Global Journal of Human Social Science, C: Sociology and Culture, Volume 23 Issue 4

© 2023 Global Journals Volume XXIII Issue IV Version I 10 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2023 C Exploring Motives and Strategies in the Production of Knowledge in the University Context by the Example of Academic Career Trajectories more similar a position is to one’s own, the larger its weight as a reference point for action. In this connection, the similarity is defined as a continuously varying distance between the positions” ( Hennig & Kohl, 2011, p. 45; own translation ). The benefit of individuals’ action alternatives is determined by other relevant actors’ status positions ( cf. Hennig & Kohl, 2011 ). The assumption behind this insight is that actors’ structural positions and role sets form their interests while also affecting the evaluation of the situation and resulting action options and the actors’ specific actions ( cf. Hennig & Kohl, 2011 ). “In turn, the actions themselves can then rebound on and modify the relational patterns” ( Hennig & Kohl, 2011, p. 45; own translation ). Research has shown that simple and codified knowledge (explicit knowledge) transfers more easily than complex implicit knowledge. However, competition may reduce the knowledge exchange between actors ( cf. Phelps et al., 2012, p. 1129 ). Actors compete for resources provided by others, which they jointly use. This serves to enhance the incentive to imitate one another in an attempt to ensure that no single actor is at an advantage. While increasing equivalence between previous and potential imitators betters the chances of alignment, increasing equality between members of a given organization sharpens the similarities between what they learn and know about their organization ( cf. Phelps et al., 2012, p. 1122 ). However, research has also suggested that strong inter-organizational bonds can have a negative effect, e.g., previous alliances with the same partners may reduce the current performance output of project alliances ( Phelps et al., 2012, p. 1133 ). In addition, increasing trust between partners reduces their innovative power, as they are bound to relationships at the expense of access to new partners’ manifold knowledge ( Phelps et al., 2012, p. 1133 ). The “assumption that forms and structures of social relationships lead to similarities in behavior” ( Hennig & Kohl, 2011, p. 45; own translation ) and “[…] that these forms and structures of social relationships can be interpreted leads to a fragmentary explanation only” ( Hennig & Kohl, 2011, p. 45; own translation ) for motives, strategies, and practices in knowledge production. Bourdieu’s concept of habitus can help close this gap as it comprises all facets of social life: “The habitus is not only a structuring structure, which organizes practices and the perception of practices, but also a structured structure” ( Bourdieu, 1996, p. 170 ). The effective – structuring – aspect of the habitus is especially crucial to the implementation of knowledge practices. The habitus develops through the internalization of material, cultural, and social conditions of existence and is a both quasi-permanent and flexible system of group-specific patterns of perception, thought, and action ( cf. Hennig & Kohl, 2012, p. 22 ). At once, the habitus constitutes actors’ forms of practice and associated everyday perceptions. The various manifestations of the habitus depend on individuals’ experiences and the social positions they hold in social space ( cf. Hennig & Kohl, 2012, p. 22 ). Actors’ habitus is entrenched in their bodies and thus largely unconscious to them (cf. Bourdieu, 1990). How people think, perceive, and act depends on the thinking, perceptions, and actions of the social actors with whom they are connected and, or the social networks they are embedded in. With whom they establish contact depends on their thinking, perceptions, and actions. Various things form an interconnection in the habitus, a specific configuration: “[…] how one speaks, dances, laughs, reads, what one reads, what one likes, what acquaintances and friends one has, all of this is closely interrelated” ( Bourdieu, 1992a, p. 32, quoted by Hennig & Kohl, 2011, p. 69; own translation ). The habitus thus comprises “dimensions of taste, lifestyle, physical and emotional attitudes, and patterns of social practice and relationships as well as mentalities and ideological worldviews” ( Bremer & Teiwes-Kügler, 2010, p. 255; own translation ). As a modus operandi, the habitus does not only confine social actors’ practice forms but creates a space of possibilities for those actors. The habitus sets the conditions for the strategic knowledge practices with which actors structure and manipulate their environments. It determines how practices can be implemented via internalized “schemes of perception, conception, and action” ( Bourdieu, 1990, p. 60 ). It sets a framework in which motive-guided strategies can be implemented with a certain degree of flexibility ( Bourdieu, 1990, p. 61f. ). Habitual characteristics affecting this practice include individuals’ gender and positions within a hierarchy. In the university context, the role of gender finds expression in the construction of scientific personalities and especially professorships. The construction of the typically male role of the professor as a creative genius is associated with the premise that women do not share these characteristics and are situated outside of this constructed role. Thus, they are excluded from the personality construction that creates the image of the professor in the first place ( Engler, 2000, p 139f. ). This exclusion is relevant to the production of knowledge in that the premise of research, guiding who is to be seen as a legitimate actor, excludes certain groups. Thus, actual performance in knowledge-producing fields is not in accord with associated recognition in the individual actors’ personality construction ( Engler, 2000, p. 143ff .). Not only does the question arise as to how knowledge is created, transferred, and adapted, but also how visible precisely these processes are and in what way the resp. work underlying such knowledge practices is perceived and appreciated, whereas the perception is associated with gender-specific habitus.