In search of an unstable balance in high-performance scientific groups: Styles of collaboration and leadership

This work aims to explore the influence of socio-organizational factors on the ways in which scientists represent and implement collaboration within their research groups. We have carried out field work based on semi-structured interviews with members of high-performance research groups, supported by the analysis of ethnographic observations in profesional work contexts of several of these groups. We start from four axes whose balance scientists consider key to their collaborative practices: instrumentality, affectivity, hierarchy and aggregation. From this, we have rebuilt two styles of collaboration, one based on the search for group cohesion and the other focused on structure and certainty. Factors such as the size and seniority of the groups and the trajectory of the principal investigators are important in understanding the collaboration styles that are promoted in each group.