Interdisciplinary Research for Sustainable Business: Perspectives of Women Business Scholars (Strategies for Sustainability) 3031069234, 9783031069239

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Strategies for Sustainability

Beate Sjåfjell Roseanne Russell Maja Van der Velden   Editors

Interdisciplinary Research for Sustainable Business Perspectives of Women Business Scholars

Strategies for Sustainability Series Editors Rodrigo Lozano, Faculty of Engineering and Sustainable Development University of Gävle, Gävle, Gävleborgs Län, Sweden Angela Carpenter, Faculty of Engineering and Environment University of Gävle, Gävle, Sweden

The series focuses on “implementation strategies and responses” to sustainability problems – at the organizational, local, national, and global levels. Our objective is to encourage policy proposals and prescriptive thinking on topics such as: sustainability management, sustainability strategies, lifestyle changes, regional approaches, organisational changes for sustainability, educational approaches, pollution prevention, clean technologies, multilateral treaty-making, sustainability guidelines and standards, sustainability assessment and reporting, the role of scientific analysis in decision-making, implementation of public-private partnerships for resource management, regulatory enforcement, and approaches to meeting inter-generational obligations regarding the management of common resources. We favour trans-disciplinary perspectives and analyses grounded in careful, comparative studies of practice, demonstrations, or policy reforms. This largely excludes further documentation of problems, and prescriptive pieces that are not grounded in practice, or sustainability studies. Philosophically, we prefer an open-­ minded pragmatism – “show us what works and why” – rather than a bias toward a theory of the liberal state (i.e. “command-and-control”) or a theory of markets. We invite contributions that are innovative, creative, and go beyond the ‘business as usual’ approaches. We invite Authors to submit manuscripts that: - Document and analyse what has and has not worked in practice; - Develop implementation strategies and examine the effectiveness of specific sustainability strategies; –– Propose what should be tried next to promote greater sustainability in natural resource management, energy production, housing design and development, industrial reorganization, infrastructure planning, land use, business strategy, and organisational changes; - Prescribe how to do better at incorporating concerns about sustainability into organisations, private action, and public policy; –– Focus on trans-disciplinary analyses grounded in careful, comparative studies of practice or policy reform; and –– Provide an approach “…to meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” and do this in a way that balances the goal of economic development with due consideration for environmental protection, social progress, and individual rights. Themes covered in the series are: Sustainability management Sustainability strategies Lifestyle changes Regional approaches Organisational changes for sustainability Educational approaches Pollution prevention Clean technologies Multilateral treaty-making

Sustainability guidelines and standards Sustainability assessment and reporting The role of scientific analysis in decision-making Implementation of public-private partnerships for resource management Governance and regulatory enforcement Approaches to meeting inter-generational obligations regarding the management of common resources

Beate Sjåfjell  •  Roseanne Russell Maja Van der Velden Editors

Interdisciplinary Research for Sustainable Business Perspectives of Women Business Scholars

Editors Beate Sjåfjell Faculty of Law University of Oslo Oslo, Norway

Roseanne Russell School of Law University of Bristol Bristol, Avon, UK

Maja Van der Velden Department of Informatics University of Oslo Oslo, Norway

ISSN 2212-5450     ISSN 2452-1582 (electronic) Strategies for Sustainability ISBN 978-3-031-06923-9    ISBN 978-3-031-06924-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06924-6 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Dedicated to Gwendolyn Gordon (1980–2021), interdisciplinary researcher par excellence

Preface

This volume has come about through the collaborative efforts of the international network of women business scholars Daughters of Themis.1 Daughters of Themis brings together scholars from a range of disciplines relevant to research on business, and many of us work in areas concerning the transition of business to sustainability. This made Daughters of Themis a natural base for a collaborative book project on interdisciplinarity for sustainable business. Yet, while it is recognized that more interdisciplinarity is necessary especially in the area of sustainability, it is nevertheless challenging for most scholars who are educated within one discipline to undertake interdisciplinary research. We even saw a hesitancy among members to respond to our call for papers on interdisciplinary research. We are glad that it was possible to overcome the barriers to discussing interdisciplinarity through the open and inclusive discussions at the Daughters of Themis international meetings, which are so conducive to constructive reflections. We thank Nikos Mykoniatis and his family at Cavo Perlevos guesthouse on the island of Kea Greece for hosting us during our week-long meeting in 2017, as they do every year (with the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 being the exceptions), providing a harmonious atmosphere in a secluded environment, which all has reinforced the warmth, companionship, and academic rigor of our collaborative discussions. We thank all our contributors, who have worked together with us to create this volume where we bring together scholars from fields including anthropology, economics, finance, law, management, technology/design, and from practice. We are grateful to all our contributors for their patience with our several rounds of edits and for their commitment to this joint project. In completing this volume our thoughts have been especially with our colleague Gwendolyn Gordon, with whom we had the pleasure of spending time at two of the international meetings of Daughters of Themis, and whose insightful contribution to

 https://www.jus.uio.no/english/research/areas/companies/networks/daughters-of-themisnetwork/ 1

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this volume has been such an honor and pleasure to include. Gwen passed away in December 2021, and we dedicate this volume to her memory. Our thanks go also to our research assistant, Kasper Holter Johns from the Department of Private Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, who gave us invaluable assistance in the final round. We are also grateful to Rodrigo Lozano, University of Gävle, and co-editor of the Strategies for Sustainability series, as well as Zachary Romano and Amrita Unnikrishnan at Springer, for their support and encouragement in the entire process from first idea for this volume to the submission of the manuscript. Oslo, Norway Bristol, Avon, UK Oslo, Norway

Beate Sjåfjell Roseanne Russell Maja Van der Velden

Contents

 1 Interdisciplinarity  for Sustainable Business������������������������������������������    1 Maja Van der Velden, Roseanne Russell, and Beate Sjåfjell Part I Reflections  2 Thinking  with Care: Exploring Interdisciplinarity in a Global Research Project������������������������������������������������������������������   23 Maja Van der Velden and Beate Sjåfjell  3 A  Trust Perspective on Interdisciplinary Work������������������������������������   41 May-Britt Ellingsen  4 Interdisciplinary  Research in Law: A Reflective Case Study with Lessons for Sustainability Researchers������������������������������   59 Victoria Schnure Baumfield Part II Theory  5 Sustainability  and Law and Economics: An Interdisciplinary Redefinition of Agency Theory ��������������������������������������������������������������   81 Beate Sjåfjell  6 Sustainability  in EU Business Law and Financial Market Law: An Interdisciplinary Methodology ��������������������������������������������������������  111 Hanna Ahlström  7 The  Questionable Rise of ‘Good’ Corporations and Hybrid Business Law: Theoretical Trappings, Methodological Challenges, and Transdisciplinary Futures ������������������������������������������  131 Carol Liao

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 8 What?  How? And for What? Assessment Metrics for Sustainability��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  153 María Ángeles Fernández-Izquierdo, María Jesús Muñoz-Torres, Juana María Rivera-Lirio, Elena Escrig-Olmedo, and Idoya Ferrero-Ferrero Part III Practice  9 Companies  and Unconscious Bias: A Case Study on the Need for Interdisciplinary Scholarship��������������������������������������  169 Roseanne Russell 10 A  Grounded Company: Contradiction, Community, and Sustainable Business Practices��������������������������������������������������������  189 Gwendolyn J. Gordon 11 Investing  in Planetary Boundaries? Analysing Sustainable Investments of Sovereign Wealth Funds in Europe������������������������������  205 Heidi Rapp Nilsen, María Jesús Muñoz-Torres, and Elena Escrig-Olmedo 12 Transferring  Interdisciplinary Sustainability Research to Practice: Barriers and Solutions to the Practitioner-­Academic Gap����������������������������������������������������������  231 Grace Samuel, Alison Stowell, Amanda Williams, and Rodney Irwin Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  247

Contributors

Hanna Ahlström  Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden Victoria  Schnure  Baumfield  Faculty of Law, Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia May-Britt Ellingsen  NORCE Norwegian Research Centre AS, Bergen, Norway Elena Escrig-Olmedo  Department of Finance and Accounting, Universitat Jaume I, Plana, Spain María  Ángeles  Fernández-Izquierdo  Universitat Jaume I, Castellon de la Plana, Spain Idoya Ferrero-Ferrero  Universitat Jaume I, Castellon de la Plana, Spain Gwendolyn  J.  Gordon  The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA Rodney Irwin  World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), Geneva, Switzerland Carol Liao  Centre for Business Law, Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada María Jesús Muñoz-Torres  Department of Finance and Accounting, Universitat Jaume I, Plana, Spain Heidi  Rapp  Nilsen  Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway Juana María Rivera-Lirio  Universitat Jaume I, Castellon de la Plana, Spain Roseanne Russell  School of Law, University of Bristol, Bristol, Avon, UK Grace Samuel  Kyshi, Lagos, Nigeria xiii

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Beate Sjåfjell  Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Alison Stowell  Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK Maja  Van der Velden  Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Amanda Williams  IMB Business School, Lausanne, Switzerland

Chapter 1

Interdisciplinarity for Sustainable Business Maja Van der Velden, Roseanne Russell, and Beate Sjåfjell

1 Sustainability and Sustainable Business It is increasingly clear to scholars and policymakers that to tackle the great challenges currently facing the world of business, there is a need for solutions that transcend disciplinary boundaries. More broadly formulated, interdisciplinarity is required for sustainability  – for the achievement of sustainable business. This is particularly the case when considering the impact of companies on society and the environment. If we want a more sustainable future, businesses must begin to address how their activities are implicated in complex concerns, such as social inequality, environmental fragility, and lack of economic resilience. It is equally apparent, however, that addressing these issues successfully requires a great deal of nuanced and integrated thinking. Sustainable business research is a diverse field of research methodologies and objectives. As a result, a wide variety of descriptions and definitions of sustainability inform or guide such research (Kjøde et  al. 2021; Müller and Pfleger 2014; Parida and Wincent 2019; Urdan and Luoma 2020). One of the most common definitions of sustainability in business research is the definition of sustainable development of the Brundtland Report (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987): ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (p. 41). The M. Van der Velden (*) Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected] R. Russell School of Law, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK e-mail: [email protected] B. Sjåfjell Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 B. Sjåfjell et al. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Research for Sustainable Business, Strategies for Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06924-6_1

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findings and recommendations of the report inspired several sustainability frameworks for business. The Triple Bottom Line and the Three Pillars have become especially popular sustainability frameworks in business-related research because they integrate economic, social, and environmental sustainability. The Triple Bottom Line, coined by business researcher John Elkington (1997) in 1994, is a framework that examines a company’s social, environmental, and economic impact. It has become one of the guiding sustainability frameworks for business. For example, the more than 4500 B Corporations (see Liao 2022, in this volume for a discussion of B Corporations) configure their understanding of sustainability around this framework. Since then, however, Elkington (2018) has proposed a recall of the concept, concerned about the fact that the concept has become an accounting tool, enabling trade-offs between social, environmental, and economic sustainability: ‘Indeed, none of these sustainability frameworks will be enough, as long as they lack the suitable pace and scale  – the necessary radical intent – needed to stop us all overshooting our planetary boundaries’. The Three Pillars framework, popularised by Barbier (1987; Purvis et al. 2019), is widely known because of its Venn-diagram visualisation of the three intersecting dimensions of sustainability: social, environmental, and economic sustainability (see Fig. 1.1). Business research describes the need for balancing these dimensions (Kjøde et al. 2021). Purvis et al.’s (2019) critique on the use of approaches based on the Triple Bottom Line or the Three Pillars understanding of sustainability is that they present the three dimensions of sustainability as equally important. Another reason for criticism is how the Triple Pillars understanding of sustainable development has been followed up in practice. A balancing of three pillars will always lead to unbalanced results when the three pillars are not on an equal footing in terms of standing, perceived significance, and political support. As Purvis et al. (2019) emphasise, there has historically been an overly strong emphasis on economic development, translated into economic growth and emphasis on short-term gains; insufficient emphasis on environmental protection and a lack of

Fig. 1.1  The three pillars representation based on Barbier (1987)

social

sustainability environmental

economic

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materialisation of the (social) progress that was assumed to automatically flow from economic development (ibid.). Since 2009, natural scientists have brought a science-based framework into the debate on sustainability, setting out what most intuitively understand must exist: ecological limits, or, in the words of the groups of scientists developing this framework: planetary boundaries. The Planetary Boundaries framework is the result of the work of an international multidisciplinary group of environmental scientists, who pooled their knowledge of different Earth system processes to inform the world about the space for sustainable action within the limits of our planet (Rockström et al. 2009; Steffen et al. 2015; Persson et al. 2022) (see Fig. 1.2). The Planetary Boundaries framework describes the boundaries of nine interlinked Earth processes, which, once crossed, will result in unacceptable ecological damage with grave risks to the very basis for human existence on this planet: climate change, biodiversity integrity, ocean acidification, depletion of the ozone layer, atmospheric aerosol pollution, biogeochemical flows of nitrogen and phosphorus, freshwater use,

Fig. 1.2  Image credit: J. Lokrantz/Azote based on Persson et al. (2022) and Steffen et al. (2015)

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land-system change, and release of novel entities (this category includes microplastics, nano-materials, and various forms of chemical pollution). Five boundaries are now considered breached: climate change, biodiversity integrity, biogeochemical flows of nitrogen and phosphorus, land-system change, and novel entities (Rockström et al. 2009; Steffen et al. 2015; Persson et al. 2022). Recently, some business research has incorporated this more science-based understanding of sustainability as presented in the Planetary Boundaries framework. For example, Schaltegger (2018) concludes that targets derived from the framework need to be translated into managerial actions related to environmental management accounting. Clift et al. (2017) discuss the challenges that applying the Planetary Boundaries framework brings to governance of global value chains. Whiteman et al. (2013) conclude that research on corporate sustainability requires ‘a dual focus: on the firm (or industry) and on the Earth system. It is not an either/ or’ (p. 329). In 2012, Kate Raworth (2012) expanded the Planetary Boundaries framework by bringing the social goals of the Rio  +  20, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (the precursor to the Sustainable Development Goals of 2015) literally into the picture, arguing that it is not sufficient to work towards a safe operating space for humanity – the goal should be a safe and just space. After the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted in 2015, Raworth updated the figure to include also ‘peace & justice’ as an element of the social foundations, giving us the well-­ known figure often referred to in Raworth’s language as the ‘Doughnut’ (Fig. 1.3). Raworth has developed this further together with Leach et al. (2013), as well as in her own work on ‘Doughnut Economics’ (Raworth 2017). As Raworth also emphasises, the minimum requirement to securing the social foundations for humanity is that of ensuring the realisation of basic human rights. Accordingly, social foundations cannot be exhaustively defined by the Sustainable Development Goals, nor, in light of the criticism against human rights, by a minimalistic approach to human rights (Moyn 2018), or in a business context, by the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (Sjåfjell 2020). Efforts to secure social foundations should therefore go to what is arguably also the roots of human rights: to ‘human dignity’, as intrinsic to a just space for humanity. This entails advancing human welfare, rather than as the criticism brought forward by Moyn (2018) and others indicates settling for a weak minimum standard. Securing the social foundation for humanity is accordingly a range of interconnected issues. As emphasised by Tonia Novitz (2020a, b), amongst the pivotal aims must also be that of ‘decent work’, a crucial aspect to the achievement of sustainable business across their global value chains. On this basis, a definition of sustainability as securing social foundations for humanity now and for the future within planetary boundaries is increasingly referenced. Griggs et al. (2013) connect this back to the Brundtland definition through stating that sustainability is a state where the needs of the present generation are met ‘while safeguarding Earth’s life-support system, on which the welfare of current and future generations depends’ (p. 306). The Planetary Boundaries framework is referred to by the United Nations (e.g. Guterres, 2020) and is gaining prominence in

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Fig. 1.3  Source Raworth (2017, p. 38)

the European Union (EU). Notably, while the Seventh Environmental Framework Programme, entitled ‘Living well, within the limit of our planet’ (European Commission 2013) drew on the concept of planetary boundaries without referencing the Planetary Boundaries framework itself, the Eighth Environmental Framework Programme does explicitly use the terminology of planetary boundaries, as we see in the political agreement on the Eighth Framework Programme (European Commission 2021). The European Environment Agency has also commissioned studies to assess the translation of the Planetary Boundaries framework in the EU, with key methodologies and findings summarised (Häyhä et al. 2018). The EU also uses the language of planetary boundaries in its Circular Economy Action Plan (European Commission 2020). Illustrative of on-going silo-thinking in the EU is that no references to planetary boundaries or ecological limits are made in the EU’s Green Deal (European Commission 2019) or in its influential initiative for sustainable finance, entitled Action Plan: Financing Sustainable Growth (European Commission 2018). Amongst examples of nation-states employing the Planetary Boundaries framework in policy analyses, we find Sweden (Nykvist et al. 2013), Switzerland (Dao et  al. 2018), The Netherlands (Lucas and Wilting 2018), New

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Zealand/Aotearoa (Andersen et  al. 2020) and Germany (Die Bundesregierung 2021). Kate Raworth’s ‘doughnut’ is increasingly employed, for example by cities, as a starting point for transitioning to sustainability (Boffey 2020; DEAL 2022). More recently, the Planetary Boundaries framework has become the science-­ based sustainability framework behind so-called science-based targets for sustainability. The work towards science-based targets for sustainable business was increasingly recognised after the 2015 Paris Agreement, the legally binding international treaty on climate change. For example, the Science-Based Targets Initiative1 was established, in which a thousand companies commit to aligning their corporate carbon reduction targets with global decarbonisation objectives. Another organisation engaging business in science-based targets is the Science-Based Targets Network.2 They engage companies and cities in setting science-based targets for staying within Earth’s limits. The above definition of sustainable development, ‘Development that meets the needs of the present while safeguarding Earth’s life-support system, on which the welfare of current and future generations depends’ (Griggs et al. 2013), provides a solid basis for defining sustainable business. A business is sustainable when it, in aggregate, contributes to securing the social foundations for humanity now and for the future within planetary boundaries (Rockström et al. 2009; Leach et al. 2013; Steffen et al. 2015; Persson et al. 2022). It also provides the basis for reflection on the discussion in business-related sustainability research about the various forms of (corporate) sustainability, which can be differentiated across a spectrum between strong and weak sustainability. According to Roome (2011), ‘[w]eak sustainability sets out to bring environmental concerns into the framework provided by the structures and systems of business’ and ‘strong sustainability seeks to integrate the company into environmental or socio-ecological systems, so that the patterns of production and consumption to which the company contributes are within the capacity of the Planet to sustain’. The Triple Bottom Line and Three Pillars representations discussed above are generally perceived as supporting a weak sustainability perspective, while science-based approaches, such as those based on the Planetary Boundaries framework, are perceived as supporting a strong sustainability perspective. Further research differentiates between very weak sustainability to very strong sustainability to corporate sustainability (see Table 1.1) (Landrum 2018). Referencing a meta study which shows that much of the corporate sustainability discussion in management research is based on a weak concept of sustainability (Vildåsen et  al. 2017), Sjåfjell and Bruner (2019) reflect that it is indeed only ‘strong’ sustainability’ that truly is sustainability – and that it can better be referred to as ‘actual sustainability’, with reference to the goal of securing social foundations within planetary boundaries. More specifically, corporate sustainability may be defined as business creating value in a manner that is (a) environmentally sustainable, in that it ensures the long-term stability and resilience of the ecosystems that

 https://sciencebasedtargets.org/  https://sciencebasedtargetsnetwork.org/

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Compliance Very weak

Economic growth

Relationship to natural world

Business-centered Weak

Systemic Intermediate

Regenerative Strong

Economic science-­ Economic science-oriented Ecological science-­ oriented business-oriented business-oriented oriented ecology-oriented Repair damage to “Do less bad” “Do more good” Internal firm-centric view Begins to look externally in systems defining sustainability Business is part of a larger industry and community working together toward systemic change Part of the natural To be managed and To be managed and To be managed and controlled; anthropocentric world controlled; controlled; Operate within Resource exploitation anthropocentric anthropocentric planetary boundaries Eco-efficiency Resource exploitation Resource exploitation Manage and repair Eco-efficiency Pursuit of production, Pursuit of production, Pursuit of production, Qualitative consumption, and growth consumption, and growth consumption, and growth development without production, consumption, and growth Steady-state growth

Economic science-oriented Business-oriented Understanding of Meet compliance sustainability requirements Internal firm-centric view

Sustainability spectrum position Orientation

Table 1.1  Four stages of corporate sustainability

(continued)

Self-management as part of the natural world Participate in cooperative symbiotic relationship with the natural world No growth in production or consumption Qualitative improvements

Ecological science-oriented Ecology-oriented Humans and all earth’s beings are in a mutually enhancing and beneficial relationship

Coevolutionary Very strong

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Compliance Externally enforced or regulated activities Defensive actions with regard to economic, environmental, or social concerns

Source: Landrum (2018, p. 283)

Sustainability concerns

Table 1.1 (continued) Business-centered “Business case” is the motivation and measure of success Adoption and internal enforcement of activities Incremental improvements to business-as-usual May focus on one or more realms of sustainability (economic, environmental, social)

Systemic Integrates three realms of sustainability (economic, environmental, social) Work with other human systems

Regenerative Integrates three realms of sustainability (economic, environmental, social) Work with human and nonhuman systems

Coevolutionary Work in balance with other systems Contribute to flourishing of other systems

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support human life; (b) socially sustainable, in that it facilitates the achievement of human rights and other basic social rights, as well as good governance; and (c) economically sustainable, in that it satisfies the economic needs necessary for stable and resilient societies (Sjåfjell and Bruner 2019). It is against this backdrop that we now turn to the core issue of this volume: interdisciplinary research. In Sect. 2, we reflect on interdisciplinary research and also introduce Daughters of Themis: International Network of Female Business Scholars. In Sect. 3, we outline the contributions of this volume. In Sect. 4, we reflect on how sustainability is an important motivation for interdisciplinary research and also for scholars for whom interdisciplinarity is a novel way of undertaking research. A brief conclusion follows in Sect. 5.

2 Interdisciplinary Research 2.1 Interdisciplinarity as a Response to the Complexity of Sustainability For sustainable business scholars, the need for an interdisciplinary approach seems obvious. Sustainability is typically understood as a complex or ‘wicked problem’ (Rittel and Webber 1973), a problem that transgresses the usual boundaries of scientific disciplines, organisations, or jurisdictions (Taylor and van der Velden 2019). Solving a wicked problem is ‘an iterative process, where early solutions are understood as opportunities to further understand and explore the problem’ (Young et al. 2012). Klein (1990) wrote: ‘[interdisciplinarity] is a concept with wide appeal. However, it is also one of wide confusion’ (p. 11). This is still true today. An interdisciplinary methodology can consist, amongst others, of integrating, interacting, linking, focusing, or blending methods and concepts from different disciplines (Klein 2017). Barry et al. (2008) ask: ‘how might one understand interdisciplinarity less as a unity and more as a space of differences, a multiplicity?’ Their view is that disciplines are not homogeneous entities but multiplicities. The integration, interaction, linking, focusing, or blending of methods and concepts from different disciplines becomes possible because of the heterogeneity of the involved disciplines. Barry and Born (2013) describe three modes in which the involved disciplines engage each other: integrative-synthesis  mode, subordinate-service  mode, and agonistic-­antagonistic mode. These modes are fluid and can be found simultaneously within one interdisciplinary project. Within these modes, we can identify narrow and broad forms of interdisciplinarity. In narrow interdisciplinary research, the participating disciplines are relatively close, while in broad interdisciplinarity, the opposite is true. We find these different modes and forms of interdisciplinarity also in the contributions in this volume (see Sect. 4).

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2.2 Daughters of Themis: International Network of Female Business Scholars The practicality of working across disciplines with distinct languages, frames of reference, and methodological approaches brings, however, its own challenges. While we might readily acknowledge the limitations of exploring a problem from the confines of a single discipline and be willing to adopt an interdisciplinary approach, how we might work towards this goal is less clear. In June 2017, the Daughters of Themis: International Network of Female Business Scholars held an international meeting based on an open call for papers. The Daughters of Themis Network is intentionally inclusive and open to all who identify as women scholars in areas of scholarship pertaining to business, including disciplines such as law, economics, management and administration, political science, sociology, and natural sciences. The Network offers a forum for open and inspiring discussions about our common areas of interest while also facilitating sharing and mutual support for all members throughout their academic careers and lives. The 2017 meeting drew participants from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and methodological approaches. The aim of the meeting was to move beyond the widely accepted acknowledgement of the need for interdisciplinarity and instead to explore how interdisciplinarity can be brought into effect. We do not claim that women scholars are necessarily more concerned with sustainability or interdisciplinarity than men scholars. We also recognise in our network the diversity of women and that there is no typical ‘woman’ view on the issues discussed in this volume. However, we consider that there are certain shared experiences of womanhood that inform our approach to work. Our ‘otherness’ can provide an impetus to agitate for a change from the status quo. The centrality of care to our daily lives reveals the necessity of placing care for our world and each other at the heart of business. Moreover, the friendship and collegiality of our Daughters of Themis Network (not, of course, uniquely women attributes) have shown us how much more we can achieve together rather than through individual scholarly pursuit. This volume brings together contributions from that Daughters of Themis Network meeting and from other women business scholars who are members of Daughters of Themis. It is a diverse set of essays that highlights the difficulties and the possibilities that lie in working together across disciplines with the aim of working towards corporate sustainability. Through concrete examples based on authors’ experiences, honest appraisals of the difficulties of interdisciplinary working become evident. The contributions also provide an introduction to a number of different methodologies that may be deployed when doing interdisciplinary work on companies. This volume is a contribution to the discussion of implementation strategies, through the often-overlooked issue of implementation of sustainability in research. The chapters are organised in three parts, Reflections, Theory, and Practice, reflecting the editors’ understanding of the main contribution of the chapters. All chapters

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have, however, reflective, theoretical, as well as practical contributions towards the role of interdisciplinarity research for corporate sustainability.

3 The Three Parts of Our Volume 3.1 Reflections In Part I, Reflections, contributors discuss the significance of interdisciplinary research, how to work across disciplines, as well as the challenges of doing so. The first chapter in the section, by van der Velden and Sjåfjell, is a reflection on interdisciplinarity in a large, international research project ‘Sustainable Market Actors for Responsible Trade’. Thinking with Care describes how working towards a common understanding of interdisciplinarity started during proposal writing by researchers with different disciplinary backgrounds. That understanding further developed, as an approach as well as in its application, during the implementation of the project. The authors describe the role of both boundary work and care work in supporting the interdisciplinary approach of the project, which brought together scholars from law, social and natural science, business, and management. They discuss how the project’s interdisciplinary nature changed over time and was especially challenged by the reporting requirements of the funder. The chapter concludes with stressing the importance of enabling interdisciplinarity in the form of time and care when developing and implementing an interdisciplinary research proposal. The contribution by Ellingsen, A trust Perspective on Integrative Research, is about trust as a requirement for successful interdisciplinary research. The author uses the term integrative as a higher level concept for the co-production of knowledge across disciplines, such as multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinarity. Ellingsen discusses trust as central to the transfer and integration of knowledge and identifies three social platforms for trust. Based on a dynamic model for trust, the author concludes that trust development, in the form of clarification of assumptions, development of common platforms for agreement and disagreement, and bridging cognitive distance, will improve scientific collaboration processes. In Interdisciplinary Research in Law: A Reflective Case Study with Lessons for Sustainability Researchers, Baumfield argues that one does not need to become an expert in another discipline and encourages legal scholars to work in an interdisciplinary way in legal research. The author starts with outlining theoretical perspectives on interdisciplinary research in law and discusses some of the pitfalls of not well-implemented interdisciplinary research. The author introduces economics to legal research in a case study of Commercialised Government Business Enterprises. The case is presented in an exploratory and reflective manner, taking the reader through the process of becoming an interdisciplinary legal researcher. The lessons learned are not only relevant to legal scholars but also to all disciplined researchers who want to address more complex problems through interdisciplinary approaches.

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3.2 Theory Part II, Theory, contributors discuss theoretical and methodological aspects of interdisciplinary research. Sjåfjell, in her chapter, Sustainability and Law and Economics: An Interdisciplinary Redefinition of Agency Theory, shows how an important theoretical underpinning of much of corporate law and corporate governance debates can be taken apart and redefined through an interdisciplinary approach that is broader than that of a traditional economics approach to analysing law. The object of her analysis is what she denotes as the mainstream version of agency theory. In her analysis, she applies a regulatory ecology approach, which is intrinsically interdisciplinary, and positions that within a systems thinking and research-based approach to sustainability. Her chapter accordingly challenges the assumptions on which this mainstream use of agency theory is based and presents a tentatively drafted redefinition of agency theory with the aim of contributing to a theory that can form the basis for sustainable business. Ahlström’s chapter, Sustainability in EU Business and Financial Market Law, presents an interdisciplinary methodology to explore the interconnectivity between two interrelated but separate fields of study, business and financial market law and the impact of this interconnectivity on sustainable development. Informed by the study’s theoretical positioning, polycentric regulation, the methodology combines methods from different disciplines: social network analysis, semi-structured expert interviews, and analysis of legislative instruments and policy documents. Ahlström describes each of the methods, how they were implemented, and how the different datasets were combined in a qualitative analysis. The author concludes that the interdisciplinary methodology enables increased understanding and insight in how to work towards sustainable business and financial practices. In The Questionable Rise of ‘Good’ Corporations and Hybrid Business Law, Liao addresses some of the theoretical and methodological considerations that can result in new economic and legal thought. Set within a study of ‘good business’, this chapter combines insights from law, economics, and natural sciences to give direction to new legal scholarship on the ‘good’ corporation. The case is B Corporation, a non-profit organisation providing certification to ‘good’ businesses. Liao argues that B Corporation has been able to push for legislation in several countries and the majority of American states, undermining ‘good’ corporate social responsibility with weaker, market-based regulation of companies. The author’s critique is informed by a transdisciplinary understanding of corporate sustainability based on a consideration of our connections with the natural world. Liao argues that new regulation should replace and unlearn past theoretical and regulatory models and be based on a transdisciplinary understanding of our world. The last contribution in this part is by Fernández-Izquierdo and colleagues. What, How, and What for: Assessment Metrics for Sustainability develops a methodology for interdisciplinary research. The case is corporate sustainable performance, bringing together insights from accounting, economics, environmental science, mathematics, management, and engineering. The authors present three

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interdisciplinary methodologies for sustainability assessment: materiality analysis, footprint methodology, and fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making methodology. These sustainability methodologies assess environmental, social, and economic impacts across the full supply chain based on four sustainability principles: (i) balance between environmental, social, and economic performance; (ii) intergenerational perspective; (iii) stakeholder approach; and (iv) life cycle thinking. The authors conclude that integrating these three interdisciplinary methodologies will result in a clear advance in measuring corporate sustainability.

3.3 Practice Part III presents the Practice of interdisciplinary research. The four contributions address diverse cases: from gender and companies, indigenous wine producer, European sovereign wealth funds, to the World Council for Sustainable Development. Russell, in a chapter called Companies and Unconsciousness Bias, explores the need for interdisciplinary research on unconscious bias. The author argues that viewing discrimination, in this case gender discrimination in companies, as an individual’s unconscious beliefs is problematic. Set within the understanding of gender equity as central to social sustainability, the author argues for an integrated perspective, bringing multiple disciplines together in an interdisciplinary framework to advance equality. Such a perspective, Russell argues, will enable a central position of women’s experiences in social sustainability policies and practices. Gordon’s chapter, A Grounded Company: Contradiction, Community, and Sustainable Business Practices, takes us to an indigenous-owned wine company in New Zealand. The author explores the ways in which the company makes cultural and traditional values of the indigenous community work for its sustainable business. As a trained anthropologist, Gordon ethnographically studies how the corporate project of wine making becomes legitimately indigenous. In an interdisciplinary approach, combining legal studies and anthropology, the author describes the tensions related to the company’s incorporation. The focus is on Maori landownership and land claims and concerns about balancing commercial and social values and interests. The second to last chapter in this volume, by Nilsen and colleagues, Investing in Planetary Boundaries? Analysing Sustainable Investments of Sovereign Wealth Funds in Europe, combines insights from earth science and finance to analyse four sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). SWFs are characterised by their sustainable and responsible investments (SRI). The authors used a qualitative desk study approach to investigate the funds’ environmental profile for their SRIs and, second, how they evaluate their SRIs. The environmental dimension of the SWFs is mapped on to the Planetary Boundaries framework, the set of interconnected biophysical conditions that support life on the planet. The interdisciplinary approach, integrating planetary boundaries in the SRIs of sovereign wealth funds, enables a particular understanding of how sustainability is conceptualised in the SRIs.

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The last chapter, by Samuel and colleagues, focuses on interdisciplinary sustainability knowledge in the field of management in a chapter with the title Transferring Interdisciplinary Sustainability Research to Practice: Barriers and Solutions to the Practitioner-Academic Gap. The case is the executive education programme of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. The authors found that experimental learning and ‘real-world’ problem solving were important methods for enabling engagement with interdisciplinary sustainability knowledge.

4 Diversity of Approaches There is considerable variety in how interdisciplinarity is interpreted by contributors to this volume. One reason may be the motivations for doing interdisciplinary research. The majority of the chapters describe how the need for doing interdisciplinary research emerged in the context of sustainability. The current ecological crisis, exemplified by climate change and loss of biodiversity, is perceived as a wicked problem and provided the main motivation to take an interdisciplinary approach. Engaging with the planet’s biophysical boundaries requires disciplines such as law, accounting, and finance to take a more interdisciplinary approach. We see that in the contributions of Ahlström and Fernández-Izquierdo et al., who propose new methodologies for interdisciplinary research in their field. Some authors engage with complex social issues that require an interdisciplinary approach. Russell’s focus on gender discrimination in companies results in a proposal for an interdisciplinary framework based on an integration of insights from law, psychology, sociology, and philosophy. Gordon shows how Ethnography of Law enables insight in the construction of legitimacy in an indigenous company. The three reflective chapters, by van der Velden and Sjåfjell, Ellingson, and Baumfield take a more holistic sustainability perspective and discuss some of the conditions for, and the advantages of, interdisciplinary perspectives in sustainable business research. Another important role is played by the norms of the home discipline. Some of the contributors were more explicit than others in describing their understanding of interdisciplinarity (see Table 1.2). In the chapters by Ellingsen and Nilsen et al., we can detect a more integrative understanding of interdisciplinarity, which focuses on the combining or meshing together of different academic sub-fields. These accounts of interdisciplinary scholarship tend more towards the erasing of disciplinary boundaries. In chapters written by two colleagues from law, interdisciplinarity is framed (albeit perhaps implicitly) as a drawing upon (Baumfield) or adding to (Russell) the understandings of the home discipline. Baumfield’s work is illustrative of a growing trend in law towards scholarship that draws on methods and perspectives from other fields. However, empirical work of the kind undertaken by other social science disciplines is not commonplace in some university law departments. For much of law school, students are not trained in methods but are trained in the substantive doctrine of a particular area such as employment law or corporate law.

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Table 1.2  Interpretations of interdisciplinary business research Author(s) (chapter number) van der Velden and Sjåfjell (Chap. 2) Ellingsen (Chap. 3) Baumfield (Chap. 4) Sjåfjell (Chap. 5)

Ahlström (Chap. 6) Liao (Chap. 7) Russell (Chap. 9) Nilsen et al. (Chap. 11)

Description Interdisciplinarity is about boundary work and care work. Based on Barry and Born (2013), different modes of interdisciplinarity are discussed, such as narrow and broad interdisciplinarity, integrative-synthesis mode, and subordinate-service mode. Integrative research is multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary research. Integrative research is cross-disciplinary collaboration and consists of cognitive and social processes. Interdisciplinary legal research is research which incorporates insights from non-legal disciplines. Chapter contains several typologies of interdisciplinarity; dangers of interdisciplinarity, etc. Interdisciplinary analysis of law and economics that goes beyond the traditional economics analysis of law, employing the intrinsically interdisciplinary approach of ‘regulatory ecology’ and positioning that within a teleological, systems-thinking approach to sustainable business. Interdisciplinary methodology: Combining methods from different disciplines: SNA, qualitative interviews, analysis of legislative instruments, and policy documents. Transdisciplinarity described as new economic and legal thought by firmly situating itself within the natural sciences. Interdisciplinarity is an integrative approach to advance a better understanding of complex problems. Interdisciplinarity is combining natural sciences and finance.

