Interdisciplinary Problem Solving in Hybrid Organizations: The Implications of Scientific Reputation and Disciplinary Knowledge Diversity

This research extends the problem-solving perspective of the knowledge-based view by examining the interdisciplinary publication outcomes of individual scientists in hybrid organizations. Whereas prior literature has focused on problem-solving activities in hierarchies (firms), hybrid organizations, including federally funded research programs involving interdisciplinary science, have emerged to address societal issues ranging from public health to climate change. To understand what might contribute to scientists’ performance in such hybrid settings, in this article, we theorize and empirically examine how scientists’ overall scientific reputation and their access to and familiarity with various disciplinary knowledge domains influence their publication output in interdisciplinary journals. We focus specifically on 169 researchers in the eight Nanomedicine Development Centers funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Our analysis reveals that scientists’ scientific reputation is positively related to their subsequent number of publications in interdisciplinary journals. However, scientists’ disciplinary knowledge diversity has a more nuanced association with their number of interdisciplinary publications, contributing more when moderate than when high or low. These findings will help hybrid organizations such as universities and research institutes understand how individual attributes contribute to interdisciplinary research.