Radical innovation: crossing knowledge boundaries with ...

eorganisation of new research” (Rhoten 2007:6). Rhoten argues that this is because
of a lack of ‘systematic implementation’ within research institutions to provide
incentives or rewards for interdisciplinary research. However, Rhoten’s paper is
exemplary of academic reflections on interdisciplinarity in general insofar as the
substantial page space devoted to explaining the difference between juxtaposition and
integration belies a lack of discussion about what integration might consist of in terms
of actual disciplinary transformations, how individual researchers might go about
identifying and combining these different knowledges, and what value this notion of
integration might have for those researchers.
12.5. Interdisciplinary processes: commercial and technical
success
The above criticisms point to the importance of understanding the actual processes of
knowledge production as they occur on a day-to-day basis in order to avoid
abstracting interdisciplinarity as an index of innovation and end in itself. While
theoretical models of multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity are
subject to the above criticisms in that they tend to be directive without specifying how
collaborations might be made to occur in practice, some examples of empirical
research into interdisciplinary research methodologies can be found in the fields of
science and technology and management studies. These examples often consist of the
kind of ‘problem solving’ contexts for which a ‘management model’ of combining
and ordering different knowledges might be valuable. In the field of science and
technology, for example, Lakhani et al. conducted research into the success of an
internet site that advertised scientific problems which individuals, disciplinary groups,
or particular firms had been unable to solve (Lakhani et al. 2007). Financial rewards
were offered to any individual or group who provided an adequate solution to the
problem within a specific time frame. Lakhani et al. found that successful problem
solvers were more likely to come from a discipline or field distinct from the problem
advertised. 72.5 % of those with winning solutions also stated that their submissions
were partially or fully based on previously developed solutions that they had reapplied
to this new field (Lakhani et al. 2007:9). The authors therefore conclude that
“openness and access to information about problems between fields thus appears to be
important for scientific progress and is systematically achieved through problem
broadcasting and openness” (12).
In an article on the importance and challenges of transferring knowledge across
disciplines when science and technology are becoming increasingly specialised,
Kostoff outlines a method for facilitating interdisciplinary research (Kostoff 1999).
Kostoff argues that research should combine interdisciplinary workshops along with
the assessment of linked literatures. Workshops would involve experts from different
disciplines and would focus on specific central themes in order to provide a common
thread from which innovative thought might arise. Examining relationships between
linked or overlapping literatures would enable researchers to see when a discovery in
one field might be applied to another.
Innovation and Interdisciplinarity 106