The question of whether to (i) train students in the ‘black letter’ doctrinal rules or (ii) equip them with a broader education that comprises an introduction to social theories and methodologies to examine the regulatory context and impact of rules arises from ‘the tension between law as an intellectual pursuit and legal education as preparation for a vocation’ (Burton and Watkins 2020, p. 35). The latter view of law school as a training ground for aspiring practitioners is thought to encourage a greater focus on learning the technical rules and procedures for their application. This more vocational view of education can be contrasted with other cognate disciplines in the social sciences. There, students will be exposed early in their education to different theories and worldviews. They will be trained in a range of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. As they advance, they will be taught how to design and operationalise research projects and methods of data analysis. In sum, their training will embrace a far greater range of methodological approaches than those to which a law student will be exposed. These distinct disciplinary traditions may go some way to account for the different versions of interdisciplinarity that we see reflected in the chapters. The variety of practices demonstrated throughout this volume shows how any project design will ultimately be guided by the research problem to be addressed and, in the case of sustainability, how different dimensions will require the knowledge, methods,

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and theories from a range of fields. It also serves as a useful reminder of the need for clarity at the outset, when drawing together scholars to form an interdisciplinary team, so that each participant understands what the other means by interdisciplinarity and the training and conventions of their respective fields. Ellingsen’s chapter provides a valuable contribution on the importance of trust in relationships, and particularly when embarking on interdisciplinary scholarship. Striking the balance between respecting specialist knowledge and training yet being open to embracing new methodological approaches and ideas can be difficult. As Bodig (2015) has argued, there may need to be a building of competence in another discipline (see for example Sjåfjell’s chapter, which weaves seamlessly between law and economic theory) but frictions can emerge when navigating the approaches, ideas, and assumptions of disciplines other than one’s own. The nature of modern academia can often inhibit interdisciplinary scholarship. Pressures to publish and the need for that work to be understood for peer review and audit purposes can deter scholars from being bold in the sense of moving outside the traditions of their home discipline. Developing and nurturing relationships with colleagues from other fields requires a substantial investment in time. The innovation needed for true interdisciplinary practice also requires significant emotional labour and commitment. Despite these cautionary notes, our hope is that this volume will encourage others that successful collaborative and interdisciplinary scholarship is possible.

5 Conclusion We conclude this introductory chapter with a call for strong interdisciplinarity in sustainable business research. The complex ecological and social challenges we are facing today require urgent action in the form of research that enables companies and organisations to take a decisive role in the transition towards more sustainable futures. Strong interdisciplinarity requires committed research participants, academic and non-academic, who are willing to share, but also critically assess, their expert knowledge, and work towards the development of new methodologies and new knowledge to further sustainable business. In addition, we like to join Cairns et al. (2020) in their conclusion in a study of seven interdisciplinary research teams working on sustainability challenges: [O]ther elements such as life experiences, values, hopes and culture all play important roles in interdisciplinary collaboration. These provide valuable ways of knowing the world, and potential for imaginative connections and reconfigurations, and arguably are at least as important for collaboration as robust disciplines in transformative problem-solving research. (p. 1740).

Our aspiration is that the chapters in this volume contribute to the call for strong interdisciplinarity and will encourage interdisciplinary business research for strong – or actual – corporate sustainability.

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Beate Sjåfjell  is Professor of Law at the University of Oslo, Faculty of Law, and a visiting professor at College of Europe, European Legal Studies Department. Beate is founder and head of the Law Faculty’s research group Sustainability Law, as well as of several international projects and networks, including Daughters of Themis: International Network of Female Business Scholars. She publishes extensively in the field of corporate law, corporate governance, and sustainability.

Part I

Reflections

Chapter 2

Thinking with Care: Exploring Interdisciplinarity in a Global Research Project Maja Van der Velden and Beate Sjåfjell

1 Introduction Caring means becoming subject to the unsettling obligation of curiosity, which requires knowing more at the end of the day than at the beginning. (Haraway 2008)

The aim of this chapter is to reflect on the role of interdisciplinarity in a global research project. We do this in a presentation and discussion of our experiences with the interdisciplinary research approach of the Sustainable Market Actors for Responsible Trade (SMART) project. SMART was a four-year research project (2016–2020) funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme call The European Union’s contribution to global development: in search of greater policy coherence. The project involved 25 partner organisations and close to 80 researchers and was based at the University of Oslo. We grounded the SMART project in three assumptions: first, that successful socio-economic development requires sustainable development – or sustainability, as it increasingly is denoted. Second, that the European Union’s (EU) market actors, private, public and hybrid, are crucial to achieving the EU’s sustainable development goals. Third, that comprehensive research into the regulatory complexity of

This chapter is based on an earlier version presented at the Daughters of Themis workshop in Kea, Greece, in 2017. At that time, we had just finished the first year of our global research project. This chapter was finalised after the project was completed in March 2020. ‘Thinking with Care’ refers to de la Bellacasa (2012). M. Van der Velden (*) Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected] B. Sjåfjell Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 B. Sjåfjell et al. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Research for Sustainable Business, Strategies for Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06924-6_2

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market actors’ impact on low-income countries, based on a systemic, interdisciplinary approach, was required. This would enable the identification of the changes necessary to achieve policy coherence for development, which we positioned within the context of sustainability (Sjåfjell and Ahlström 2020). Furthermore, we conceptualised sustainability as a ‘wicked problem’ (Rittel and Webber 1973), a problem without clear boundaries, for which no solutions are readily available. Research based on the understanding of sustainability as a wicked problem is therefore often interdisciplinary research. The nature of a wicked problem requires a multitude of fields of knowledge to work together, in order to move forward in finding new understandings of the problem itself, as well as in identifying possible ways to address the problem. The perspective we take in this chapter is constructive and critical, seeking connections and understanding rather than trying to provide a blueprint for interdisciplinary research in general. While writing this chapter, we reflect and think with care. Our understanding of care is based on Tronto (1994), who defines care as ‘a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our “world” so that we can live in it as well as possible’. That world includes our bodies, ourselves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a ‘complex, life-sustaining web’ (p. 103). Tronto proposes four analytically separate but interconnected phases of care: caring about, taking care of, caregiving, and care-­ receiving. Caring about refers to the recognition of a care; that care is needed. Taking care of refers to assuming responsibility for the identified need for care and determining how to respond to that need. Care-giving is about meeting the needs for care, an act in which the caregivers are in contact with the care-receivers. Care-­ receiving is about the response of the object of care to the care it receives. Tronto presents care as a complex practice, including thought and action, both directed towards some end (p. 108). De la Bellacasa (2012) takes Tronto’s understanding of care forward in a vision of care that matters for knowing and thinking. Tronto’s definition, according to de la Bellacasa, is relational: care is needed to hold our life-sustaining web together – it assumes relations of care. A caring position is therefore not a normative position: care is an ontological requirement, not a moral obligation. In her essay, de la Bella Casa goes on to explore what non-moralistic ways of care can mean for practices of knowing and thinking. In this chapter, we conceptualise interdisciplinary research as care work. Our thinking with care refers to how we tried to take care of interdisciplinarity in our global research project. In the next section, we will first provide some background for our reflections and introduce our research project, with a focus on writing an interdisciplinary research proposal. As our disciplinary backgrounds are very different, we moved first towards a higher level of understanding of the problem with which we were going to engage. This created a space in which we could work towards a common worldview, which is central to writing a coherent interdisciplinary research proposal. Section 3 presents a discussion of some perspectives on interdisciplinarity in the context of the approach proposed in the SMART project. At least three modes of

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interdisciplinarity can be found in the SMART project. Rather than identifying the ‘right’ mode, a focus on the doing of interdisciplinarity can enable an understanding of interdisciplinarity as emergent. As SMART scholars we were shaping a SMART-­ informed mode of interdisciplinarity and at the same time it was shaping us. We investigate the role of a central concept in the SMART project: regulatory ecology, which became a strong and central connecting point for interdisciplinary discussions. We describe regulatory ecology as a boundary object (Star and Griesemer 1989). Presenting the different ways in which SMART researchers engaged with this concept enables further exploration of how interdisciplinarity is a doing. In Sect. 4, we discuss the relation between our wicked problem and our interdisciplinary approach. Inspired by Haraway (2008) and de la Bellacasa (2011), we explore our wicked problem as a matter of care and interdisciplinarity as care work. We found that the project infrastructure itself was an important disciplining actor, forcefully shaping our mode of interdisciplinarity. This provides a basis for reflection on how future projects could be shaped to give more time and opportunity for care work, which also encompasses advice for funders. In Sect. 5, we present some brief concluding remarks.

2 Writing an Interdisciplinary Research Proposal Doing interdisciplinary research starts when writing the research proposal. As the main authors of the SMART project proposal, we contributed with our very different backgrounds, as a scholar in law (Sjåfjell) and a scholar in informatics (van der Velden). While many funding agencies prefer interdisciplinary research projects, writing an interdisciplinary research proposal is a challenge in itself. We both had a clear idea of our roles in the proposal we were writing, based on our own research interests. The process of proposal writing formed our contact zone, a space in which we could communicate across our sometimes irreducible differences as disciplined knowers (Haraway 2008); a space in which our knowledges could enter new relations. Our challenge was pulling together these different backgrounds into a scholarly proposal that would address the objectives of the funding call. The first step in this process was agreement on the nature of the problem we were addressing, as well as our ontological and epistemological positioning towards such a problem. To that end, we discussed sustainability on a meta-level, beyond our own, more applied, ways of working on this topic. The creation of a common understanding is one of the building blocks of a functioning interdisciplinary team. Our common understanding was based on the Planetary Boundaries framework (Rockström et al. 2009; Steffen et al. 2015) that, combined with Raworth’s inclusion of social objectives, produced a framework originally known as the ‘Oxfam doughnut’ (Raworth 2012). It points to the need for an explicit focus on the social justice principles underpinning sustainability. Leach et al. (2013) integrated planetary boundaries and the social foundation into one framework with the aim of

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identifying alternative pathways to sustainability and to inform deliberations about their social and political implications. The Planetary Boundaries framework and its extension to include the social foundation are based on socio-ecological systems thinking. Thinking in and with systems thus formed the basis for our positioning towards the problem we were going to address. In our proposal, we present the lack of social and environmental sustainability as a multidimensional problem, ‘a wicked problem’ (Rittel and Webber 1973): a problem that cannot be managed by one jurisdiction, organisation, or discipline. Different understandings of the problem and conflicting interests or different perspectives on how to work towards a solution contribute to the ‘wickedness’ of a problem. Young et al. (2012) describe the process of addressing a wicked problem as ‘an iterative process, where early solutions are understood as opportunities to further understand and explore the problem’. The combination of socio-ecological systems thinking and understanding the topic of our proposal as a wicked problem shaped the direction in which we were developing our research proposal. We needed an integrative approach, allowing us to develop our thinking further in the context of the combined planetary boundaries and social foundation framework and integrate that understanding in our fields of research. This included understanding the foundations of human well-being and their regulatory and economic underpinnings, such as human rights and social and economic development. This integration informed our interdisciplinary approach, which would enable us to combine a lifecycle perspective on products, an investigation of the impacts of these lifecycles on people and the planet, and the regulatory complexity of the production, use, and end-of-life of products involving both the EU and low-income countries. Creating this common understanding enabled us to formulate the different roles for our research partners, as well as the different research questions addressed in the different teams, which we organised in so-called work packages. During the process of proposal writing, we organised meetings, both face-to-face and via video conferencing. These meetings were important for discussing the general approach taken in the draft proposal, as well as for creating understanding of each other’s expertise and future contributions. In the selection of our detailed case studies, it was unavoidable to stay close to the available expertise and research interests of our future project participants. We engaged with researchers with different expertise in sustainability research, but that meant they often already had established research interests and approaches, which guided the choice of case studies. On this level, it was not always easy to maintain a strong interdisciplinary perspective. Our team consisted of scholars in law, economics, business management, informatics, and sustainability science and covered research approaches found at opposite ends of the spectrum, from positivism to feminist technoscience. The interdisciplinary capacity of our team was bounded by the mix of scholars and their expertise. This influenced the implementation of our research project, as we will discuss later, but at the same time we considered this not a limitation but a challenge that all research teams are confronted with.

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While our research project was highly successful in terms of outcomes (including the reform proposals presented in Sjåfjell et al. (2019) and other reports), the level of interdisciplinary, in terms of curiosity to learn from other disciplines and the ability to maintain a high level of ambiguity, changed during the implementation of the project. The demands by the funding agency to reach milestones and provide project deliverables on time puts pressure on the interdisciplinary capacity of a research team. Under such conditions, the focus shifted to some extent towards the implementation of individual project activities and away from exploring the interdisciplinary capacities found in the team, such as a focus on what other disciplines can contribute to one’s own activities. We will discuss this change in the following sections.

3 Doing Interdisciplinarity 3.1 Different Understandings of Interdisciplinarity The literature provides a wide variety of descriptions for interdisciplinarity and often includes additional descriptions of transdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity (Frodeman et al. 2017). All three approaches are based on the involvement of multiple disciplines but differ in how this involvement can be characterised. According to Huutoniemi et al. (2010), a multidisciplinary approach or research team is most often seen as the coming together of different disciplines to solve a problem, with researchers contributing with methods from their own disciplines; a transdisciplinary approach or research team transcends any disciplinary boundaries, generating a new whole, in which the parts no longer can be identified; while an interdisciplinarity approach is often perceived as somewhere in between: it integrates theories, concepts, and methods from different disciplines into a new configuration. In research practices, things are not as clear as these brief descriptions above seem to indicate. Barry and Born (2013) mention that the meanings of interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity are often overlapping or used interchangeably. That also became clear in our project proposal, where, unintentionally, both terms were used without a clear distinction. Barry and Born see the term ‘interdisciplinarity’ as more rooted in the Anglo-American academia, while transdisciplinarity is more common in German- and French-speaking worlds (pp. 8–9). Barry and Born (ibid., pp.  10–12) identify three modes of interdisciplinarity, each referring to the particular way the involved disciplines engage each other: integrative-­synthesis mode, subordinate-service mode, and agonistic-antagonistic mode. In the first mode, the disciplines are engaged in a symmetrical manner. The authors use the example of climate change research, in which both natural and social science data are integrated to develop a more complete model of climate change. In the second mode, there is often a dominant discipline to which the other

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disciplines perform the role of filling in the lack of data and analysis, which the dominant discipline cannot provide. This is sometimes the case in climate change research, in which the social sciences play the service role to the natural sciences and fill in knowledge gaps articulated by the natural sciences. The third mode, agonistic-­antagonistic, results from what Barry and Born call ‘a self-conscious dialogue with, criticism of or in opposition to the limits of established disciplines’ (p. 12). Jasanoff (2013) positions science and technology studies in the agonistic-­ antagonistic mode, not least because ‘scholars, possibly at the margins of their own disciplinary enclaves, start asking questions that demand new modes of inquiry and challenge. Interdisciplinarity itself, in other words, can be curiosity-driven rather than instrumental, reflexive rather than mobilized by external circumstances’ (p. 100). Huutoniemi et al. (2010) developed an epistemologically grounded conceptual framework to analyse interdisciplinarity based on a classification of interdisciplinary research in a large number of research proposals. The authors identify three dimensions: scope, interaction, and goals. Scope refers to the ‘conceptual and cultural distance between the participating research fields’ (p. 82).1 Interdisciplinarity can be narrow or broad. In narrow interdisciplinarity, the participating research fields are conceptually close. The opposite is true in broad interdisciplinarity, where heterogeneous data and methods from conceptually distant fields (disciplines) are combined. The second dimension is the type of interaction between the participating research fields. Multidisciplinary research is characterised by the coordination of knowledge of the participating fields, rather than the integration of knowledge, as found in interdisciplinary research. In a multidisciplinary approach, research is often divided into work packages, each within a particular discipline, which are connected through a theoretical framework (Huutoniemi et  al. ibid., p.  83). Interdisciplinary research, on the other hand, is characterised by an active and purposeful integration across fields in terms of problem definition, coordination of knowledge flows across fields, methodology, and formulation and analysis of results (ibid.). This description overlaps with Barry and Born’s integrative-synthesis mode of interdisciplinarity. The third dimension is the type of goals. Huutoniemi et al. (ibid.) differentiate between goals with an epistemological, instrumental, and mixed orientation (p. 85). In epistemologically oriented research, the goal is to produce new or improved knowledge about a research object. In instrumentally oriented research, the goal is to bring together all necessary fields to produce the knowledge needed to address a particular research problem. The goal can often be solving a societal problem or developing a new product, for example. In a mixed approach, the goals of new or improved knowledge and necessary knowledge are equally important goals (ibid., p. 85).

 Huutoniemi et al. prefer to talk about field, not discipline, because they found that ‘what interdisciplinarity mixes is the intellectual landscape of knowledge, not disciplines per se’ (p. 80). 1

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Schmidt (2008) locates the discussion of interdisciplinarity in the philosophy of science and argues that a minimal understanding of the foundations, methods, and implications of science is a prerequisite to understand interdisciplinarity (p.  66). Schmidt differentiates between strong and weak interdisciplinarity, which becomes clear when we look at the motives for interdisciplinarity as explained by Schmidt (p. 58). The first motive is the unity of the sciences; strong interdisciplinarity as a way to overcome the limitations of the disciplines that restrict scientific development. The second motive is economic, weak interdisciplinarity to promote science as a means to ‘wealth, welfare, and prosperity’. The third motive is social, ethical, and problem-oriented, weak interdisciplinarity to counter the impact of reductive disciplines that cannot cope with real-life, complex, or wicked problems. As interdisciplinarity is often associated with the need to address complex societal problems, particular theories may also inform the understanding of interdisciplinarity and give directions. Sumner (2003) mentions critical theory as one of the first forms of interdisciplinarity (pp. 6–7): (i) Both open up new ways of knowing; critical theory through critically questioning research design, methodology, data analysis, and the researcher, while interdisciplinarity enables a wider perspective in research. (ii) Both embrace synthesis and reflexivity: the synthesis of different forms of knowledge (in critical theory thesis and antithesis) into a more holistic understanding; and reflexivity, in the form of self-critique and self-reflexivity, in research. (iii) Both experience disciplinary pressures: working within established, non-­ critical, disciplines are often perceived as financially and professionally more rewarding. Sumner’s infusion of interdisciplinarity with critical theory creates a form of critical interdisciplinarity that moves beyond academic boundaries. With a focus on relations between the disciplines, rather than the boundaries themselves, Sumner proposes a relational lens for critical interdisciplinarity. This relationality should be encountered with a critical attitude, questioning every aspect of the research project (ibid., p. 7). A particular form of critical interdisciplinarity is feminist interdisciplinarity, in which feminist theory is the founding theory for guiding interdisciplinary research (Liinason and van der Tuin 2007; Pryse 2000; Särmä 2012).

3.2 SMART Interdisciplinarity The SMART project’s interdisciplinarity was shaped through the configuration of its research team as well as in the approach it proposed to address its main research concern. The proposal mentions: ‘The Project’s overall methodology is integrated, interdisciplinary, and systemic; integrating legal, economic, and sociological approaches and analyses of the factors that enable or hinder sustainable decision-­ making by market actors’.

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Rather than trying to fit the SMART project’s mode of interdisciplinarity in the different categories of interdisciplinarity mentioned above, we find it more productive to read this citation from the SMART project with the different perspectives on interdisciplinarity rather than against them. This might help us to find similarities and differences that matter, contributing to a deeper understanding of interdisciplinarity. This reading with or ‘diffractive reading’ (Barad 2007; Haraway 1997) brings out that the SMART project’s use of the term interdisciplinarity is based on the understanding that the natural and social science produce complementary data and analyses, which will contribute to a regulatory analysis located in the discipline of law. As such, we can argue that in terms of its scope, the interdisciplinarity found in the SMART project is both narrow and broad – narrow in the sense of the focus on regulation and broad in the sense of the heterogeneity of the data used in the regulatory analysis. For example, data from natural science databases on greenhouse gas emissions are combined with qualitative interviews with key informants on particular product lifecycles. The resulting analysis became data in the regulatory analysis performed by researchers specialised in the different law disciplines.

3.3 Integration and Synthesis From a legal scholar perspective, a diffractive reading of SMART interdisciplinarity brings out its integrative-synthesis capacity. Legal, natural, and social science are integrated to develop a more complete model of sustainability. The model, originally proposed by Kate Raworth, bringing together the natural science-based planetary boundaries framework and 12 social dimensions protecting against critical human deprivations (Leach et al. 2013; Raworth 2017), was used to visualise the SMART project’s perspective (see Fig. 2.1). On the other hand, the focus on regulation in the SMART project pushed at times a service role onto other disciplines, in particular the natural and social sciences. For example, the data supporting the Planetary Boundaries framework or the lifecycle assessments of the product case studies (mobile phone, jeans, t-shirt) were used by legal scholars to propose policy reforms.

3.4 Language We consider the different modes and understanding of interdisciplinarity in the SMART project a strength, not a weakness. Rather than forcing one understanding or a consensus on how to understand interdisciplinarity, this diversity enabled inclusion and dialogue. Dialogues were taking place especially in and through the work on the SMART research guide and in project meetings and workshops throughout the project.

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Fig. 2.1  The safe and just space for humanity. (Raworth 2017)

Language was one of the main challenges in these dialogues. Bracken and Oughton (2006) discuss three central aspects of language in the becoming of interdisciplinarity in a research project: dialects, metaphors, and articulation. That each disciplinary field has developed its own dialect was also clear in the SMART project. For example, the term materiality has very different meanings in law than in science and technology studies (STS). In law, materiality refers to something that is important, and there is a causal relationship between a thing and its consequence. In STS, materiality is about the relational effects that make a difference (that matter); a thing cannot have materiality without its relations. Metaphors need interpretation, which can result in miscommunication when the different disciplines may have different interpretations of a metaphor. An example of metaphor in the SMART project was the term mapping, which may refer to the act of making a true representation of something, while in STS, mapping is a multi-­ dimensional doing, focussing on contestations and relationships in time and space (van der Velden 2008). The third aspect that Bracken and Oughton discuss is articulation. Building forth on the work of Ramadier (2004), the authors describe articulation as the

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deconstruction of one’s own knowledge in order to understand the parts that can be used to construct a common understanding. The authors stress that it is about coherence, not unity. That this articulation work can be challenging at times also became clear in the SMART project, where the majority of researchers was based in one discipline. In such a context, the need to deconstruct one’s own knowledge may sometimes seem less urgent. Constructing interdisciplinarity in a global research project may thus not only be about understanding how, and in what way, the different disciplines and interdisciplines can contribute to the project but also about nurturing the relations between them. Interdisciplinarity is not something that is, but a doing. In the SMART project, researchers were actively engaged in becoming interdisciplinary, by exploring possible relations and new understandings in the joint research activities. In this becoming, tensions can arise from incompatible or contrasting perspectives. As such, interdisciplinarity needs on-going attention and nurturing and can be considered a ‘matter of care’. In this context, we can ask: ‘How do we build caring relationships while recognizing divergent positions?’ (de la Bellacasa 2012, p. 207). In the next section, we explore this care work and we will discuss the notion of boundary object in doing care work along and across disciplinary boundaries.

3.5 Care Work with a Boundary Object Star and Griesemer’s (1989) account of scientific work in complex institutional settings, in which there are many different actors and viewpoints, found that the standardisation of methods and the development of boundary objects can bring together the different social worlds present in these settings. The SMART project represents scientific work in complex institutional settings as well as in complex project settings. In the SMART project, the standardisation of methods became a lingua franca in the project, shifting the focus away from questions that divide and separate the researchers in the SMART project to a focus on how to do things together. The focus on the product lifecycle, and the method to map and weigh the different environmental and social impacts found in a product lifecycle, enabled researchers from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences to integrate their data, even though their disciplinary backgrounds may be very different. Even more central to interdisciplinarity in the SMART project was the work enabled by a concept central to the project: regulatory ecology. The concept was introduced to the SMART project in the early days of proposal writing as a concept that bridges regulatory theory and different modes of regulation. The SMART project’s main focus, sustainable global development supported by local, regional, and global legislation, required a new understanding of regulation. The concept of regulatory ecology is based on Lawrence Lessig’s regulatory theory, which promotes the idea that artefacts can have regulatory effects (Lessig 1998, 1999). Lessig identified four modes of regulation: legal norms, social norms, markets (or ‘economic norms’), and ‘architecture’. The latter is the regulatory constraint imposed by nature, such as

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the somewhat delayed response from transgressing planetary boundaries, or by human-made physical or other technological elements, such as the technical inventions that allow capital to move from one part of the world to the other in micro-­ seconds (consider the impact of high-frequency trading) (Sjåfjell and Taylor 2019). Lessig focuses on how these modes directly or indirectly regulate human behaviour. The term regulatory ecology was first mentioned in a work applying Lessig’s theory (Hosein et al. 2003; van der Velden 2006). Already during the proposal writing process, the term regulatory ecology conveyed an interpretative flexibility that enabled acceptance without discussion of, or agreement on, the underlying worldview. It was thus very helpful in making connections and building relations between the different ontological and epistemological perspectives found amongst the SMART team members. As Lessig’s framework is easily visualised, some perceive it as a map that can be filled to explain human behaviour or as a framework to explain a network of regulation, in which not only laws and policies but also markets, social norms, and architecture regulate (see Fig. 2.2). From a STS perspective, regulatory ecology can be understood as an actor network, a web of relations, maybe even a string figure (Haraway 1994; King 2012) (see Fig. 2.3), encompassing both the social and natural world (Latour 2007; Law and Mol 2002). Star and Griesemer (1989, p. 398) call scientific objects that can ‘both inhabit several intersecting social worlds […] and satisfy the informational requirements of each of them’ boundary objects. ‘Their boundary nature is reflected by the fact that they are simultaneously concrete and abstract, specific and general, conventionalized and customised. They are often internally heterogeneous’ (p. 408). As a boundary object, regulatory ecology can inhabit different social worlds with their particular informational requirements:

Fig. 2.2  In Lessig (1998) (left) and in Sjåfell and Taylor (2015) (right)

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Fig. 2.3  In King (2012)

–– Researchers with different disciplinary backgrounds as well as non-academic stakeholders can map their own knowledge on one of the modes of regulation presented in the concept. –– The concept is easily visualised, enabling communication across different social worlds (see Figs. 2.2 and 2.3). –– It functions at different levels of complexity. During the implementation of the SMART project, the concept of regulatory ecology thus became a framework that enabled connections and built relations between the different ontological and epistemological perspectives found amongst the SMART team members. In addition, it was used analytically, to identify determinant factors and systems that enable and hinder businesses, investors, and consumers, as well as the state as market actor and regulator, in contributing to sustainability (Bosman et al. 2020; Taylor and van der Velden 2019). Accordingly, in the SMART project, regulatory ecology can be understood as both a caring object and an object of care. As a caring object, regulatory ecology elicits caring relationships in an interdisciplinary project – it takes care of interdisciplinarity  – as it enables the communication of knowledge and the sharing of expertise between participants. At the same time, it demands on-going care by the researchers in order to be able to do its caring, gathering, and connecting work: As a boundary object, it needs to be engaged in their knowledge work in order to bring the different social worlds together in critical, but respectful, encounters.

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4 A Wicked Problem or a Matter of Care? 4.1 A Continuous Process Rather Than the Solution Most problem descriptions are based on having a sense of how or where to find a solution. This was also the case in the SMART project. Motivated by the increasing attention of policy makers and regulators for the need to regulate for sustainability, the proposal asserted a desire to find a solution in the field of regulation, but how to do this was still unclear. This is the result of the main characteristic of wicked problems: they mutate over time, their causes and effects are scientifically uncertain, and they involve value conflicts amongst different stakeholders in society (Dentoni and Bitzer 2015). Disciplines handle uncertainty in different ways. In the natural sciences, uncertainty can be calculated, modelled, or presented through statistics. The social sciences can describe different ways in which people live with uncertainty and the differences in how uncertainty is perceived by different cultures or genders. In STS, uncertainty is often not described as something that needs to be overcome but something that we learn to live with. As Donna Haraway writes in her critique on the notion of the Anthropocene and its associated meanings and doings: we have to stay with the trouble (2016, p. 1): In urgent times, many of us are tempted to address trouble in terms of making an imagined future safe, of stopping something from happening that looms in the future, of clearing away the present and the past in order to make futures for coming generations. Staying with the trouble does not require such a relationship to times called the future. In fact, staying with the trouble requires learning to be truly present, not as a vanishing pivot between awful or edenic pasts and apocalyptic or salvific futures, but as mortal critters entwined in myriad unfinished configurations of places, times, matters, meanings.

If we understand our wicked problem with all its related uncertainties as trouble, what would it mean to stay with our wicked problem? If we cannot solve our wicked problem in an apocalyptic or salvific future, how can we learn to live with it in the present? This is not to suggest that one must learn to live with it in the meaning of giving up trying to change it, but more as a focus on relations, constituted in time and place, and their potentials and situatedness that are present in the now and the not-yet (Bloch 1986; Santos 2004). According to Haraway (2008), caring is becoming subject to the other and at the same time to become responsible for the other. Caring challenges the critical distance or disinterestedness maintained by the researcher and invites us to build enduring relationships with people and things. By conceptualising our ‘wicked problem in the now’ as a matter of care, we could strengthen our knowledge about non-caring relations that sustain our wicked problem and direct our attention to the powerless or not-cared-for others (de la Bellacasa 2011). This does not mean that care/caring is necessarily a normative position. De la Bellacasa (ibid) proposes care as a ‘speculative commitment to think about how things would be different if they generated care’ (p. 96).

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4.2 Disciplined by Deadlines Haraway’s perspective on caring takes our discussion of interdisciplinarity in a different direction. While interdisciplinarity is often proposed to address complex or wicked problems, Haraway helps us to think of our interdisciplinarity as entangled with our wicked problem. In this relational perspective, the knowledge generated in interdisciplinary doings could bring us closer to our problem of sustainability. Interdisciplinarity can thus become a taking care of the diversity of knowledges and expertise needed to know how to care for our wicked problem. We found that during the implementation of the project, there was less and less time to stay with the trouble, as the need to reach the deadlines for deliverables took over. Caring about deliverables overtook taking care of interdisciplinarity. In the last year of the project, there were fewer project-wide dialogues about interdisciplinarity. Our interdisciplinary concept of regulatory ecology was not the ‘strong concept’ (Höök and Löwgren 2012) as it ideally could have been. It fulfilled its role as boundary object amongst important parts of the research team but was not able to mobilise the whole team. Based on the potential it showed throughout the project, it could have had an even greater generative capacity if more time for taking care of interdisciplinarity had been built into the project plan. For example, the regulatory analysis focused mainly on how other modes of regulation, architecture and design, social norms, and markets undermined the regulatory power of national and international laws and conventions (e.g. Taylor and van der Velden 2019) and on how new regulation could counter this (Sjåfjell et  al. 2019). With more time, the concept could also have been actively used to challenge our disciplined expertise in order to generate new insights. Without enough time, interdisciplinarity became more about trying to create a whole from the available parts, with everyone doing their bit. In this process, clashes and differences are ignored rather than creatively explored. In the beginning of this chapter, we cited Young et al. (2012) understanding of the process of addressing a wicked problem, in which early solutions are seen as opportunities for further exploration. Here we also found that the project’s deadlines did not provide as much room as we would have liked for exploring new solutions through interdisciplinary dialogues and doings. The subordinate-service mode of interdisciplinarity (Barry and Born 2013) became dominant in the project, which supported a more instrumental model of interdisciplinarity (Huutoniemi et al. 2010). Looking back at our project, we understand that thinking with care in an interdisciplinary research project starts during proposal writing. A proposal has elements, such as an implementation plan and deadlines, which play a central role in how we can take care of interdisciplinarity. This is a topic not often discussed in research on interdisciplinarity. Scheel et al. (2019) describes a similar situation: ‘However, we only became fully aware of the importance of care for collaborative research towards the end of our project’ (p.  8). Similar to our reflections, the authors describe

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‘thinking with others’ as a way to engage with alternative modes of research collaboration. Gill et al. (2019) express a comparable experience: ‘[…] Conversation and Caring. These themes were crucial to the interdisciplinary process, as it was only through attention to our relationships with each other that we could begin to reassess the nature of material in each of our disciplines’ (p. 21).

5 Conclusion In this chapter, we reflected on how we defined, worked with, and evaluated interdisciplinarity in our global research project. We found that writing an interdisciplinary research proposal is challenging, but initially seemed a simpler endeavour than implementing it. The implementation of our research project can be analysed according to different categories of interdisciplinarity, but we found that they do not exclude each other, and different modes can be found at different stages during project implementation. As interdisciplinarity is often mentioned in the context of addressing complex or wicked problems, we looked into how we could understand their relationship. Conceptualising a wicked problem as a matter of care could strengthen interdisciplinary work, as it could focus our efforts on the non-caring relationships that sustain our wicked problem. Looking back at our project, we found that we did not anticipate fully the disciplinary power of the project implementation plan and deadlines. Interdisciplinarity needs to be cultivated, to be cared for, which takes time. Over time, project meetings were not so much spaces for interdisciplinary dialogues, rather the need to deliver on time became an important motivation for our research activities. Based on our experience, we would propose more flexibility built into project plans, which also requires more flexibility from the funders. The rush to complete research deliverables, especially in the last phase, could perhaps have been mitigated with earlier deadlines and more time planned for dissemination, discussion, and reflection. On the other hand, that would in the context of this concrete project, with the time frame and funding held equal, have meant a less ambitious project in scope and goals in light of the societal challenges to which we responded. We therefore seek to bring the lessons learned with us into our current and future work, in terms of the necessity of forums and spaces for learning and doing interdisciplinarity together and cherishing the challenges and rewards of co-writing and co-supervising across disciplines. To care for interdisciplinarity, a project proposal and implementation plan needs to include time and space for activities that nurture interdisciplinarity. Interdisciplinarity does not happen by itself or maintain itself; relations between researchers, knowledges, and expertise need to be built, explored, and cared for in order to create interdisciplinary outcomes.

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References Barad K (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (Second Printing edition). Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina Barry A, Born G (2013) Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations of the Social and Natural Sciences. Routledge, Abingdon Bloch E (1986) The principle of hope, 1st American edn. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachussets. Bosman M, Lambooy T, Oral E et al (2020) ‘The Chemicals Between Us’: The Use and Discharge of Chemicals in the Life Cycle of a Pair of Jeans – From Legal Theory to Practice. In: Mauerhofer V, Rupo D, Tarquinio L (eds) Sustainability and Law: General and Specific Aspects:157–199. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­030-­42630-­9_10 Bracken LJ, Oughton EA (2006) ‘What do you mean?’ The importance of language in developing interdisciplinary research. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 31(3):371–382. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-­5661.2006.00218.x de la Bellacasa MP (2012) ‘Nothing comes without its world’: Thinking with care. The Sociological Review 60(2):197–216. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-­954X.2012.02070.x de la Bellacasa MP (2011) Matters of care in technoscience: Assembling neglected things. Social Studies of Science 41(1):85–106. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312710380301 Dentoni D, Bitzer V (2015) ‘The role(s) of universities in dealing with global wicked problems through multi-stakeholder initiatives’ 106 Journal of Cleaner Production 68–78 Frodeman R, Klein JT, Pacheco RC (eds) (2017) The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity, 2nd edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfor dhb/9780198733522.001.0001 Gill J, McKenzie C, Lightfoot E (2019) ‘Handle with care’: Literature, archaeology, slavery. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 44(1):21–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/0308018 8.2018.1543913 Haraway DJ (1994) A Game of Cat’s Cradle: Science Studies, Feminist Theory, Cultural Studies. Configurations, 2(1):59–71. https://doi.org/10.1353/con.1994.0009 Haraway DJ (1997) Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan_Meets_OncoMouse. Routledge, New York Haraway DJ (2008) When Species Meet. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis Haraway DJ (2016) Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press, Minneapolis Höök K, Löwgren J (2012) Strong concepts: Intermediate-level knowledge in interaction design research. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 19(3):23:1–23:18. https://doi. org/10.1145/2362364.2362371 Hosein I, Tsiavos P, Whitley EA (2003) Regulating Architecture and Architectures of Regulation: Contributions from Information Systems. International Review of Law, Computers & Technology, 17(1):85–97. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360086032000063147 Huutoniemi K, Klein JT, Bruun H et al (2010) Analyzing interdisciplinarity: Typology and indicators. Research Policy, 39(1):79–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2009.09.011 Jasanoff S (2013) A political history of STS. In: Interdisciplinarity. Routledge, pp. 99–118 King K (2012) Networked Reenactments: Stories Transdisciplinary Knowledges Tell. Duke University Press, Durham Latour B (2007) Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford Law J, Mol A (eds) (2002) Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practices, 2nd edn. Duke University Press, Durham Leach M, Raworth K, Rockström J (2013) Between social and planetary boundaries: Navigating pathways in the safe and just pathway for humanity. In: ISSC and UNESCO World Social Science Report 2013. OECD Publishing and UNESCO Publishing, Paris, pp. 84–90. https:// doi.org/10.1787/9789264203419-­en

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Lessig L (1998) The New Chicago School. The Journal of Legal Studies 27(S2):661–691. https:// doi.org/10.1086/468039 Lessig L (1999) Internet: The Architecture of Privacy. Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment Law & Practice 1:56–101 Liinason M, van der Tuin I (2007) Practising Feminist Interdisciplinarity. Graduate Journal of Social Science 4(2):1–10 Pryse M (2000) Trans/Feminist Methodology: Bridges to Interdisciplinary Thinking. NWSA Journal 12(2):105–118. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/25223 Ramadier T (2004) Transdisciplinarity and its challenges: the case of urban studies. Futures 36:423–39 Raworth K (2012) A safe and just space for humanity: Can we live within the doughnut? Oxfam Discussion Papers Raworth K (2017) Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist. Chelsea Green Publishing, Hartford Rittel HWJ, Webber MM (1973) Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences 4(2):155–169. /https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01405730 Rockström J, Steffen W, Noone K, Persson Å, Chapin FSI, Lambin E, Lenton T, Scheffer M, Folke C, Schellnhuber HJ, Nykvist B, de Wit C, Hughes T, van der Leeuw S, Rodhe H, Sörlin S, Snyder P, Costanza R, Svedin U, Falkenmark M, Karlberg L, Corell R, Fabry V, Hansen J, Walker B, Liverman D, Richardson K, Crutzen P, Foley J, ‘Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity’ (2009) 14 Ecology and Society Santos B de S (2004) A Critique of Lazy Reason. In: Modern World-System in the Longue Durée. Paradigm Publishers, pp. 157–198 Särmä S (2012) Feminist Interdisciplinarity and the Gendered Parodies of Nuclear Iran. In: Global and Regional Problems: Towards an Interdisciplinary Study. Ashgate Publishing, Farnham, pp. 151–170 Scheel S, Grommé F, Ruppert E et al (2019) Doing a transversal method: Developing an ethics of care in a collaborative research project. Global Networks 20(3):1–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/ glob.12263 Schmidt JC (2008) Towards a philosophy of interdisciplinarity. Poiesis & Praxis, 5(1):53–69. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10202-­007-­0037-­8 Sjåfjell B, Ahlström H (2020) Facilitating Interdisciplinary Corporate Sustainability Research: The SMART Research Guide. University of Oslo Faculty of Law Research Paper No. 2020-16. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3626903 Sjåfjell B, Taylor MB ‘Clash of Norms: Shareholder Primacy vs. Sustainable Corporate Purpose’ (2019) 13 International and Comparative Corporate Law Journal 40–66. Sjåfjell B, Mähönen J, Taylor MB et al (2019) Supporting the Transition to Sustainability: SMART Reform Proposals (SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 3503310). Social Science Research Network. https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3503310 Star SL, Griesemer JR (1989) Institutional Ecology, ‘Translations’ and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39. Social Studies of Science 19(3):387–420 https://doi.org/10.1177/030631289019003001 Steffen W, Richardson K, Rockström J, Cornell SE, Fetzer I, Bennett EM, Biggs R, Carpenter SR, W. de Vries, C. A. de Wit, Folke C, Gerten D, Heinke J, Mace GM, Persson LM, RamanathanV, Reyers B, Sörlin S, (2015) ‘Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet’ 347 Science 1259855. Sumner J (2003) Relations of Suspicion: Critical Theory and Interdisciplinary Research. History of Intellectual Culture 3(1). University of Calgary. https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index. php/hic/article/view/68808 Taylor MB, van der Velden M (2019) Resistance to Regulation: Failing Sustainability in Product Lifecycles. Sustainability 11(22):6526. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11226526 Tronto JC (1994) Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. Routledge, New York.

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van der Velden M (2006) A license to know: Regulatory tactics of a global network. Cultural Attitudes Towards Communication and Technology :555–563 van der Velden M (2008) What’s Love Got to Do with IT? On ethics and accountability in telling technology stories. Sixth International Conference on Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication 12 Young D, Borland R, Coghill K (2012) Changing the Tobacco Use Management System: Blending Systems Thinking with Actor–Network Theory. Review of Policy Research, 29(2):251–279. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-­1338.2011.00550.x Maja Van der Velden  is a professor in the Department of Informatics of the University of Oslo. She is the leader of the Regenerative Technologies research group and director of the associated Sustainability Lab. Her field of research is the design and use of digital technologies and the practices and impacts they help shape. Prior to joining the University of Oslo, Maja worked for several years advising civil society organizations in Africa and the Middle East on the adaptation of information and communications technology, in particular in contexts of economic development and social change. Beate Sjåfjell  is Professor of Law at the University of Oslo, Faculty of Law, and a visiting professor at College of Europe, European Legal Studies Department. Beate is founder and head of the Law Faculty’s research group Sustainability Law, as well as of several international projects and networks, including Daughters of Themis: International Network of Female Business Scholars. She publishes extensively in the field of corporate law, corporate governance, and sustainability.

Chapter 3

A Trust Perspective on Interdisciplinary Work May-Britt Ellingsen

1 Introduction This chapter suggests a trust perspective as a theoretical platform for studying the relationship between scientific co-creation of knowledge and social integration in cross-disciplinary collaboration, hereafter called integrative research. Integrative research has been a topic in academic knowledge production, policy discourses, and research funding since the 1960s (Tress and Fry 2004; Huutoniemi et al. 2010) and is highly relevant today. According to Donaldson et al. (2010, p. 1522), there is an increasing need to transcend disciplinary borders and ‘calls for interdisciplinarity can be seen as a response to messy realities’ – messy means here complex societal problems which overflow disciplinary boundaries. Messy realities and major societal challenges such as socio-environmental change and global sustainability require scholars from several disciplines to address major research questions and suggest new solutions (van der Hel 2016; Palmer et al. 2016; Mauser et al. 2013; Raasch et al. 2013). The Belmont Forum1 challenge advocates a message from several funding agencies, and the mission is to ‘support international transdisciplinary research providing knowledge for understanding, mitigating and adapting to global environmental change’. Research for solving major societal challenges and understanding social transformation must combine different forms of knowledge and  The Belmont Forum, which is a group of the world’s major and emerging funders of global environmental change research, is committed to strong interaction with the scientific community, including the Future Earth initiative, the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the International Social Sciences Council (ISSC) (belmontforum.org). 1

M.-B. Ellingsen (*) NORCE Norwegian Research Centre AS, Bergen, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 B. Sjåfjell et al. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Research for Sustainable Business, Strategies for Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06924-6_3

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scientific perspectives (Mauser et al. 2013; van der Hel 2016; van Rijnsoever and Hessels 2011; Sievanen et al. 2011; Harris and Lyon 2013a; Tress and Fry 2004).

1.1 Integrative Research There is a plurality of concepts in the literature describing research and co-­ production of knowledge across disciplines (Mauser et  al. 2013; Tress and Fry 2004) and a conceptual clarification is necessary. Cross-disciplinary, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary are four much-used terms which describe forms of integration between scientific disciplines in co-production of knowledge: processes that have cognitive and social elements. The discussion of scientific integration has so far mainly focused on cognitive and to some extent organisational and practical elements, but not much on the social processes which are the context and precondition for integrative research. Trust is at the heart of social processes and is an under- explored topic as an element in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research (Harris and Lyon 2013b). The question to be explored in the following is how different forms of scientific integration are related to the development of trust.

1.2 Trust and Predictability Trust is a diffuse, multi-faceted quality pervading social life, a social process and condition for interaction. Social life is largely managed through trust; it functions as glue and lubricant  – trust holds people together and eases social interaction (Luhmann 1979; Gambetta 1990; Möllering 2006). Trust is mainly taken for granted, but if it is violated or absent, we become aware of its necessity (Ellingsen 2014). Social interaction is dependent on predictability. Trust is a key to social predictability; our actions are based on assumptions and expectations about others’ future actions (Luhmann 1979; Barber 1983). To trust is to have faith in our social predictions (Lewis and Wiegert 1985) and assume that the other will behave in the way we expect. This faith is based on having something in common with the other, such as shared social codes, knowledge, and mutual understanding. Mutual understanding means an anticipated agreement about what to expect of each other and how these expectations should be fulfilled. Common elements create a feeling of predictability and are the basis for the will to believe that the other will act as expected. The less we have in common, the more unpredictable seems the situation. Mutual understanding cannot be taken for granted and development of trust has to be an active process of creating a common platform for mutual understanding. Unpredictability is a hallmark also of modern life. Everyday life is permeated by social risk and increased social complexity; of situations beyond individual control,

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of social change, contingency, and lack of predictability (Luhmann 1979; Beck 1993; Giddens 1993; Bauman 2005). This state of social risk is generated by unexpected and unfamiliar events, the necessity of acting under conditions of uncertainty and insufficient knowledge, and the encounter with or reliance on strangers in ever more situations. Social change transforms social organisation and social perception; our taken-for-granted social patterns and common platforms for trust are changing (Ellingsen 2014). The familiar way things are done, how we perceive them as well as what and whom we trust are under continuous reconstruction. This goes for academic work too. Integrative research forms such as multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary projects and comprehensive research agendas such as the goal of solving major societal challenges and implementation of global sustainability are transforming traditional academic work. This research arena implies encounters between unfamiliar actors, scientific paradigms, and professional cultures. Integrative research can be challenging because of lack of common knowledge; the effect is social unpredictability and low trust. Successful integrative research has to establish new common platforms for interaction, development of mutual understanding, and shared expectations. Co-production of knowledge can be regarded as a mix of knowledge integration and social integration, as scientific work and trust development. The dynamics amongst these is an underexplored topic in the research literature, and the chapter aims to fill this knowledge gap by exploring the role of trust in co-production of knowledge. The working hypothesis is that scientific knowledge integration and social integration in co-production of knowledge are two interdependent but analytically different processes. The chapter has five sections. This introduction is followed by a clarification of the different forms of integrative research (Sect. 2), thereafter follows a dynamic perspective on trust (Sect. 3) and a presentation of a model of expectations for analysing trust processes (Sect. 4). Section 5 concludes.

2 Co-production of Knowledge: Multiple Forms of Integrative Research Sustainability and environmental research are amongst the main topic areas for co-­ creation of knowledge (van der Hel 2016; Sievanen et al. 2011; Harris and Lyon 2013a). Health care is another huge topic area (van Rijnsoever and Hessels 2011; Aboelela et  al. 2007). These topics raise a number of complex questions, which require knowledge from different fields and disciplines and collaboration and co-­ production of knowledge. This chapter is based on literature from studies of sustainability and environmental issues and research collaboration between mainly social science and natural science. Co-production of knowledge and integrative research is conducted in teams with members from different scientific communities and can include non-academics, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), politicians, and other partners. These

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collaborative constellations can have scientific aims as well as the aim of producing solutions to societal problems, and they can experience challenges with managing different aims, motives, values, disciplines, and knowledge platforms. In short, there are challenges related to scientific integration and social interaction. This section discusses scientific integration.

2.1 Different Forms of Integrative Research Disciplinary research takes place within the boundaries of an academic discipline, which has its set of concepts, theories, and procedures that organise knowledge into a certain worldview (Tress and Fry 2004). Interaction takes place within disciplinary boundaries and knowledge is built and eventually contested within the discipline. However, disciplinary boundaries are dynamic and new (cross-) disciplinary fields are emerging from multi- and interdisciplinary research (Raasch et al. 2013). Multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary describe forms of interaction or integration of knowledge between different disciplines and/or between academics and non-academics. The terms distinguish different forms of research integration (Tress and Fry 2004; Aboelela et  al. 2007; Huutoniemi et  al. 2010; Mauser et  al. 2013) and can indicate a continuum of increased integration from multidisciplinary, to interdisciplinary, and to transdisciplinary research (Aboelela et al. 2007).2 Strength and depth in integration varies from low to fully integrated, described as from discipline-based to integrative research (Mauser et  al. 2013), from parallel to integrative research (Tress and Fry 2004), and from multidisciplinary to transdisciplinary (Donaldson et al. 2010). Integration, involvement, and synthesis can be further categorised into dimensions of integration (Mauser et al. 2013), problem definition, degree of synthesis and research style (Aboelela et al. 2007), goal and participation (Tress and Fry 2004), and scope, type, and goals (Huutoniemi et al. 2010). The term multidisciplinary research does not have a single conceptual use. It can be used as a general label for research involving more than one discipline and includes different forms of integration. The term can be used in a more restrictive sense referring to parallel, not integrative research (Tress and Fry 2004). Here it is used in the restrictive sense and refers to processes where researchers from more than one discipline explore a topic drawing on their disciplinary knowledge but relate to a shared goal. Knowledge is added from different disciplines to create a compound picture. In this conglomeration of disciplinary components (Huutoniemi et al. 2010), there can be exchange of knowledge across disciplinary boundaries, but the aim is development of new disciplinary knowledge. The research is conducted as parallel processes with no integration of knowledge between disciplines (Tress

 Based on a review of interdisciplinarity in the education, business and health care literature from 1980 through 2004. 2

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and Fry 2004). This means that there is probably limited interaction between researchers across disciplines. Huutoniemi et al. (2010) suggest further categorisation of different forms of multidisciplinary research into encyclopaedic, contextualising, and composite multidisciplinary research. Encyclopaedic research means sub-projects loosely linked by a topical focus; there are separate research problems and no cognitive interaction. Contextualising research has limited cognitive interaction, but the work is embedded in a multidisciplinary context based on related research interests or originates from a problem from another field. Concepts and goals can be shared, but without any synthesising aims. Composite multidisciplinary refers to combination of expertise in a coordinated way, but as aggregation and not as integration of knowledge. However, this category seems to be very close to integrative research, and together the three categories indicate steps from parallel towards integrative research. From a social process perspective, the three forms of multidisciplinary research represent different levels of cognitive as well as social interaction. Encyclopaedic research demands no cognitive interaction. Social interaction can therefore be kept at a minimum, which constitutes few challenges or disagreements and raises few if any questions. This means there is low social risk, and hence, that trust is not very much at stake in multidisciplinary research. The term interdisciplinary research can be used as a generic term characterising all collaboration across epistemological boundaries or have a more restricted use – to describe active integration across fields and interaction amongst different bodies of knowledge or research practice (Huutoniemi et  al. 2010, pp.  81, 83). Interdisciplinary is here used in a restrictive sense and means crossing disciplinary boundaries and integration of knowledge and methods from different disciplines to create new knowledge and theory to achieve a common goal (Tress and Fry 2004). There is a large literature discussing different aspects of interdisciplinarity, see for instance Tress and Fry (2004), Aboelela et al. (2007), Donaldson et al. (2010), and Huutoniemi et al. (2010) for an overview. A conceptual discussion is not the topic in this chapter, but further categorisation of interdisciplinary research is relevant. According to Huutoniemi et al. (2010), research interaction between fields can be categorised into empirical, methodological, and theoretical interdisciplinarity. Empirical interdisciplinarity integrates different empirical data collected from various fields to produce new knowledge or to solve an interdisciplinary research problem. Methodological interdisciplinarity combines different methodological approaches to develop new knowledge and to develop new and integrated methods. Theoretical interdisciplinarity synthesises and contrasts theories and concepts and aims to develop new theoretical tools for interdisciplinary analysis and establish new research fields. From a social process perspective, the three categories of interdisciplinarity are steps moving from integration to synthesis, from a common empirical platform to the development of a methodological and theoretical synthesis. Research conducted with the aim of integration of knowledge and crossing of disciplinary boundaries can be a cognitive departure from a familiar discipline and into a new academic field. This intellectually demanding process requires frequent social interaction, it

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implies encounters between different research paradigms and logics; it raises epistemological challenges, conceptual misunderstandings, and communication difficulties. These are all elements that can function as barriers towards integration of knowledge. Interdisciplinary research generates social risk and requires trust. The term transdisciplinary research has much in common with interdisciplinary, but goes beyond it and works between, across, and amongst disciplines and can include non-academics (Tress and Fry 2004; Mauser et  al. 2013). According to Tress and Fry (2004), ‘Transdisciplinarity combines interdisciplinarity with a participatory approach’ and is an intensified form of interdisciplinarity. Intensifying can imply integration of discipline elements (Mauser et al. 2013) and fully synthesised methods and the possible emergence of a new field (Aboelela et  al. 2007). Mittelstrass (2011, p. 331) regards transdisciplinarity as ‘a principle of research and science, one which becomes operative wherever it is impossible to define or attempt to solve problems within the boundaries of subjects or disciplines, or where one goes beyond such definitions’. Transdisciplinary research is necessary to solve compound challenges, which goes way beyond scientific disciplines. To work on non-­ scientific problems and societal challenges, as well as scientific generated problems, practical and theoretical transdisciplinarity is necessary, according to Mittelstrass (ibid.). Finally, transdisciplinary research can provide a reflexive learning process involving academics and non-academics (Mauser et al. 2013). In a social process perspective, transdisciplinary research means increased social complexity; the inclusion of non-academics and focus on solving societal challenges imply new (in a scientific context) forms of coordination of participation and inclusion of different forms of knowledge. An effect of increasing social complexity is rising social risk and increasing need for trust.

2.2 Scientific Integration and Social Collaboration Multidisciplinary research adds knowledge to the discipline, interdisciplinary research integrates knowledge across disciplines, and transdisciplinary research integrates, opens, combines, and includes knowledge across disciplines, professional cultures, and between science and society. These three forms of scientific integration represent a continuum of collaboration. They can be related to an equivalent continuum of rising social complexity and risk and a parallel increase in social unpredictability and need for trust. The increasing social complexity and risk in integrative research and research for solving societal challenges is generated by several scientific and social elements such as. 1. Becoming a scientist means to internalise a paradigm for interpreting knowledge, establish a frame of reference, and use a repertoire of taken-for-granted truths. A scientific discipline or field is a familiar universe; theories, methodology, perspectives, and paradigms are known amongst the members. This does

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not mean full harmony or agreement, but there are some common platforms for collaboration, which provide some predictability. Interdisciplinary work implies interaction between different scientific paradigms and taken-for-granted truths. Expansion into new fields or disciplines reduces scientific familiarity and predictability; it makes the researcher vulnerable and may imply new social rules for interaction. 2. The inclusion of non-academics, new professions, politicians, and activists imply encounters between different roles and rules for interaction and p­ roduction of knowledge, different professional cultures, different goals, and different attitudes. Less can be taken for granted, social predictability and transparency is low and makes social interaction more complex. 3. Projects aiming at solving societal challenges have a goal that can mobilise different and strong opinions, disagreement between scientific and social aims, and conflicts between different motivations. A possible multiplicity of participants, agendas, motives, and methods can create social and scientific complexity where little can be taken for granted and where there is much potential for misunderstandings, doubt, and disagreement. Integrative research3 means entering new fields and disciplines, mobilising new actors and exploring contested subjects. This creates social situations characterised by high social complexity and low predictability. Trust is a critical asset to manage this social context. Successful integrative research must be based on trust and to do that trust-building, processes have to be taken into account and actively worked with. The next section will present a dynamic perspective on trust as a strategy to manage social complexity and risk.

3 Understanding the Other: Integrative Research and Trust Integrative research can be regarded as an explorative cognitive project working with transfer and integration of knowledge. It is a social process involving negotiation to develop mutual understanding of the scientific endeavour. Social interaction and development of trust is a context for scientific work and will influence progress. Low or lack of trust will inhibit collaboration, learning, sharing of ideas and knowledge, and acceptance of others’ work. A greater awareness of the role of trust processes in integrative research is necessary.

