Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Sustainability

Publisher

MDPI

Rights and Access Note

This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. In addition, no permission is required from the rights-holder(s) for educational uses. For other uses, you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Publication Date

3-2014

Publisher location

Basel, Switzerland

First Page

1171

Last Page

1190

Issue Number

3

Volume Number

6

Abstract/ Summary

Engaged research emphasizes researcher–stakeholder collaborations as means of improving the relevance of research outcomes and the chances for science-based decision-making. Sustainability science, as a form of engaged research, depends on the collaborative abilities and cooperative tendencies of researchers. We use an economic experiment to measure cooperation between university faculty, local citizens, and faculty engaged in a large sustainability science project to test a set of hypotheses: (1) faculty on the sustainability project will cooperate more with local residents than non-affiliated faculty, (2) sustainability faculty will have the highest level of internal cooperation of any group, and (3) that cooperation may vary due to academic training and culture in different departments amongst sustainability faculty. Our results demonstrate that affiliation with the sustainability project is not associated with differences in cooperation with local citizens or with in-group peers, but that disciplinary differences amongst sustainability faculty do correlate with cooperative tendencies within our sample. We also find that non-affiliated faculty cooperated less with each other than with faculty affiliated with the sustainability project. We conclude that economic experiments can be useful in discovering patterns of prosociality within institutional settings, and list challenges for further applications.

Citation/Publisher Attribution

"Waring, T., Goff, S.H., Mcguire, J., Moore, Z.D., & Sullivan, A. 2014. Cooperation across Organizational Boundaries: Experimental Evidence from a Major Sustainability Science Project. Sustainability 2014, 6(3), 1171-1190; doi:10.3390/su6031171 "

Publisher Statement

© 2014 by the authors

DOI

"DOI: 10.3390/su6031171 "

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publisher's version of the published document

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In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted.