Review of \u3cem\u3eEconomics Imperialism versus Multidisciplinarity\u3c/em\u3e

This paper examines the implications of Chicago School economist Edward Lazear’s 2000 defense of economics imperialism using standard trade theory. It associates that defense with interdisciplinarity or the idea that the sciences are relatively autonomous, but treats this defense as a mask for a more conventional imperialist strategy of promoting Chicago School neoclassicism. Lazear’s argument actually created a dilemma for Chicago regarding how it could espouse interdisciplinarity while operating in a contrary way. I argue that the solution to this dilemma was for neoclassicism to rebuild economics imperialism around neoclassicism as a theory that sees the world in its own image in a performative manner. This strategy, however, suffers from a number of problems, which upon examination ultimately lead us to multidisciplinarity or the idea that the sciences can have transformative effects on one another. This latter conception can be associated with a complexity economics approach as an alternative view of the relation between the sciences. The paper argues that this view provides a basis for pluralism in economics

The Confluence of Interaction Design & Design: from Disciplinary to Transdisciplinary Perspectives

In keeping with the conference theme of rigour and the authors’ interest in sustainability and interaction design, we describe the confluence of design-oriented notions of interaction design and HCI-oriented notions of interaction design in terms of understanding the present and making choices about possible futures. We comment on the variety of research modes in this confluence and then take up the issue of how disciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, and interdisciplinarity operate and fail to operate as boundary crossing mechanisms for these research modes. As a complement and extension to disciplinary, multidisciplinary, and interdisciplinary practices, we take up the notion of transdisciplinarity and describe how it informs the possibility of values-rich free boundary crossing between research modes in the service of real world issues, while still preserving rigour. Keywords: Transdisciplinarity; Interaction Design; Design Research; Sustainability; Disciplinarity; Multidisciplinarity; Interdisciplinarity.</p

Characterizing creative scientists in nano S & T : productivity, multidisciplinarity, and network brokerage in a longitudinal perspective

While some believe that publication and citation scores are key predictors of breakthroughs in science, others claim that people who work at the intersection of scientific communities are more likely to be familiar with selecting and synthesizing alternatives into novel ideas. This paper contributes to this controversy by presenting a longitudinal comparison of highly creative scientists with equally productive researchers. The sample of creative scientists is identified by combining information on science awards and nominations by international peers covering research accomplishments in the mid-1990s. Results suggest that it is not only the sheer quantity of publications that causes scientists to produce creative pieces of work. Rather, their ability to effectively communicate with otherwise disconnected peers and to address a broader work spectrum also enhances their chances to be widely cited and to develop novel ideas. --

Exploring the Changing Teaching Practices and Needs of Business Faculty at Santa Clara University

This report will present the findings and recommendations of a study designed to explore Santa Clara University (SCU) business faculty’s current and emerging undergraduate teaching practices. The study was led locally by researchers in the SCU Library, with parallel studies conducted at fourteen other institutions of higher education in the United States during the 2018-19 academic year. These studies were coordinated at the national level by Ithaka S&R, a not-for-profit research and consulting service that helps academic and cultural communities serve the public good and navigate economic, technological, and demographic change. Ithaka will publish a capstone report of major themes across all fourteen institutions in Winter 2020 and will include recommendations that libraries, universities, and business schools can use to support the changing teaching practices of their business faculty

(WP 2018-05) Specialization, Fragmentation, and Pluralism in Economics

This paper investigates whether specialization in research is causing economics to become an increasingly fragmented and diverse discipline with a continually rising number of niche-based research programs and a declining role for dominant cross-science research programs. It opens by framing the issue in terms of centrifugal and centripetal forces operating on research in economics, and then distinguishes descriptive from normative pluralism. It reviews recent research regarding the JEL code and the economics’ J. B. Clark Award that points towards rising specialization and fragmentation of research in economics. It then reviews five related arguments that might explain increasing specialization and fragmentation in economics: (i) Smith’s early division of labor view, (ii) Kuhn’s later thinking about the importance of specialization, (iii) Heiner’s behavioral burden of knowledge argument, (iv) Ross innovation-diffusion analysis and Arthur’s theory of technological change as determinants of specialization in science, and (v) the effects of space and culture or internationalization on innovation appropriation. The paper then discusses what descriptive pluralism implies about normative pluralism, and makes a case for multidisciplinarity over interdisciplinarity as a basis for arguments promoting pluralism. The paper closes with brief comments on the issue of specialization and pluralism in the wider world outside economics and science