 For practical reasons the term integrative research will be used in the discussion of trust. Integrative research includes multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary work. 3

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3.1 Trust and Mutual Understanding Trust is more than a personal feeling and attitude. It is a dynamic social process, a quality situated in the space between us: a condition for and outcome of social interaction (Ellingsen 2014; Möllering 2006). Trust creates a feeling of predictability; trusting reduces social risk, uncertainty, and complexity by making it intellectually manageable. Trusting means to suspend doubt and go beyond the unknown, it means to make a leap of faith, and surrender one’s vulnerability to the trustee (Luhmann 1979; Giddens 1993; Möllering 2006). Suspension does not eliminate the uncertainty; it is ‘bracketing out’ the risk so the actor can act as if the risk or complexity is solved (Luhmann 1979). The leap of faith is triggered by the creation of a sense of mutual understanding between trustor and trustee (Ellingsen 2014). Development of mutual understanding means to suspend the unknowable by establishing a common, familiar platform for social interaction. This is created through step-by-step communication with mutual acceptance and confirmation of each other’s definition of the situation and sufficient agreement on the intention to act in accordance with these. Confirmation of expectations generates trust and increases social predictability (Ellingsen 2014). Mutual understanding does not mean total agreement but is an acknowledgement that there is a necessary set of common rules that have to be fulfilled. Mutual understanding presupposes an acceptable level of reciprocity of perspectives and intersubjective meaning.4 This level is a subjective construct that cannot be decided analytically but is an individual element in trust. However, the social bases for mutual understanding can be explored analytically; this is the social input in the trust process and consists of pre-contractual, relational, and structural elements as a common platform for making the leap of faith. Integrative research can be a step into unknown scientific territory and interaction with unfamiliar partners; situations characterised of low social predictability and few common platforms for development of mutual understanding. This can imply that a common cognitive and social world must be established from scratch and extended step by step. Actors have to establish common social platforms for mutual understanding and development of trust.

3.2 Three Social Platforms for Trust A social platform for trust can be divided into three analytical categories, which refer to general dimensions of social life: pre-contractual taken-for-granted social assumptions, relational processes created through social interaction, and formal structures such as laws, rules, and regulations backed with legitimate sanctions.  “Acceptable” is an individual construction, dependent on elements such as relation, situation, interaction and context. 4

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These general social processes are bases for mutual understanding and the leap of faith. The trust bases are not mutually exclusive; they refer to three analytically different strategies to develop trust and corresponding trust forms. Trust bases are maintained and recreated through social experience and learning, they enhance social predictability and the belief in fulfilment of expectations. Development and maintaining of trust bases are a continuous social process, which is inherent also in integrative research. Social change and new social situations imply reconfiguration of common trust bases. Pre-contractual trust: interaction, transactions, and contracts, indeed all aspects of social life are deeply rooted in a series of habitual, taken-for-granted assumptions about common norms and rules of action. This is an assumed common stock of knowledge. Actors need confidence in the belief that others in the same setting to a certain extent share this knowledge and that they will, accordingly, behave reasonably (Luhmann 1990; Misztal 1996; Brenkert 1998; Sztompka 1999). This trust in others’ willingness to keep to the social script is pre-contractual trust, a mainly implicit form of trust established over time through socialisation, experience, and interaction; we learn to take for granted that numerous tacit promises will be kept. Pre-contractual trust is a basic social quality and an element in relational and structural trust. The basis for pre-contractual trust is recreated through social experience and learning; socialisation is a never-ending process. Social experiences influence pre-contractual trust; social processes maintain or violate relational trust, while structural trust is a macro level quality, dependent first and foremost on legitimate power. Development of pre-contractual trust is a continuous process inherent in everyday life. Socialisation means acquiring a pre-contractual base for trust, and this is an on-going social process. Action and interaction imply confirmation or violation of tacit or explicit expectations, and the outcomes contribute to strengthening or undermining pre-contractual trust. Small daily surprises or moments of unpredictability can, but do not necessarily, have long-lasting effect on pre-­ contractual trust. People usually take for granted that they share common pre-contractual platforms for interaction, but social interaction can reveal that taken-for-granted assumptions are not shared; there is little or no mutual understanding. In interaction between unfamiliar actors, in complex social situations and in situations of social change, the risk for lack of mutual understanding increases (Ellingsen 2014), for instance in integrative research. Integrative research involves encounters between different professional cultures, different disciplines, different scientific paradigms, and unexpected variation in interaction patterns. This can mean that actors have less in common than expected; there can be great variation in pre-contractual expectations. Interaction becomes unpredictable and trust is low. Actors have to develop common platforms for interaction and mutual understanding through step-by-step negotiations and clarification of expectations. Relational trust is based on some form of familiarity and develops in social processes through interpretation, communication, negotiation, and interaction. This kind of trust has traditionally been linked to face-to-face relationships where those

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involved know each other and have the reassurance of sharing common rules and norms (Luhmann 1979; Giddens 1993; Misztal 1996; Sztompka 1999). Relational trust is rooted in previous relationships and can be linked to reciprocity (Zucker 1986; Misztal 1996; Sztompka 1999). Experiences through interaction convince us about the others’ willingness to keep the assumed social promise, or the opposite, which may lead to erosion of trust. The social construction of trust is a dynamic interaction between perception and interpretation, construction of meaning, and confirmation of mutual understanding. Relational trust bridges the barrier between oneself and the other. It is based on personal relationships and reciprocity (Zucker 1986; Misztal 1996; Sztompka 1999), on face-to-face relationships and small group relationships where those involved know each other and share common rules and norms (Luhmann 1979; Hart 1990; Giddens 1993). Relational trust can also be based on one-sided distant relationships, as ascribed or mediated familiarity (Ellingsen 2014). This interpersonal trust pervades social life and is constructed and re-constructed through social interaction and communication. Relational trust is the quality we probably intuitively perceive as ‘trust’ in our everyday language. Even though interaction can reveal deceit, misunderstandings, disagreement, and other trust undermining events, social interaction is the most important strategy to create, repair, and maintain trust. Through step-by-step interactions common frames of reference are developed, adjusted, recreated, and confirmed. Over time, these processes establish a common pre-contractual basis for trust, generate relational trust, and create new patterns of action and interaction. In integrative research, relational processes are a fundamental for creation of trust. Obviously, interaction, dialogue, and clarification are highly necessary processes to get scientific work done in complex social contexts such as in integrative research. But it cannot be taken for granted that doing science will generate trust. There must be a particular focus on social integration, clarification of common social bases, and development of mutual understanding to generate trust and fruitful relational processes. Structural trust is rooted in formal social structures and positions and has much in common with institutional or system trust (Luhmann 1979; Giddens 1993; Misztal 1996; Lane and Bachmann 1996; Sztompka 1999) and applies beyond the individual level. Structural trust is gradually institutionalised through formal organisations, laws, property rights, business regulations, contracts, and professions. Formal structures are a basis for structural trust and function as general promises backed by sanctions from a legitimate power. The possibility of legitimate sanctions serves to safeguard the trustor; it brackets out the risk and is a basis for mutual understanding. The legitimate system of sanctions, in practice the judicial system, is a platform for structural trust, but other formal structures may have the same social function, such as technical and procedural standards (Lane and Bachmann 1996). Development of bases for structural trust is closely woven together with the institutionalisation of a legitimate nation-state, expert systems, and in some cases supranational institutions. Lack of predictable legal structures and arbitrary legal practices is an effect of weak or lacking structural trust bases. The structural trust

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concept refers to non-personal trust and generalised trust. In the trust literature, this form of trust is also referred to as institution-based trust, generalised trust, and macro-level trust.5 Disciplines, methods, and theories are cognitive horizons for researchers and platforms for pre-contractual trust and can function as platforms for structure-based trust. Formal academic degrees, for instance, are a legitimisation of knowledge, and can function as a common scientific platform for trust across disciplines. This platform can then be expanded through stepwise collaboration and confirmation of mutual understanding. If expectations are confirmed and everything works as expected, trust is maintained. Development of mutual understanding is taken for granted and trust processes remain invisible. Analysis of trust involves making the various elements in the process visible and establishing relationships and causality between elements to explain how processes unfold. As mentioned in the introduction of this chapter, expectations are essential in the trust process. Expectations bridge the present and the future and create a sense of predictability in everyday life. Social life presupposes that we take some social premises for granted and act based on expectations and anticipations of possible consequences (Barber 1983; Luhmann 1979; March and Olsen 1989). A closer look at expectations can provide deeper insight into the micro-level process of trust development, and a further exploration of expectations is presented in the next section.

4 Expectations: A Key to Social Predictability Action is based on an inverted time-causality. Expectations about the other’s future actions, about the future in general, and the possible outcome of others’ potential actions guide today’s actions. Expectations are social hypothesis and predictions about how action and practices should unfold and which attitudes, norms, and values should guide the practices. An understanding of trust development, undermining of trust, and trust repair requires an examination of expectations and how they are fulfilled. Expectations are often taken for granted; analytically they are elements in the pre-contractual basis for trust. Expectations can be categorised into four typologies: as background and constitutive expectations and as specific and unspecific expectations (Ellingsen 2014). According to Zucker (1986, pp.  57, 58), trust has two defining components: background expectations and constitutive expectations. Background expectations are the common understandings that are ‘taken for granted’ and related to ‘the attitude of everyday life’. They are standardised attitudes and social codes of everyday life. These forms of expectations are not specific to any situation in particular, but  Institution is a complex and ambiguous sociological concept and the question of ‘how and when institutions matter with regard to trust building is one of the least understood areas within trust research.’ according to Bachman and Inkpen (2011, p. 282), and is not a subject here. 5

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serve as a general, practical, and normative framework for action and behaviour. Background expectations include reciprocity of perspectives and sharing frame of reference. Reciprocity of perspectives is to assume that there is mutual understanding and that the other will act in accordance with this (Ellingsen 2014). Constitutive expectations are contextual and independent of persons; they are related to a particular social setting and to a professional role and role performance. Both background and constitutive expectations can be categorised as pre-contractual elements. Expectations can also be categorised as specific and unspecific (Ellingsen 2014).6 The terms specific and unspecific are used as sensitising concepts (Blumer 1954), to guide what to look for, and they are inspired by Parson’s (1979) pattern variables, which describe value orientations.7 Unspecific expectations are related to tacit elements of social interaction: to attitudes, norms, values, and non-quantified standards. Unspecific expectations are normative and can be difficult to define and articulate. They can be specific on some values; for instance, that killing, stealing, or lying is wrong, but it can be difficult to decide when someone is honest or dishonest; for example, what is regarded as dishonest in a particular context. Specific expectations are related to action and practice; they are about rules, rights, procedures, and related specified elements in social interaction. Background and constitutive expectations are related to the general cultural context and specific settings, respectively. Specific and unspecific expectations are related to visible practices and (often) tacit assumptions about values and norms, respectively. Specific expectations are related to roles and unspecific expectations are related to social behaviour and motivations. Social interaction includes all four types of expectations; they are more or less prevalent in different contexts. Stereotypes (for instance, about gender, religion, and culture) are deep social structures, involving mainly tacit and taken-­ for-­granted assumptions about behaviour and norms. Such stereotypes can be categorised as unspecific background expectations. Trust is contextual; development of trust requires sufficient fulfilment of expectations in all the four categories. Expectations can be grouped into a fourfold table which summarises different aspects of them (Ellingsen 2014, p.177). The typology is a tool to analyse and explain the interaction between different kinds of expectations and the development of trust and an attempt to make visible taken-for-granted elements in social interaction (Ellingsen 2014). This is particularly difficult in situations involving unfamiliar actions, limited knowledge, and encounters between different cultures  – which often is the case in integrative research. In such situations, actors may assume that they have a common platform for expectations, but interaction shows that this assumption is wrong, and they will have to clarify a common ground for interaction.

 The Norwegian word uspesifisert, which means not clearly defined, is translated by me into the term unspecified. 7  These are related respectively to two of Parsons Pattern variables; diffuseness (unspecified) and specificity (specific). Diffuse expectations can in be specific in one sense, for instance expectations about what not to do and about moral norms in various situations, but here the notion unspecific points to that these forms of expectations are usually tacit, taken for granted and not specified. 6

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Table 3.1  Categorisation of expectations Categorisation of expectations Constitutive expectations; defining a particular context Background expectations; social behaviour in general

Specific expectations; related to practice 1) Routines for ‘how to do this’ rules and procedures in particular settings, visible action 2) General ‘how to behave in this particular setting’

Unspecific expectations; tacit, related to attitude 3) Contextual, normative expectations to behaviour in the particular setting 4) Common, general social norms and values

Table 3.1 organises the expectations that are more or less prevalent in social interaction. The squares number 1–4 describe the level of expectations, from the visible surface of actions (square 1) to deep structural tacit cultural values and norms (square 4). A simple example of categorisation of active expectations in a social situation is a wealthy customer in an expensive fashion store. In this setting, the customer’s constitutive, unspecific expectations are helpful staff, good advice, and quality service. Specific constitutive expectations specify how quality service is performed in this context, for instance, rapid help and skilled advice, square 1. In addition, the customer has expectations about friendly and respectful behaviour from the staff, square 2. Politeness, square 3, and other general norms such as honesty, square 4, are more or less taken for granted. This set of expectations demonstrates the tacit promises the customer expects and that an expensive fashion store will fulfil. Entering this kind of shop, one assumes that there is a mutual understanding about these tacit promises; it is the social basis for expectations about how the promise can be fulfilled and how trust can be maintained. During interaction, the customer will decide whether the expectations are sufficiently confirmed and experience whether there is enough mutual understanding. If so, she makes the leap of faith and maintains trust in this shop. If the expectations are insufficiently fulfilled, for instance if the staff did not show a pleasant attitude and the interaction revealed that there was not a mutual understanding of acceptable attitude towards customers, then the shop has broken an important element of the promise. The effect is an undermining of trust, and in the next shopping event, this shop is avoided. (The social risk and complexity in this example are rather low for the customer, who can choose another store.) The development and maintenance of trust related to normative expectations are connected to the symbolic system, culture, and norms in a society. Unspecific expectations are fulfilled by interpretation of the symbolic aspects of actions as well as by attitudes communicated through performance. Specific expectations are about action and practice and how routines, rules, duties, and tasks are performed. These can be specified in contracts and agreements; they can be technical, instrumental, or quantitative routines or procedures. Lack of mutual understanding of norms and how they ought to be practised in a social situation may cause value conflicts that are difficult to solve. Value conflicts can undermine trust, generate distrust, and

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result in exit from a relationship (Hirschman 1970; Barber 1983; Lipset and Schneider 1983). Erosion of trust because of broken unspecific expectations is harder to restore than if it is caused by broken specific expectations (Ellingsen 2014; Weber and Carter 2003). According to Weber and Carter (2003, p. 147), dignity and self-respect reside at the core of the person, to trust is to presuppose that one shares moral standards. In social interaction, moral standards are activated as unspecific expectations. It is likely that violations of these expectations, located in square 3 and 4 in the table of expectations, will hurt our core feelings. These feelings are harder to restore than a disappointment caused by violation of rules or procedures, they are more specific, located in square 1 and 2 in the table, and related to task and role rather than the self. In addition, unspecific expectations can be difficult to make explicit, and thereby it is difficult to know how to restore this trust violation. Expectations are complex; they are about what to do as well as what not to do. A phenomenon is comprehended in relation to something that it differs from (Bateson 1985; Luhmann 1979). For instance, when someone is characterised as a child, it is understood that she is not an adult. Expectations are not only about what to do – there are a lot of implicit and taken-for-granted expectations about what not to do, this applies for a particular situation as well as in general. A culture includes many tacit social codes for what to do and not to do. The not to do codes are probably even less explicit than the to do codes. In social interaction, both sets of codes are relevant; actors must take this into consideration in making predictions and expectations of the other. To develop and maintain our trust, the other must fulfil both kinds of expectations acceptably, but different expectations are more or less prevalent or activated in different situations. An indication of a highly complex social situation can be that many different forms of expectations are at play and perhaps unfulfilled. Social interaction is complex. Trusting is a strategy for social prediction – by presupposing mutual understanding one establishes an assumed common platform for expectations and taken-for-granted common social patterns. This is highly necessary to reduce social complexity. In this perspective, doing integrative research means to enter a social landscape of unpredictability. As pointed out earlier, there can be few common platforms for development of mutual understanding; it is a small social knowledge base for expectations, and there is a high risk for broken expectations and diminishing trust. The social risk in this situation can be reduced by awareness of the social complexity implicit in integrative research and by working actively with development of trust, clarify expectations, and build mutual understanding step by step. The social complexity in integrative research can be categorised into the expectation model. Familiar situations, routine-based interactions, few actors  – in short situations characterised of high predictability will usually activate expectations in square 1, specific and constitutive expectations. Discipline-based research with familiar partners, manageable research questions, and few, if any conflicting, interests will most probably activate expectations in square 1. If some of the expectations related to practises or procedures are broken, it is unlikely that trust is eroded. Dialogue, correction of action, and excuses can adjust specific expectations and

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repair the situation. If expectations in square 2 are unfulfilled, there is a higher risk for erosion of trust related to personal behaviour. Repairing of this trust can be more demanding and may require adjustment of personal behaviour and clarification or reformulation of specific background expectations. Multidisciplinary research involves more actors, different disciplines; the researchers relate to a shared goal and may exchange knowledge. More actors and multiplicity mean increased interaction and higher complexity. This situation activates specific, constitutive expectations and probably specific backgrounds expectations as interaction between more people increases the risk of divergent norms. The social risk is reinforced as people with a different disciplinary background; they may represent different cultures and have different scientific vocabulary, methods, and perspectives. The differences may activate expectations in squares 3 and 4, unspecific constitutive and backgrounds expectations, but the risk for this is probably not so high. Social proximity increases complexity and risk, but multidisciplinary work is in parallel and not based on integration, and social proximity is not particularly increased in relation to disciplinary research. The researcher can remain within her discipline, and the social base for expectations is not so different from discipline-based research. The social challenges increase with integrative research. Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research have much in common, as they involve participants from more than one discipline, and an ambition is cross-disciplinary work and development of integrated knowledge and theory. This implies entering into unfamiliar knowledge fields and collaboration across disciplinary and professional cultures; situations with few common social or cognitive platforms, with unknown social codes and conflicting expectations. The social landscape seems unpredictable, and trust is difficult to develop or maintain. Transdisciplinary research can represent an intensification of the social challenges as non-academics such as NGOs and politicians can be involved. This increases the multiplicity of participants, of social codes, and variation in motivation that is involved in the research process. The ambition of involving society or solving societal challenges can further intensify the social complexity. Integrative research will probably activate all the four types of expectations. Activation means that expectations unfulfilled and the actors experience unpredictability, disagreement, lack of mutual understanding, and erosion of trust. Integrative research will activate specific and unspecific constitutive expectations (squares 1,3) and specific background expectations (square 2) for instance related to differences in work procedures and methodology. Integration of knowledge can in addition activate unspecific backgrounds expectation (square 4) if questions about integration of knowledge affects deeper personal convictions. It is however more likely that unspecific background expectations (square 4) are activated in transdisciplinary research. This research involves multiple actors with different motivations, and the project can have an action-oriented agenda. Transdisciplinary research may run a higher risk of developing normative based disagreements.

