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Federal agencies and universities in the U.S. promote interdisciplinary research because it presumably spurs transformative, innovative science. Using data on almost 900 research-center-based scientists and their 32,000 published articles, along with a set of unpublished papers, we assess whether such research is indeed beneficial and whether costs accompany the potential benefits. Existing research highlights this tension: whereas the innovation literature suggests that spanning disciplines is beneficial because it allows scientists to see connections across fields, the categories literature suggests that spanning disciplines is penalized because the resulting research may be lower quality or confusing to place. To investigate this, we empirically distinguish production and reception effects and highlight a new production penalty: lower productivity, which may be attributable to cognitive and collaborative challenges associated with interdisciplinary research and/or hurdles in the review process. Using an innovative measure of interdisciplinary research that considers the similarity of the disciplines spanned, we document both penalties (fewer papers published) and benefits (increased citations) associated with it and show that it is a high-risk, high-reward endeavor, one that partly depends on field-level interdisciplinarity.

This paper extends the job characteristics model (JCM) to address virtual work design. We argue that the effects of critical job characteristics (task significance, autonomy, and feedback) on psychological states (experienced meaningfulness, responsibility, and knowledge of results) differ depending on two important elements of virtuality and their interactions with important social mechanisms: individual experiences of electronic dependence and its interaction with intimacy and the interaction of copresence with identification. Findings across 177 workers from a variety of settings varying in industry, size, and structure supported several moderating effects of virtuality and three-way interactions that included intimacy and identification, suggesting important modifications of the JCM. In addition, effects were not uniformly parallel for both elements of virtuality, emphasizing the need to differentiate between the effects of electronic dependence and copresence. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and practice.

Federal agencies and universities in the U.S. promote interdisciplinary research because it presumably spurs transformative, innovative science. Using data on almost 900 research-center–based scientists and their 32,000 published articles, along with a set of unpublished papers, we assess whether such research is indeed beneficial and whether costs accompany the potential benefits. Existing research highlights this tension: whereas the innovation literature suggests that spanning disciplines is beneficial because it allows scientists to see connections across fields, the categories literature suggests that spanning disciplines is penalized because the resulting research may be lower quality or confusing to place. To investigate this, we empirically distinguish production and reception effects and highlight a new production penalty: lower productivity, which may be attributable to cognitive and collaborative challenges associated with interdisciplinary research and/or hurdles in the review process. Using an innovative measure of interdisciplinary research that considers the similarity of the disciplines spanned, we document both penalties (fewer papers published) and benefits (increased citations) associated with it and show that it is a high-risk, high-reward endeavor, one that partly depends on field-level interdisciplinarity.

In answer to recent calls for more research on positive outcomes of holding multiple roles, this dissertation examines the relationship between coping, leadership, and role facilitation, or the extent to which resources, benefits, and skills learned in one role are transferred to another. With higher numbers of women in the workforce and men spending more time fulfilling responsibilities at home, a better understanding of the antecedents and consequences of occupying multiple roles has become increasingly important. Analyses of survey data, collected from fully-employed part-time graduate students, reveals that use of coping mechanisms that allow for more diffusion of skills and learning across roles is positively related to several types of role facilitation. Findings also indicate that family-to-work role facilitation, or the extent to which experiences, skills, and opportunities from the family role help facilitate participation in the work role, is positively associated with supervisors' assessment of individuals' leadership behaviors, providing support for the argument that role facilitation is positively related to leadership behavior. Surprisingly, school-to-work role facilitation is negatively related to several leadership behaviors. This dissertation contributes to our understanding of the antecedents and consequences of employees' participation in multiple roles by examining role facilitation and its relationship with coping behaviors and leadership practices.