Creating and Sustaining Collaborative Efforts for Scientific Idea Exchange through Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness

Collaborative engagements among scientists and researchers are increasingly becoming dependent on information and communication technologies (ICTs), but there is little focus on developing next-generation technology-based collaboration schemes geared specifically to support and sustain scientific idea exchanges among researchers, because we lack the necessary conceptual frameworks and deeper understanding of the social and group dynamics involved. Building upon initial research leads from disciplines such as psychology, sociology, and management information systems, a novel scientific idea exchange (SIE) collaboration scheme is proposed that is instantiated in a research prototype. Given the need to understand the motivational challenges among researchers collaborating virtually, the SIE scheme takes a participant-driven approach and draws on Social Capital Theory and also Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET) within the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) framework to address three innate psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) to increase the intrinsic motivation of participants to engage in idea exchange. Research propositions based on these theoretical foundations are developed, along with a roadmap for the research program.