The phenomenon of collaboration in a life science network
Journal of Organizational Ethnography
ISSN: 2046-6749
Article publication date: 11 June 2018
Issue publication date: 16 July 2019
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to outline the operative meaning of collaboration in a life science network.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected through participatory observations and interviews between 2014 and 2015. The data presented were derived from field notes from participant observations, interviews and documents within a life science network in the Öresund region (southern part of Sweden and the Copenhagen area).
Findings
The findings suggest that collaboration within the life science network should be viewed as a lively, organizational assembly in the process of becoming, in contrast to the idea that it is operating on the basis of organic principles. Collaboration thus could be viewed as consisting of self-subsistent parts (participants and organizations) that are detached and plugged into different collaborative networks.
Originality/value
In the context of the emerging idea of re-building the state welfare system with the economic support of producing and selling knowledge, there seems to be a growing interest, especially from the point of view of policymakers, in the phenomenon of collaboration. This paper offers exclusive ethnographic illustrations into the heterogeneity of collaboration.
Keywords
Citation
Friberg, T. (2019), "The phenomenon of collaboration in a life science network", Journal of Organizational Ethnography, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 171-184. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOE-03-2017-0013
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited