Work cultures
A central sub-concept of the holistic concept of research culture concerns the type of collaboration in the immediate working environment of scientists – the work culture. 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. When surveying work cultures, we initially only refer to the level of work practices. It will then be possible to see to what extent these forms of cooperation are related to the work climate and possible outcomes such as research quality and research risks.
The work cultures in the Berlin research area are predominantly characterised by mutual support, an appreciative communication culture and a positive error culture (see Figure 23). 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”.
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.
For further analyses, the responses for “mostly” and “fully” were combined because we define these frequencies as culture-shaping. If a work culture practice only partially takes place, it is not yet integrated into the culture.
The comparison of subject groups shows small but no fundamental differences (see Figure 24). For example, mutual support is somewhat less common in the humanities (59%) than in the other subject groups (around 70%). This is consistent with the fact that people in the humanities work alone more often than in fields where collaboration or even division of labour is essential. At 55%, the humanities also show the lowest level of need-based distribution of resources. By comparison, it is highest in the engineering sciences at 70% (see Figure 24).
Performance-based support is less frequently a component of work cultures in the humanities and natural sciences (27% each) than in the other subject groups. On the other hand, performance-based competition is more frequently perceived in the workplace in both the humanities (23%) and the life sciences (23%). In the natural and engineering sciences, this feature of the work culture is particularly rare, with 13.4% and 13.7% respectively. The greatest difference between the natural sciences and humanities is also found in the positive error culture, with 64% and 55% respectively. However, it should be emphasised that the differences between the subject groups as a whole are not so great that it could be said that the subject group alone determines the work culture. The opposite is the case: all forms of work cultures occur in all subject groups.
The assessments of work cultures are partly determined by the role or position of the surveyed scientists within the working groups (see Figure 25). In particular, professors give more positive ratings than postdocs and predocs (see Figure 25). This is not surprising, since it is the professors who, as leaders, have the most influence and thus play a major role in shaping the work culture in the research groups. The ratings differ widely, especially when it comes to communication and error culture. While only 66% of postdocs and 62% of predocs attest to an appreciative communication culture in their working group, the amount is 88% for professors. In addition, 77% of the professorial status group state that a positive error culture prevails in their working group, compared to only 57% of postdocs and 58% of predocs.
On the other hand, professors also see more performance-related funding within the working groups. While 41% of professors state that those who perform better are given more support in the working groups, only 30% of postdocs and predocs see it that way. Accordingly, far more professors (27%) see performance-based competition in the group. Among predocs, only 15% agree. Mutual support is also rated higher among professors (see Figure 25).
Performance-related competition and funding, as surveyed here, are neither good nor bad per se. The concepts describe, to which extent competitive elements dominating in the research field, are also practiced in the working groups.
Based on the information on collaboration in the immediate work environment (see Figure 23), four different types of work cultures can be explored.[1] These are characterised by two underlying dimensions: cooperation and competition.
The four types of work cultures arise accordingly depending on the level of cooperation and competition (see Figure 26). 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.
Overall, 32% report performance-based competitive structures in their working environment, while in 68% of cases, little or no competition is perceived in the workplace (see Figure 26).
If we look at the distribution of types of work cultures in the subject groups, we see that all work cultures are present in all subject groups and are also distributed quite similarly. In the social sciences, there are virtually no deviations from the average (see Figure 27). However, some minor differences can be observed. For example, the work culture “high cooperation, low competition” is less common in the humanities (41.4%) than the average (50%), but more common in the natural sciences (57.1%) and engineering sciences (54.3%). By contrast, the research culture of “low cooperation, weak competition” is more common in the humanities (24.6%) than in the average of all subject groups, in which it is found in 17.5% of cases (see Figure 27).
[1] For this purpose, a principal component analysis (PCA) was calculated, from which two main factors emerged according to the Kaiser criterion. The factor solution was rotated while maintaining the orthogonality of the factors. The two factors together explain 67% of the total variance and each has a reliability of: cooperation: 0.84 (4 items), competition: 0.45 (2 items).