Status Concordance, Coordination, and Success in Interdisciplinary Research Terms

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Abstract
The dynamics of status concordance theory are explored in a heterogeneous sample of 67 ongoing interdisciplinary research teams in universities. This theory implies positive relationships between concordance and coordination, coordination and success, and a positive but spurious correlation between concordance and success. Our findings show coordination posi-tively related to success at all stages of team development; concordance positively related to coordination only during early phases of team develop-ment; concordance positively related to success for young teams, unrelated for middle-aged teams, and negatively related for older teams. These patterns remain with coordination statistically controlled. We conclude that status concordance can depress as well as elevate a team's overall success, and that external status criteria play a decreasingly important role in the co-ordination of interdisciplinary teams.