Complex collaboration in data-intensive health science
Data-intensive biotechnologies such as genomics and proteomics in biomedical sciences have immensely increased our ability to generate data on an unprecedented scale. Twenty-first century healthcare and life sciences are experiencing a “data deluge” from these high-throughput “Omics” biotechnologies. We are facing the challenges of exponential growth in data volume and variety, generated daily through massively parallel studies of biological pathways. These developments have garnered international attention as seen in the recent release of policy reports about “Science as Open Enterprise” (2012) by the Royal Society, London, UK, and a “National Bioeconomy Blueprint” (2012) by the United States White House. An important focus of these reports is a new form of scientific inquiry, data-intensive massively collaborative science, understood as a rapidly emerging research paradigm that firmly depends on a data commons or “infrastructure science”, and inseparable from the classic “discovery science”.
Healthcare research in 21st century is increasingly data-intensive in nature. A key example is the field of genomics that has transformed
towards collective innovation due to the increasing ability of researchers to
share and pool their genomic databases.The reduced cost of IT databases and data
mining software has further reduced the cost and threshold of collaboration in genomics-driven health
research.As we move from a science
where data collection was a major challenge and an essential locus of the
scientific endeavor to one where data collection is automated or at least made
easier and is available in digital form, there is a need to understand the new
collaborative possibilities that emerge.
In collaboration with colleagues at the Department of
Human Genetics at McGill, we have initiated an innovative program of research
to understand how data-intensive science is helping spark global health innovation
and evaluating how these new ways of conducting data-intensive health science are creating knowledge ecologies and collective innovation via large consortia and international
health collaborations. Among the key issues we are studying:
·As we move from classical Edisonian model of
science to a more collective one, how do we develop complex collaboration
schemes that support and sustain personalized medicine and the new field of theranostics (convergence of therapeutics and diagnostics research), and postgenomics life sciences more broadly?
·Vaccinomics represents the current entry of
data-intensive ‘Omics’ health technologies such as genomics to the practice of
classical vaccinology. What forms of complex collaboration, organizing, reward
structures and collaborative norms will enable collective action to translate
vaccinomics to 21st century vaccines?
·Collective innovation in post-genomic science
offers the promise of novel diagnostics as well as customized drug
therapies.How do we support collective
innovation in the data-enabled sciences?Are consortia and new open science initiatives the best way to proceed?
·Biomedical science in the 21st
century is embedded in, and draws from, a digital commons created by
data-intensive Omics technologies such as genomics and proteomics.We are currently initiating fieldwork to explore
whether the new data-intensive science is adapting basic organizing principles,
norms, and rewards from collective action. We will further explore the impact
of consortia, data repositories, and new collaborative tools on scientific
output and research coordination.
Please see our publications
page for published papers on this topic
Complex collaboration in knowledge and high reliability teams
The issues of how teams integrate and coordinate their
resident expertise, manage knowledge across their team boundaries, generate
novel solutions, and are lead to ensure high team performance is an
increasingly important issue.While much
is known about how to create teams and ensure their performance, much of the
literature is based on team design and social psychological processes.
Because our research focuses on teams where expertise is
distributed or that need to operate in high reliability settings, we take a
knowledge perspective and focus on expertise sharing and knowledge processes
and their link to team outcomes. We use a range of methods in our studies
ranging from survey methods, network analysis, and in depth qualitative
analysis of team practices.
Our research on complex collaboration in knowledge teams has
focused on answering some of the following questions:
·What
practices do medical teams at a leading trauma center engage in to ensure the
timely availability of expertise and to effectively manage unexpected events
while maintaining patient safety?
·In the
age of teamwork, how do knowledge teams members manage their boundaries? Using
data from 64 teams, we have shown how effective knowledge teams engage in
boundary work in the form of boundary spanning, buffering, and reinforcement to
generate team performance and ensure psychological safety.
·What
leadership style works best for knowledge teams? Looking at software
development teams, we have found that an empowering leadership style works best
compared to a more directive one for team performance.
·How do
knowledge differences and lack of familiarity impede the work of
cross-functional teams that need to integrate expertise and generate creative
solutions rapidly?We identify how such teams
were able to co-generate a solution without needing to identify, elaborate, and
confront differences and dependencies between the specialty areas.
·Given
the varied demands on medical specialists, how do trauma centers ensure the
coordination and availability of specialists when trauma teams are activated?
·What is
the impact of expertise distribution in a team on performance? Building on
innovative team network analysis, we have found that for different kinds of
expertise the link with team performance is more complex than generally
accepted.
·How do
team members and leaders assess the expertise of others and integrate knowledge
when collaborating in complex multidisciplinary projects? Our qualitative study
of the phenomena identifies some emergent strategies.
