Research Data Management in German Academia from a Multiple Logic Perspective

Eva Katharina Donner; Christian M. Huber

doi:10.37725/mgmt.2024.9700

Eva Katharina Donner Faculty of Business Administration, University of Passau, Passau, Germany https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4035-368X
Christian M. Huber Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1168-3495

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37725/mgmt.2024.9700

Keywords: Early career researchers, Institutional logics, Micro-level processes, Neoliberal academia, Research data management

Abstract

The requirements for research data management (RDM) have increased. Due to academia’s neoliberalization, however, researchers already face a high workload within a hypercompetitive environment. The demand to integrate RDM as an additional task into academics’ day-to-day actions seems to be quixotic. To deepen our understanding of early career researchers’ (ECRs) daily work arbitrage, we need to know more about their behavior, actions, and decisions in relation to RDM. Drawing on a multiple institutional logics perspective at the micro-level, we conducted 40 semistructured interviews at German higher education institutions (HEIs) to investigate how ECRs respond to institutional logics in the context of RDM. Our findings revealed three profiles – the conformist, the waverer, and the resister – that make use of different response strategies to the state, market, professional, and community logic. We contribute to institutional logic research at the micro-level and, in addition, broaden prior research on HEIs and RDM by taking neoliberal academia into account.

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Author Biographies

Eva Katharina Donner, Faculty of Business Administration, University of Passau, Passau, Germany

Eva Katharina Donner is a PhD student at the University of Passau and an employee at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research. She holds a master’s degree in economics. Her research focuses on how organizations ensure their legitimacy while stakeholder expectations change within the context of sustainability.

Christian M. Huber, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany

Christian M. Huber is a PhD student at the Chemnitz University of Technology and holds a master’s degree in management and organization studies from Chemnitz University of Technology. His research focuses on critical management studies, particularly in academia.

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