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5 Conclusions Is the conclusion that integrative research is an unpredictable chaos characterised of distrust? Of course not. This chapter suggests a dynamic trust model as a theoretical platform for studying integrative research as a social process. Integrative research has a high potential for unpredictability and complexity – but this does not necessarily mean development of distrust. Integrative research can activate unfulfilled expectations regarding motives, attitudes, and actions on a deep personal level and can trigger sharp cognitive discussions. These challenges can be managed through working actively with trust development. This implies working with social processes such as clarification of assumptions, development of common platforms for agreement and disagreement, and bridging cognitive distance. The point is to reach an acceptable level of mutual understanding to generate trust. Trust provides acceptance for disagreement and multiplicity. Development of knowledge is more than science; it is about understanding and trusting the other. Facilitation of this in multiple and unpredictable contexts requires clarification of social assumptions and development of common platforms for action. The suggested dynamic model of trust processes is an analytic tool for better understanding of the social mechanisms that are at stake in complex collaboration processes. The model is also a practical development tool for enhancing the awareness of trust as a social process and for working with clarifying expectations and roles in scientific collaboration.

References Aboelela SW, Larson E, Bakken S et al (2007) Defining Interdisciplinary research: Conclusions from a Critical Review of the Literature. Health Services Research, 2007 42(1 Pt 1):329-346 Bachman R, Inkpen AC (2011) Understanding Institutional-based Trust Building Processes in Inter-organizational Relationships. Organization Studies 32(2):281-301 Barber B (1983) The Logic and Limit of Trust. Rutgers University Press, New Jersey Bateson G (1985) Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Ballantine Books, New York Bauman Z (2005) Liquid Life. Polity, Cambridge Beck U (1993) Risk Society. Sage, London Blumer H (1954) What is Wrong with Social Theory. American Sociological Review 18(3):3-10 Brenkert G (1998) Trust, Morality and International Business. In: Lane C, Bachmann R (eds) Trust within and between Organizations: Conceptual Issues and Empirical Applications. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 273-297 Donaldson A, Ward N, Bradley S (2010) Mess among Disciplines: Interdisciplinarity in Environmental Research. Environment and planning 42(7):1521-1536 Ellingsen M-B (2014) The Trust paradox. An inquiry into the core of social life. Dr.Philos thesis, University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø Giddens A (1993) The Consequences of Modernity. Polity Press, Cambridge Gambetta D (1990) (1988): Can We Trust Trust?, in Gambetta, D. (ed.): Trust: Making and breaking cooperative relations, Oxford, Basil Blackwell Harris F, Lyon F (2013a) Transdisciplinary environmental research: a review of approaches to knowledge co-production. Nexus network Think Piece Series Paper 002, November 2013

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Harris F, Lyon F (2013b) Transdisciplinary environmental research: Building trust across professional cultures. Environmental & Science Policy (31):109–119 Hart K (1990) Kinship, Contract and Trust: The Economic Organization of Migrants in an African City Slum. In: Gambetta D (ed) Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations. Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 176-193 Hirschman AO (1970) Exit, voice and loyalty. Harvard University press, Cambridge, MA Huutoniemi K, Thompson KJ, Bruun H et al (2010) Analyzing interdisciplinarity: Typology and indicators. Research Policy (39):79-88 Lane C, Bachmann, R (1996) The Social Constitutions of Trust: Supplier Relations in Britain and Germany. Organizations Studies. 17(3):365-396 Lipset SM, Schneider W (1983) The confidence Gap. Free Press, New York Luhmann N (1979) Trust and Power. Wiley, Chichester Lewis JD, Weigert A (1985) Trust as Social Reality, Social Forces, 63(4):967–985 Luhmann N (1990) (1988): Familiarity, confidence, trust, in Gambetta, D. (ed.): Trust: Making and breaking cooperative relations, Oxford, Basil Blackwell March JG, Olsen JP (1989) The uncertainty of the past: organizational learning under ambiguity. In: March JG Decisions and Organizations. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 335–358 Mauser W, Klepper G, Rice M et  al (2013) Transdisciplinary global change research: the co-­ creation of knowledge for sustainability. Current opinion in environmental Sustainability 5:420–431 Misztal BA (1996) Trust in Modern Societies. Polity Press, Cambridge Mittelstrass J (2011) On transdisciplinary. TRAMES 2011 15(4):329–338 Möllering G (2006) Trust: Reason, Routine, Reflexivity. Elsevier, Oxford Palmer MA, Kramer JG, Boyd J et al (2016) Practices for facilitating interdisciplinary synthetic research: The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC). Current opinion in environmental Sustainability 19:111–122 Parsons T (1979 [1951]) The social system. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, pp  3–68, 226–249, 473–520 Raasch C, Lee V, Spaeth S et al (2013) The rise and fall of interdisciplinary research: The case of open source innovation. Research Policy 42:1138–1151 Sievanen L, Campbell LM and Lesilie HM (2011) Challenges to Interdisciplinary Research in Ecosystem-based Management. Conservation Biology, 26(2):315–325 Sztompka P (1999) Trust. A Sociologic Theory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Tress GB, Fry G (2004) Clarifying integrative research concepts in landscape ecology. Landscape ecology 20:479–493 van der Hel S (2016) New science for global sustainability? The institutionalisation of knowledge co-production in Future earth. Environmental & Science Policy (61):165–175 van Rijnsoever FJ, Hessels LK (2011) Factors associated with disciplinary and interdisciplinary research collaboration. Research Policy 40(3):463–472 Weber LR, Carter AI (2003) The Social Construction of Trust. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, pp. 1–50 Zucker LG (1986) Production of trust: institutional sources of economic structure, 1840–1920. Research in Organizational Behavior 8:53–111 May-Britt Ellingsen  is research director for the Regional Development research group at NORCE Research Institute, division Health and Social Science. She earned her dr. philos degree at the University of Tromsø, Norway. The thesis develops a process perspective on trust based on studies of organisational change. Her research focuses on trust, innovation and organisational change. Recent works are on cross sector collaboration, trust, and innovation in implementation of change in public sector. As researcher in applied social science May-Britt has a long experience in participatory research and dialogue-based evaluations of collaboration and development processes.

Chapter 4

Interdisciplinary Research in Law: A Reflective Case Study with Lessons for Sustainability Researchers Victoria Schnure Baumfield

1 Introduction One’s initial forays into interdisciplinary research can be fraught for even seasoned law academics. Legal scholars may be uncertain as to whether material from the other discipline(s) is being used correctly, potentially tainting one’s research findings. One may fear coming across as uninformed when writing about concepts from the ‘foreign’ discipline. Legal scholars may also struggle with how to characterize, define, and explain how they have performed their research. Like many interdisciplinary researchers, I have been grappling with these issues as I explore my area of interest, the governance and public accountability of government business enterprises (GBEs). In my case, traditional doctrinal legal analysis – interpreting, analysing, analogizing, and distinguishing cases and statutes  – is supplemented with insights from economics, political science, public administration, and regulatory theory. When I engage in doctrinal analysis, I use the standard ‘legal method’ that common law lawyers absorb throughout their legal training. Lawyers use this method implicitly. Accordingly, it normally is not explicitly addressed in legal analyses. The cognate disciplines have their own language, assumptions, and methods of analysis. Some of these are also implicit to the discipline; this is one area where danger can arise. At the same time, other disciplines utilize varied methodologies that lawyers may not be familiar with. Their researchers ordinarily must explicitly detail the methodology used. Lawyers who are unaware of this may lose credibility if they do not conform to the other discipline’s expectations or explain why the structure of their analysis differs. Both public sector governance and sustainability are inherently interdisciplinary. Sustainability’s interdisciplinarity arises because it is a classic wicked problem: it V. S. Baumfield (*) Faculty of Law, Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 B. Sjåfjell et al. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Research for Sustainable Business, Strategies for Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06924-6_4

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‘has innumerable causes, is tough to describe, and doesn’t have a right answer’ (Camillus 2008). Corporate sustainability research draws together insights from disciplines including law, finance, accounting, business ethics, perhaps even psychology, as well as various sciences. GBE research encompasses similar disciplines, minus the sciences. Therefore, my experiences researching GBEs may resonate with and provide lessons for sustainability researchers. This chapter first briefly addresses the methodology used in this piece, reflective practice. It then reviews the theoretical literature on interdisciplinary research in law. It next examines my personal experiences, including the pitfalls I have faced as I have worked interdisciplinary material into my analyses and my attempts to overcome these issues. By moving from theory to examples from practice, my goal is to provide insight into how sustainability and other interdisciplinary researchers can mitigate the difficulties inherent in moving outside one’s home research area.

2 Methodology This chapter is a form of reflective practice. Reflective practice is a methodology common to professional education that has become an accepted professional development tool in legal education in recent decades (McNamara et  al. 2013, p.  5; Burton and McNamara 2009; Leering 2014). Reflection is … the process of learning through and from experience towards gaining new insights of self and/or practice … it … tends to involve the individual practitioner in being self-aware and critically evaluating their own responses to practice situations. The point is to recapture practice experiences and mull them over critically in order to gain new understandings and so improve future practice. (Finlay 2008)

As a tool for enabling professionals to engage in life-long learning (Burton and McNamara 2009), reflective practice may assist academics in their own work (Nash 2019; Nganga 2011). Reflective practice entails more than simply thinking about what one has done. In Gibbs’ reflective cycle, professionals follow a structured process whereby they describe what happened; describe what they were thinking or feeling; evaluate what was good or bad about the situation; analyse what appeared to be happening; describe what else they could have done; and derive an action plan for similar situations in the future (Husebo et al. 2015). Reflective practice may include reflecting on one’s experience in the context of relevant theoretical frameworks. For example, Burton and McNamara (2009) describe Kolb’s experiential learning cycle, where the concrete experience is not only reflected upon, but related to abstract conceptualization, with reference to theoretical principles. A similar methodology is used here because the connection of my personal experience to relevant theoretical frameworks as, in effect, a case study, makes my reflection useful to others as opposed to simply to myself.

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3 Theoretical Perspectives on Interdisciplinary Research in Law Calls for legal scholars to engage in more interdisciplinary research date back many decades (Kramer 1959, pp.  26–27), and academic writings both for and against interdisciplinary research by lawyers have been appearing with regularity since at least 1935  in jurisdictions as diverse as the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands (e.g. Cairns 1935; Kramer 1959; Posner 1987; Schuck 1989; Ogus 1995; McEwin 1996; Grabosky 1996; Epstein and King 2002; Siems and Mac Síthigh 2012). Yet many legal scholars quite understandably continue to regard interdisciplinary research as something that may exceed their competence.

3.1 Comparing Interdisciplinary Research in Law with Traditional Legal Research To understand why interdisciplinary research in law may be perceived as particularly difficult, we first must understand what legal scholars traditionally do and how traditional legal scholarship differs from scholarship in the cognate disciplines that are often drawn upon in interdisciplinary legal research, such as economics, psychology, sociology, and political science. Traditionally, much of classic legal scholarship was embodied by doctrinal legal research interpreting legislation and cases, perhaps supplemented by theoretical analysis. Doctrinal legal scholarship is text-­ driven, ‘hermeneutical’ (Taekema 2011, pp. 45–49). Briefly summarized, [L]egal scholars, in contrast to their counterparts in many other disciplines, do not usually ‘produce’ new knowledge by devising and conducting experiments or studies that generate quantitative data that did not exist before, but rather ‘collect knowledge about what various legal decision-makers have done and teach the rhetorical skills of how to manipulate and present this knowledge in front of courts, legislatures, and other legal decision-makers’. (Vick 2004, p. 177)

Furthermore, law students, at least in the major common law jurisdictions, do not normally receive training in standard social science research techniques including qualitative and quantitative research and statistical analysis as part of their studies for their first degree in law (whether an LLB or JD). They instead learn the common law legal method: how to read, analogize, and distinguish cases; interpret statutes; and form arguments. Of course, many law students are exposed to varied theoretical frameworks in classes such as law and economics or sociology and the law, but while such classes expose students to interdisciplinary content, students are not likely taught how that content is created.

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Similarly, while legal scholars outside the United States are increasingly expected to hold a PhD as a condition of hiring or promotion,1 those doctorates are typically expected to be in law. Doctoral students producing theoretical law theses may graduate without in-depth training, much less expertise, in empirical research techniques. This is true even though many theoretical law theses are themselves interdisciplinary. This is not to discount the subset of doctoral candidates in law who have obtained a previous degree in the social sciences or who choose topics requiring the development of empirical research techniques. But it still appears that for many PhD candidates in law, the development of empirical research skills and exposure to non-law-based research methodologies is optional and project-­ dependent rather than a defining feature of the law PhD. Contrast the minority but rapidly growing number of law professors in the United States who have completed doctoral programs not in law but in a complementary discipline (LoPucki 2016, p. 538). LoPucki (2016) reports that in his sample of US law professors with PhDs, 28% held PhDs in economics, 16% in political science, 11% in history, 10% in philosophy, 5% in sociology, and 5% in psychology. Only 3% held PhDs in law. Furthermore, LoPucki (2016) reported that 62% of the PhDs were held in fields that likely required training in statistics. As LoPucki (2016, p. 538) noted, ‘[b]y hiring PhDs, the law schools are, in large part, hiring statisticians’. Under current trends in the United States  – and based on them, LoPucki (2016) predicts that 50% of the faculty at the top-26 American law schools will have PhDs by 2028 – assuming the preference for hiring PhDs continues, interdisciplinary and particularly empirical research will have an increasingly strong presence in American legal scholarship. The preference outside of the United States for law academics to hold PhDs in law rather than complementary disciplines conversely suggests that, at least in jurisdictions where fewer law academics have had some opportunity or impetus to develop empirical research skills, those institutions may lag in efforts to expand their proportion of interdisciplinary and empirical research unless those institutions compensate for the relative lack of formal interdisciplinary research expertise in their law faculties. The most obvious way to do this is to encourage interdisciplinary research collaborations with academics outside the legal academy. The potential for culture clashes and other misunderstandings arising from such arrangements, however, means that it is all the more important that legal researchers be aware of the potential pitfalls and techniques for mitigating that risk.

 Traditionally, a JD (or, previously, an LLB) was the expected credential in the United States.

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3.2 Understanding Interdisciplinarity Definition ‘Interdisciplinary research’, from a lawyer’s perspective, does not have one fixed meaning. Schrama (2011, p. 147) defined it as ‘legal research which incorporates insights from non-legal disciplines’. Vick (2004, p. 164) suggested that ‘[a]t a minimum, interdisciplinarity implies an integration or synthesis  – an interconnection between different academic disciplines’. Balkin (1996, p. 958) defined interdisciplinarity as ‘a scholar’s attempt to use the information, approaches, questions, and professional norms of another discipline and combine them in some way with her own disciplinary tools’. Typologies of Interdisciplinarity Interdisciplinary research may range from borrowing knowledge or theoretical frameworks to adopting another discipline’s means of analysis. Sullivan (2002, p. 1221) refers to three roles for interdisciplinary work in law: 1. Applying the tools of the other discipline to ‘improve knowledge about the law and institutions governed by law’. 2. Applying the tools of the other discipline to ‘improve the practice of law and the quality of legal rules and institutions’. 3. ‘Viewing the law through the lens of other disciplines [to] add understanding and knowledge to the other disciplines’. Bottomley (1996, p.  36) discusses ‘actively borrowing insights and perspectives from social science literature’ in order to ‘open up our lines of inquiry’. He also notes that one can adapt (as opposed to adopt) social science methodologies to gather information, ‘choosing whatever method (or combination of methods) is appropriate to the issues we want to investigate’ (Bottomley 1996, p. 37). Several scholars have attempted to distinguish between different degrees of interdisciplinarity depending on the level of integration of the subject disciplines. Balkin (1996, pp. 958–959, emphasis added), for example, identified four forms of interdisciplinary legal work: 1. Trying to ‘solve problems determined by and through the norms of legal scholarship by means of information from other disciplines’. 2. ‘[T]reating legal materials as though they were the sorts of materials studied in other disciplines. For example, one might read a legal opinion as if it were a literary text’. 3. ‘Try to solve problems determined by some other discipline by applying the other discipline’s methods to an aspect of the legal system or to materials that happen to be legal materials’, such as when a criminologist or political scientist examines court records to study ‘social phenomena linked to the legal system’.

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4. ‘[A]ttempt to create a space for an entirely new discipline with new questions and new assumptions by merging and marrying the questions and assumptions of different disciplines.’ Balkin notes that this is difficult and rare and normally results in one of the other forms of interdisciplinary work. Siems (2009) similarly distinguishes ‘basic interdisciplinary research’, in which questions that are typically addressed in traditional legal research are answered using traditional legal methods with the aid of information from other academic disciplines, from three forms of ‘advanced interdisciplinary research’. Taekema and van Klink (2011, pp. 10–15) identify five types of interdisciplinarity, ranging from the least to most integrated: 1. Heuristics: Where ‘the other discipline is used only as a source of argument or inspiration’. 2. Auxiliary: Where ‘material derived from the other discipline serves as a necessary contribution to the legal arguments’. Relevantly, the authors point to research in environmental law using ‘biological research to argue for the protection of ecosystems instead of the protection of separate species in legislation’. 3. Comparative: ‘treating two disciplines as equally important perspectives … There is no dominant perspective, and the core of such research is a comparative study of the two disciplines, in which the confrontation with the other discipline yields new insights for both’. 4. Perspectivist: ‘such research switches between two disciplines using the concepts and methods of each’ and leads to a separate answer from each discipline rather than a ‘coherent single answer’. This type is called ‘perspectivist’ because ‘[a] switch in perspective seems necessary to move from one layer in the framework to the next’. It can be used for complex problems where no single discipline adequately illuminates the problem, and hence seems especially suited to wicked problems such as sustainability. The focus on separate answers from separate disciplines suggests that research into sustainability may require a team approach. On the other hand, one may query whether such separate analyses may be sufficient to solve the sustainability dilemma without further integration. 5. Integrated: Where ‘the research process itself contains elements from both disciplines and the researcher welds together the concepts and methods from each or applies a more general methodological approach to both’. This is similar to Balkin’s (1996) fourth form of interdisciplinarity described above, in that it may create a new discipline altogether. See Chap. 3 of this volume for a discussion of the significance that trust in the other discipline’s scientific paradigm must play in this process. Taekema and van Klink (2011) also distinguish between broad and narrow interdisciplinarity. Broad interdisciplinarity refers to ‘any type of research that involves another discipline in some way’, while narrow interdisciplinarity refers to ‘research that achieves genuine interaction between the combined disciplines’.

