The impact of transaction costs on the institutional structuration of collaborative academic research

This paper addresses a crucial question: Which factors explain the choices of institutional structures made by university researchers? The main findin gs of the study point to the central importance of publication assets, coor dination costs, additional funding, and membership in the disciplines of en gineering, natural sciences and health sciences as factors affecting the ch oices of institutional structures university researchers make when they bec ome involved in collaborative research projects. On the other hand, the num ber of years researchers have been involved in collaborative research, the capture of additional publications Linked to involvement in collaborative r esearch, the importance of administrative burdens and the One required to c oordinate collaborative research were demonstrated to be unimportant in exp laining these choices. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.