Please see ourpublicationspage for published papers on this topic
Complex collaboration and innovation in online communities
Computer
networks have enabled the development of new organizational forms of working,
coordinating, and sharing knowledge both within and outside organizational
boundaries. Much attention has recently
been generated by the phenomena of “Web 2.0” or “social media” as a new form of
organizing that spans between hierarchy and markets and that relies on computer
networks for coordination and collaboration.
Thus, this new form of organizing allows novel forms of collaboration to
emerge and to be sustained. For us, this
new connectivity strengthens complex collaboration within teams and
organizations, but also allows the emergence of online communities where
individuals, with little familiarity with each other, come together to discuss
a shared practice.
Why people go out of their
way to help others whom they do not know, or may not even share a common
organizational identity with, is a major open question for organizational
research.Are generalized reciprocity and preferential attachment the mechanisms that
avoid the tragedy of the commons in line with the perspective advanced by Nobel
prize winner’s Eleanor Ostrom on how to avoid the tragedy of the commons in
public good settings? Our work
has specifically engaged the following questions:
·How do
we conceptualize collaborations in online communities and what are the tensions
that need to be managed in order for knowledge sharing to be fostered?
·Using sophisticated statistical analysis as well as
simulation, we have demonstrated that social exchange mechanisms (reciprocity
and generalized exchange) explain the structure of online community
participation better than the currently dominant preferential attachment
mechanism.
· Using data
from a North American legal association, we have measured the role of social
capital in promoting knowledge exchange in electronic networks of practice.
·What are the affordances and disaffordances of
social media for knowledge sharing? A
forthcoming CMC paper presents some surprising challenges.
·We know
little about leadership in online communities.
What are the predictors of leadership in online settings focused on
knowledge exchange? Do the emergent
leaders occupy certain kinds of network positions? Do they behave differently?
Do they use semantic strategies at odds with the general discourse in the
community?
·How do
we improve knowledge sharing in teams? Is it from making available knowledge
sources or is it by having access to trusted experts? Building on an in-depth
field study, we open up the black box of the knowledge transformation processes
used by individuals in knowledge work and suggest that they depend not only on
the type of knowledge source but also task novelty.
Please see ourpublicationspage for published papers on this topic
Complex collaboration around
technology’s materiality, evolution, and appropriation
How does technology emerge,
evolve, gets appropriated, and intertwines with the actions of organizational
actors?These broad and stubborn
questions have been of interest to many organizational scholars.Here is how we approach these questions:
·How do
core web technologies evolve and dominant designs win? Using historical data
regarding the birth and evolution of the web browser and online search, we
examine technology frames, complex collaborations and alliances, and features
inscribed in artifacts to offer an evolutionary model of technology development.
·What
strategies are most effective for firms to utilize when competing on the
web? What kind of partnering portfolio
should be used to sustain growth? Using
historic data to compare Yahoo and Google, we identify the essential mechanisms and value-creation logics linking
partnering portfolios to differences in firm growth.
·If we
free ourselves from the features lens imposed by vendors and the technology as
external object perspective, can we
offer new insight on technology? We
offer a relational theory of technology affordances that emphasizes the how
materiality becomes intertwined with human agency.
·How do
we make sense of changes in Internet technology leadership when economic
theories emphasize the importance of lock-in and network externalities as
providing an imposing advantage to first movers? Using historic data from the evolution of the
browser and search engines, we have developed alternative explanations as to
why technology leadership changes.
·The
appropriation of complex information technologies in large organizations often
takes place over years. The line between
design and implementation is seldom clear and institutional constraints are at
play. We have developed multiple papers
exploring the contest over computerization’s meaning during technology
implementation.
Please see ourpublicationspage for published papers on this topic
Complex collaboration surrounding Health IT
Health IT is often presented as a necessary and important component for reforming health care. Yet, much evidence has emerged as to the challenges present in the appropriation of such technologies.The implementation of HIT is often challenged by complex interfacing issues with other medical systems and patient data inconsistencies, disruptions to work flows, or even failure due to the HIT system’s inability to accommodate the variety of physician practices.
The GCC carefully studies the process of implementation and change as it unfolds using a combination of research methods. We are currently working on the following studies:
·An implementation of an open source(free) Electronic Medical Record (EMR) in Montreal where we are following the work of multiple clinics including an urgent care center.Our emergent findings are focused on workarounds, the impact on patient care, and coordination across specialties.
·We are finishing a study of 3 ambulatory-care clinics implementing a large commercial HIT solution.The clinics differ in terms of population served and local practices. We explorehowandwhysome healthcare service practices became globalized while some remained localized.
Please see ourpublicationspage for published papers on this topic