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3.3 Interdisciplinary Research in Law: Dangers and Opportunities One of the most obvious risks of commencing interdisciplinary research is the possibility that it may result in ‘amateurish dabbling with theories and methods the researchers do not fully understand’ (Vick 2004, p. 164). Some of the specific pitfalls that may arise include: • Failing to appreciate the different values, aims and goals that drive the other discipline. For example, compare economics’ focus on efficiency with common law legal systems’ focus on such values as reasonableness and fairness. Balkin notes that disciplines provide their members with ‘cultural software’ in the form of ‘shared ways of thinking and talking’ as well as direction on what sorts of questions to ask and how to answer them (1996, p. 955). As Taekema and van Klink point out, ‘[d]ifferent disciplines use different concepts and it may be very difficult, if not impossible, to transfer concepts from one discipline to another’ (2011, p. 19). • Different terms/unfamiliar jargon (Kramer 1959, p. 565). This may be especially difficult for legal scholars because, as Kramer (1959) points out, compared to law, certain other disciplines’ jargon is imprecise, with disagreement within the field over what even basic terms mean. He notes, for example, the (at least then) many competing definitions of the terms ‘neurosis’ and ‘psychopathic’ in psychiatry. Legal jargon, in comparison, tends towards precise and generally accepted definitions. • Possibly more dangerous is the use of the same or similar terms (‘false friends’) (Taekema and Van Klink 2011, p.  19) to mean different things in the various disciplines. This practice can lead to misunderstandings (Vick 2004; Taekema and van der Burg 2015). For example, as discussed below, ‘agent’ has a functional role in economic literature, whereas it reflects a specific legal relationship in legal terms. • Failing to appreciate or understand the assumptions underlying a theoretical proposition or research technique, when ‘misunderstanding even seemingly minor details can prove fatal to the validity of an entire research project’ (Vick 2004, p. 185). • ‘The failure to appreciate the biases and limitations of the research methods of the other disciplines’ (Vick 2004), which can lead one to give too much weight to the conclusions of research accessed from the other discipline. As Vick (2004) points out, this may be especially dangerous when legal researchers use the results of quantitative research, where numbers may appear more definitive than they are. The fact that many legal researchers have had no statistics training may play a part in this. The risks are enough that, while interdisciplinary approaches seem increasingly popular, many legal researchers continue to avoid them in favour of traditional

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doctrinal approaches.2 On the other hand, complex problems – sustainability not the least of them  – are often multi-faceted. These ‘wicked problems’ do not respect disciplinary boundaries. They often demand an interdisciplinary approach to attack more than a narrow slice of the problem. Interdisciplinary approaches ‘allow problems to be addressed in a wider context, and allow the researcher to engage problems whose solutions can only be found through combinations of disciplinary approaches and perspectives’ (Vick 2004, p. 181). Thus, properly conceived interdisciplinary work may lead to original and valuable results. Solving complex problems requires consideration of multiple issues and ‘creative problem solving’ (Weinstein 1999). Creative problem solving requires collaboration amongst experts from multiple disciplines rather than ‘solitary and amateurish forays into fields that are not our area of expertise’ (Weinstein 1999, pp.  321–322). This may be especially true of as complex a problem as sustainability. Kramer (1959, pp. 564–565) argues that: ‘one cannot get it just by mixing the different people together. One must mix the disciplines together in one human brain, so to speak’. But arguably the starting point still must be teams when addressing the most complex of problems. Then, it is necessary to have ‘an ability to understand the ways of thought and the language of the others. If this can be achieved, then at least communication at the interfaces of the disciplines is possible, even if full-scale penetration of one discipline by another is not’ (Hansson 1999, p. 341). The literature offers a number of suggestions on how to minimize the dangers of interdisciplinary research: • Collaborate with experts in the other discipline (Bottomley 1996, p. 38; Hansson 1999, pp. 340–341). Hansson (1999) suggests working in teams or at least seeking expert review of one’s work. But this is dependent upon knowing whom to contact and convincing them to work with you. Many have commented on the extent to which the modern university structure silos academics from different disciplines rather than facilitating interaction and cross-pollination. • Hire a consultant to provide the required technical expertise (Tomasic 1996, p. 26). This may not be feasible if sufficient funding is unavailable. • Gain experience by working with others who have previously undertaken large projects or getting involved in them yourself (Tomasic 1996). • Educate yourself. As Kramer (1959, p. 564) points out, ‘There is such a thing, as self-education, and there is no reason why lawyers should not, through their own reading programs and study, succeed in mastering fellow disciplines. As a matter of fact, the average lawyer does a great deal of that’. Tomasic (1996) notes that ‘[t]here are usually social science research methods courses which are available in most universities, but much of the information which is needed is readily available in the extensive body of literature on social science research  This is not to criticize doctrinal approaches. They are the bread and butter of legal scholarship, and with the law’s constant evolution, doctrinal analyses will always be necessary. It is also easier to ensure that one’s scholarship is sufficiently rigorous when one sticks to what one knows. 2

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­ ethodologies’. A typical problem is not knowing where to start. Taekema and m van Klink (2011) recommend asking experts in the field for recommendations. Otherwise, they recommend gaining an overview from recent handbooks in the discipline. However, educating oneself in a new discipline may be unacceptably time-consuming, in light of universities’ focus on research outputs. Sticking to one’s own discipline may yield quicker results.3 • Where the issue is one of terminology (for example, the ‘false friends’ issue), it is essential to clearly define how the term is being used. Generally speaking, it is advisable to explicitly outline the assumptions, methodology, aims, and other foundational matters underlying one’s research that might have remained implicit had one been engaging in purely doctrinal legal research. Clearly stating what one is doing and why will help consumers of the research avoid misunderstandings (Taekema and van Klink 2011, p. 22). • Bottomley notes that the dangers of ‘dabbling’ can to a certain extent be avoided ‘if we are realistic, modest, and concrete in formulating our research aims and in framing our findings. We must be open about the limitations on our research and about the subjective nature of our projects’ (1996, p. 38). Ultimately, while minimum standards of competence are necessary to produce research of value, no research will ever be ‘perfect’. As Taekema and van Klink observe, ‘Good enough is good enough … keep in mind that you do not have to be an expert in another discipline yourself to draw some useful information from it for answering your research question’ (2011, p. 27).

4 My Research: The Interdisciplinary Nature of GBE Research 4.1 Overview As previously mentioned, my research concerns the governance and accountability of commercialized Australian GBEs (Baumfield 2021). As state-owned yet profit-­ seeking corporate entities that typically provide essential services on a monopolistic basis, these GBEs are complex hybrids. Not all traditional public sector accountability mechanisms extend to them. Nor do traditional theories of the firm necessarily fit, both because of limits on the constraining power of markets in the GBE context and because of the complexities caused by GBEs’ pursuit of public objectives beyond profit maximization. The theory relevant to GBEs spans several distinct disciplines within law, including public law, administrative law, and corporate law. It also encompasses fields

 Many thanks to Dr. Roseanne Russell for this point.

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outside law, including economics, political theory, regulatory theory, management theory, and public administration. My interdisciplinary challenge started within law. Corporate law was my obvious starting point because my initial interest in the topic arose from my observation that although my local government-owned water supplier was organized as a corporation, its governance regime differed from the private sector corporations that it mimicked. My initial research was therefore a doctrinal comparison of the legislation governing this GBE to the rules that would obtain under Australian corporations legislation (Baumfield 2013). Asking why GBEs’ governance and accountability regimes differed from private sector corporations’ led me to the public law and administration mechanisms that attempt to create GBE accountability. My experiences here illustrate one danger of interdisciplinary research, even within the law: underestimating the task. I had expected to allocate one chapter in my thesis to public and administrative law remedies relevant to GBEs. Once I started researching the matter seriously, however, I found that the complexity of the material’s application to GBEs required more attention than I had anticipated and a greater proportion of my total thesis word count. Thus, my foray into administrative law taught me not to underestimate the potential significance of topics I had not yet researched. I had a similar experience when I started writing up my analysis of commercialized GBEs’ continuing public interest objectives and functions in the Australian context. Public sector accountability assumes that the government exists to serve the public interest, even if interested parties disagree about how it should do so. GBEs’ state ownership raises the issue of how the public interest should be understood in the GBE context (assuming that GBEs are public enough for it to even be relevant), as well as the greater question whether the public interest even exists. This investigation required me to move outside of law because much of the literature exploring the meaning (or lack thereof) of the public interest comes from the political science literature, or in the case of public choice theory, the economics (and law and economics) literature. Much of the literature theorizing about public accountability structures, moreover, comes from the public administration literature as well as the political science literature. The use of specialized jargon and references to prior literature in these fields required me to read widely simply to be able to understand the nuances in the literature with which I was working. Accountability and governance issues led me back to corporate governance and corporate law theory, to consider the theory of the firm and the extent to which those theories apply to GBEs. Although the theory of the firm is firmly part of the law literature, this research still required me to immerse myself in economics thinking and was one of the first places where I came across some of the pitfalls mentioned in the previous section. For example, law and economics both use the term ‘agent’, but in the economics and finance literature, agency theory describes a conceptual relationship, as opposed to the legal relationship assumed in legal writing. Properly integrating the economics conception of agency theory into my analysis required me to be cognizant of this difference.

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To describe my methodology, I explain that my thesis’s analysis comprises different chapters analysing GBE accountability from the different theoretical perspectives discussed above. The corporate law areas reflect the influence of economics theory. The public law areas draw on political science and public administration theory as well as economics. The synthesis chapters focus on the accountability gaps that arise when attempting to fit a public/private hybrid into systems not designed for such a creature. Using Taekema and van Klink (2011)’s typology of five types of interdisciplinarity, perhaps my work may be considered perspectivist (type 4) because I am approaching the topic through the lens of each perspective. Type 4 research is supposed to lead to an integrated whole, and my final product does propose a new accountability mechanism based on a synthesis of these perspectives. I am using these sub-analyses as inputs into my normative and doctrinal analyses about how GBEs should be governed and how the law can be changed to encourage the desired behaviour. My research is broadly but not narrowly interdisciplinary. In that case, perhaps my research fits better as an example of Taekema and van Klink (2011)’s Type 2 research, where the sub-analyses under the other disciplines are auxiliary to my main argument.4 Similarly, under Balkin (1996)’s structure, it is not clear to me whether my work falls under Type 1 or Type 3, but it is probably best viewed as Type 1 because I am seeking to use information from the contributing disciplines to answer an ultimately legal question: how to modify the rules governing GBE accountability to improve their governance? If my classification is correct, what is the significance of this fact? I suspect it confirms that my understanding of the relevant disciplines need not be as deep as some may fear. ‘Dabbling’ was enough. In my research, I also considered the role of the relevant economic regulator and why the regulator did not seem to be more effective in restraining monopolists’ price increases. This led me to economics and regulatory theory relevant to economic regulation. I realized after immersing myself in this literature that much of it was too technical to be relevant to my particular research question. But the background knowledge adds depth to my overall discussion. Finally, I have found that the relevant public law issues overlap with public policy and public administration. For example, both the public law and public administration literature discuss ministerial responsibility and responsible government, which are relevant to my analysis. Both bodies of literature refer to underlying notions of democracy and participatory governance, which are also relevant to my analysis. But I have had to be careful because public administration has its own language, jargon, values, and expectations. For example, it assumes that I will understand the market orientation that is implied when concepts such as the ‘New Public Management’ are mentioned.

 What does it say about the utility of these models that it is so difficult to classify my research?

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In retrospect, I read too much public administration literature that was not directly relevant to my work. I wasted time getting too deep into that discipline when I would have been better to stay focused on how that material affected my legal analysis. But it is often easier to tell when one has researched enough when one is working in a familiar area. I suspect my reading may have been reined in more quickly if I had kept writing while I was reading rather than reading large stacks of texts before attempting to translate the relevant points to the page. That also would have given me more precise points to focus on as I read. On the other hand, when entering a new area, there is some benefit to undertaking a general survey before starting to write. Otherwise, the pitfalls mentioned above about misunderstanding the terminology, values, and assumptions will be more pronounced.

4.2 Reading and Immersing Myself in the Other Discipline When approaching a new discipline, it can be difficult to know where to start and how the materials fit together. It is easy to simply type words that seem relevant into a search engine and follow the breadcrumb trail. But that can be haphazard and lead one to miss foundational contributions to the literature and misunderstand the terrain. When I delved into regulatory theory, a complex area, I sought my PhD supervisors’ input. When I considered the theory of the firm, I was already aware of many of the seminal works because of my corporate law teaching and prior studies. Even so, when I started reviewing the relevant economics and finance literature for my thesis, I found it useful to start with literature reviews in articles and book chapters (for example, in handbooks on corporate law theory). I then read the main papers themselves. As I delved into the particular aspects of the theory that were relevant to my own research, I was able to understand how the literature fit together. This method also helped when I started looking at economic regulation.

4.3 A Detailed Example of a Pitfall in My Attempt to Work Economics into My Research: A Question of Sub-additivity My research into GBEs initially focused on water supply and sewerage services with a focus on the Australian state of Queensland, where the water industry has been repeatedly restructured in recent years. Sustainability researchers will appreciate that many of the machinations were intended to add resilience to Queensland’s water supply, for example through the construction of a desalination plant and pipelines to interconnect adjacent water grids. While some of this research was ultimately too technical for my thesis, I was able to repurpose it in a book chapter on comparative approaches to water supply governance (Baumfield 2018). An issue

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that arose when I was seeking to work economics concepts into that piece illustrates the dangers that I have personally found when engaging in interdisciplinary research. A key limiting factor in any analysis of water supply governance is whether water supply is either in whole or at least in part (if the various activities in the water supply chain5 are disaggregated) a natural monopoly, as opposed to contestable. As I discussed, Some of those activities, in particular responsibility for constructing and maintaining pipe networks, may be natural monopolies due to economies of scale or scope while others may be potentially contestable. This ability to reduce water supply into its component parts has been a key element in efforts to introduce competition into the water industry, even while acknowledging that certain steps in the process will remain the province of a sole monopolist supplier. (Baumfield 2018, p. 126)

My analysis therefore required me to define the concept of natural monopoly. I had previously located economics papers and significant legal texts dealing with natural monopoly. I also located a recent, extremely useful textbook on economic regulation, which discussed the concept of natural monopoly and its relevance to the main regulated public utility industries (Decker 2015). Identifying a definition of ‘natural monopoly’ that would be acceptable to an audience of academics, regulators, politicians, and other readers who were not economics experts and not necessarily conversant with technical economics jargon should have been a relatively straightforward task, but it turned out to be trickier than I had anticipated. My starting point was Posner, who has been a giant in the law and economics movement since the 1973 publication of his classic work, Economic Analysis of Law (Posner 2014). In ‘Natural Monopoly and Its Regulation’, Posner described a natural monopoly as follows: If the entire demand within a relevant market can be satisfied at lowest cost by one firm rather than by two or more, the market is a natural monopoly, whatever the actual number of firms in it. (Posner 1969, p. 548)

I included this quote in my chapter. I also quoted what I thought was another bulletproof source: the most recent edition that I could find in my university’s library of the venerable American economics textbook, Samuelson’s Economics (Samuelson and Nordhaus 1992). The version of Samuelson and Nordhaus’s text that I used defined a natural monopoly as ‘[a] firm or industry whose average cost per unit of production falls sharply over the entire range of its output’ so that ‘a single firm, a monopoly, can supply the industry output more efficiently than can multiple firms’ (Samuelson and Nordhaus 1992, p. 742). Our university library contained several shelves of economics textbooks, but I wanted a simple definition from a generalist text, as I thought that would be most accessible. Samuelson’s (now Samuelson and Nordhaus’s) Economics is quite possibly the most famous economics textbook in the world. The version in our library was quite old, but the concept of natural monopoly has been around for centuries. It did not occur to me that the definition of 5  Namely, water abstraction, treatment, storage, distribution and retail (Decker 2015, pp. 363–67; Hendry 2015).

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such a seemingly basic concept,6 even in an older version of a textbook, could now be considered out of date. As it turns out, I was wrong. The current view in economics appears to be that natural monopoly is a function of sub-additivity, an economics term expressing the notion that ‘for a given level of one or more outputs, total costs are minimized if only one firm produces these outputs rather than more than one firm, irrespective of how that output is divided among the multiple firms’ (Decker 2015, p. 17).7 This includes but is broader than simple economies of scale. I had been aware of the concept of sub-additivity before I had written my book chapter thanks to the Decker text, but I had decided against specifically mentioning it because it seemed unnecessarily technical. Furthermore, Samuelson and Nordhaus’s definition seemed to generally describe the same concept. However, after submitting my chapter, I found yet another relevant economics paper, which very strongly implied that any definition of natural monopoly that does not acknowledge the central role of sub-additivity as the key determinant of whether the definition is met, as opposed to merely the existence of ‘economies of scale over the entire range of market demand’ is incorrect and out of date (Mosca 2008, p. 319). I then went back and saw that Decker, as well, had concluded (after several pages of dense text explaining sub-additivity) that ‘the standard definition of a natural monopoly industry commonly employed in regulatory discourse today, is an industry structure where, over the relevant range of market demand, the cost function of a firm is subadditive’ (Decker 2015, p.  18). Although I was aware of the sub-additivity concept, I had not appreciated that this concept was being used in juxtaposition to the concept of economies of scale: I had assumed it was economies of scale that created a sub-additive condition. But this is not necessarily true. I began to fear that my chapter did not distinguish between the two adequately, particularly because the Samuelson definition seems to elide the two concepts. After checking my draft, I was satisfied that my definition of ‘natural monopoly’ accurately reflected the concept of sub-additivity, but would some readers immediately discount my analysis because I avoided using the expected terminology? I ultimately was able to refine my wording before publication, but this was certainly a wakeup call as to the perils of interdisciplinary research! On the other hand, perhaps there is no utility in worrying about a lack of doctorate-­ level expertise in the foreign discipline. Even Richard Posner, after authoring numerous acclaimed works in the area of law and economics, has been the target of criticism by economists. For example, in a review of then-Judge Posner’s 2009 book about the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of ‘08 and the Descent into Depression, Nobel Prize winning economist Robert M. Solow (2009) reminded us that Posner is not an economist but  I suspect that an economics scholar would more readily appreciate that this is not necessarily a ‘basic concept’. That is part of the danger of working outside of one’s discipline. 7  As Decker explains, mathematically this concept is expressed as: C(Q)