How do working cultures affect research?
The Berlin Science Survey shows that a cooperative working environment has a positive effect on productivity and innovativeness. After all, 72% of the scientists surveyed in the Berlin research area work in such cooperative work cultures. Unfortunately, there are also indications that 28% of the respondents work in rather problematic contexts, where there is a risk that research will suffer.
Ideally, work cultures are designed in such a way that they have positive effects on the research process, promote innovation and minimize the risks of negative effects on research results and research quality. In the Berlin Science Survey, work cultures were surveyed in order to examine their connection to other characteristics of research. Research culture is as the type of collaboration in the immediate working environment of scientists. In order to capture and differentiate between these, several characteristics of collaboration were surveyed in a battery of items, including principles of distribution when dealing with resources, competitive performance incentives, and the communication culture (see figure 1).
The results display that work cultures in the Berlin research area are predominantly characterised by mutual support, an appreciative communication culture and a positive error culture (see Figure 1). For example, 40.2% state that “everyone supports each other” in their environment, and 29.1% even state that this is “fully” true. Almost two-thirds of respondents state that resources are distributed according to need in their work environment (43.7% “mostly” plus 19.6% “fully”). 37.4% of scientists state that an appreciative communication culture exists “mostly” and a further 30.2% even state that it exists “fully”. With regard to a positive error culture, 40.1% state that this characteristic applies to their working environment “mostly” and 20.4% state that it applies “fully”.
Figure 1 Work Culture
In contrast, competitive performance incentives dominate in significantly fewer working environments. Almost 20% state that there is (mostly or fully) performance-based competition in their working group. 32% of respondents see themselves in a work environment in which those who perform better receive more support. This form of distributing support based on performance partially conflicts with a needs-based distribution of resources.
Based on the information on collaboration in the immediate work environment (see Figure 1), four different types of work cultures can be explored. These are characterised by two underlying dimensions: cooperation and competition.
Figure 2 Four work culture types along the explored dimensions of cooperation and competition, frequency distribution
The four types of work cultures arise accordingly depending on the level of cooperation and competition (see Figure 2). 50% of respondents work in environments where cooperation is the norm and, at the same time, there is no or only partial performance-related competition (turquoise field in Figure 26). 22% of respondents also work in cooperative environments, but with performance-related competition (yellow field). A total of 28% of respondents find themselves in work environments with little, or at most partial, cooperation, with 18% without competitive elements (blue field) and 10% with simultaneous competition (red field).
Overall, almost three quarters of the respondents work in cooperative contexts with a predominantly positive communication and error culture, where everyone supports each other and resources are shared as needed. This is a gratifyingly high share. At the same time, it can be assumed that the remaining 28% of respondents work in potentially problematic working environments.
The question now is whether there is a connection between the work cultures and the work climate, which we have operationalized in terms of perceived productivity, inspiration and overload.
Figure 3 shows that the two work cultures with a high level of cooperation exhibit very similar patterns in terms of work climate. In the culture of “high cooperation and weak competition,” which represents 50% of all respondents, there are very high values for perceived productivity and inspiration, with low values for perceived overload at the same time. The work culture of “high cooperation and strong competition,” in which 22% of respondents find themselves, exhibits the same pattern.
In strong contrast to this are the two other work cultures with low cooperation, which together represent 28% of the respondents. In both groups, the work climate is perceived as significantly less productive and inspiring, with a simultaneously stronger sense of being overstrained (see Figure 3).
Figure 3 Work climate, by work culture types
The results show that the characteristics of the working climate examined depend to a large extent on the level of cooperation. However, the element of competition also has an effect, albeit to a significantly lesser extent: performance-related competition can slightly increase perceived productivity, but at the same time increases the levels of being overwhelmed. This applies both to the comparison of work cultures with a high level of cooperation and to work cultures with a low level of cooperation (see Figure 3). There is therefore an independent effect of competitive elements in the work cultures, even if this is relatively small compared to the outstanding main effect of “cooperation”.
If you want to design work cultures in such a way that they have positive effects on research results, promote innovation and minimize the risks of negative effects on research output and research quality, then you can use the characteristics identified here as a guide. Mutual support, a positive culture of communication and error management, and a needs-based distribution of resources contribute to a cooperative working culture.
The Berlin Science Survey
The Berlin Science Survey (BSS) is a scientific trend study on cultural change in the Berlin research landscape. To this end, the Robert K. Merton Center for Science and Technology Studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin regularly surveys the experiences and assessments of scientists in the Berlin research area online. 2,776 female scientists in the Berlin research area took part in the most recent study. We would like to express our sincere thanks to everyone who took part in the study.
The whole report with all topics can be found here:
https://www.berlinsciencesurvey.de/en/results24/sum
The data from the 2024 wave of the BSS are available for download as a scientific use file from the HU's open-access publication server: https://doi.org/10.18452/32547