest a need for more interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers, and we propose four research directions to achieve this.

The future of deaf tourism studies: An interdisciplinary research agenda

In this conceptual paper we aim to provide a critical interdisciplinary theorisation of deafness from phenomenological and post-phenomenological perspectives. We argue that in studies of tourists' embodied experiences, the sonorities of travel have been rarely explored. We suggest that a consideration of the role of sound, and by extension deafness, within tourism studies can lead to a more nuanced and critical approach to the multiplicity of sensory capabilities that are exercised in tourists' experiences of travel. We conclude with a proposed research agenda for deaf tourism studies that reconsiders epistemological and technological approaches. Overall, we seek to contribute to current debates in tourism predicated on understanding “deafnesses” across time and space.

Looking back to look forward: Reflections from networked research on energy poverty.

Energy poverty is a far-reaching concept that intrinsically bridges numerous fields of study, ranging from engineering to anthropology and medical science to social psychology. The profound implications of energy poverty on the quality of life globally have also led to a wide range of metrics and policies aimed at measuring it and alleviating it, albeit with limited success. Using a mixed methods approach, our network has conducted research to advance knowledge and interpretations of energy poverty and boost scientific outputs' capacity to shape knowledge-based policies. In this article, we critically review this extensive research endeavor, as well as its results. We build on the conceptual, methodological, and policy dimensions of energy poverty research to set up pathways toward a new, interdisciplinary research and policy agenda on energy poverty mitigation better equipped to provide meaningful answers to the challenges posed by the current ongoing energy crisis.

Increased Utilization of Storm Surge Barriers: A Research Agenda on Estuary Impacts

AbstractRising coastal flood risk and recent disasters are driving interest in the construction of gated storm surge barriers worldwide, with current studies recommending barriers for at least 11 estuaries in the United States alone. Surge barriers partially block estuary‐ocean exchange with infrastructure across an estuary or its inlet and include gated areas that are closed only during flood events. They can alter the stratification and salt intrusion, change sedimentary systems, and curtail animal migration and ecosystem connectivity, with impacts growing larger with increasing gate closures. Existing barriers are being used with increasing frequency due to sea level rise. New barrier proposals typically come with maximum closure frequency recommendations, yet the future adherence to them is uncertain. Given that the broader environmental effects and coupled‐human dynamics of surge barriers are not well‐understood, we present an interdisciplinary research agenda for this increasingly prevalent modification to our coastal zone.