Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research

Tuunainen, J. (2005) When Disciplinary Worlds Collide: The Organizational Ecology of Disciplines in a University Department. Symbolic Interaction 28: 2, 205-228.

This study draws from the social world perspective to examine the relationships between scientific disciplines (i.e., molecular biology, plant physiology, agronomy, horticulture and agroecology) at a university department in the field of plant production research. The interview data obtained in the study revealed that the complex organizational ecology of disciplines in the department involved four sources of conflict: 1) a challenging of the established departmental research tradition of agronomy, 2) a struggle over working space, 3) the extension into the department of an ethical-ideological controversy over genetically modified organisms, and 4) the anchoring of disciplines to different organizational units of the university. Thus, instead of facilitating the synergistic potential of the disciplines, the organizational arrangements at the university blocked it. From this perspective, the study challenges, but does not refute, previous symbolic interactionist research by suggesting that conflicts may function as valuable analytical devices in revealing how formal organizational structures hinder the achievement of social order at the working level.