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

© 2023 Global Journals Volume XXIII Issue IV Version I 13 ( ) 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 elucidation of the passage contents and network members mentioned. These passages were then discussed in our research group roundtable with a focus on our joint understanding of the conceptualities and resulting working definitions. We differentiated between main motives, general reasons, and knowledge regarding field-specific issues. The main motives related to field-specific positionings or becoming acquainted with field-specific intricacies. These motives were not only repeatedly identified in individual text passages, but in part, ran through entire interviews. In turn, general motives rather reflected the interviewees’ general objectives, while various field-specific practices were addressed in terms of knowledge regarding field-specific issues. The strategies were categorized in a similar fashion, and a distinction was made between general and field-specific strategies. About the latter, a focus was on the knowledge strategies applied within the respondents’ respective academic subjects. Thus, the multifaceted categorization of interview contents replaced the preceding general allocation of individual passages to strategies and motives. 8 Third, in examining the developed analytical draft of categories, the knowledge types, strategies, and motives becoming visible in the selected interview passages were linked to the creation, adaptation, and transfer of knowledge, as described in the theoretical section of this article. 8 We used MAXQDA 2022 (VERBI Software 2021) for our categorizations. We allocated the interview passages that illustrated specific knowledge types (implicit or explicit) to knowledge creation. By contrast, knowledge adaptation was seen to describe the appropriation of tacit knowledge, which comprised various forms – knowledge regarding field-specific issues, including expertise of how research proposals are written, which quality criteria come to apply, how groups organize themselves, how research topics are identified, how staffing is carried out, and the role of dealing with and the proximity to others in these processes. “Transfer of knowledge” combines various strategies and motives that cannot be clearly distinguished from one another. Rather, these strategies and reasons overlap and therefore are meaningfully merged. Explanations were only found implicitly in the subjects’ statements when they reflected upon the backgrounds of specific actions or described goals, such as in the following passage dealing with the objective of earning a doctorate: “Do a PhD, of course, right? So, do a Ph.D. Then I thought, ‘Okay, how will I going to do that now? What’s an interesting topic?’ I put out my feelers to place 2 and got in touch with a professor, number four now, and also worked with her for a year, and then, sort of, to do my Ph.D. with her.” (Interview 3, lines 91-95; own translation) First, we see here how the interviewee described that her motive for earning her doctorate had been based on the strategy to acquire the knowledge necessary to this end. The strategy underlying this motive involved in acquiring field-specific knowledge regarding relevant actors and topics. Another strategy was subsequently applied to establish contact with such an actor and work on-site to collect field- and topic- specific experience. Thus, this individual motive was based on various strategies structured in tiers. In this way, each passage in the interviews was reviewed, and descriptions of specific actions were inspected as to the motives or objectives outlined for the applied actions. The active actions were finally labeled as strategies applied to implement particular motives. After this step, the following motives underlying knowledge transfer were elaborated: • To acquire tacit knowledge • To deal with competitors (minimize competition) • To impart knowledge (from higher to lower ranks) • To collect (field-specific) experience In turn, these motives were associated with strategies with which the transmission of implicit knowledge was stimulated and implemented. The strategies underlying the motive “to acquire tacit knowledge” described actors’ active action to accomplish this goal and were summarized as follows: • To seek personal proximity to superiors/lecturers and mingle with professional and personal contacts Second, the interview segments were individually reviewed about the following questions: What are the motives guiding actors in acquiring knowledge? What are the strategies they apply to achieve their goals?; and How are the strategies and motives to be seen in the light of relationships? Reviewing the interview passages resulted in a fully differentiated set of categories which was divided into strategies and motives. Following the documentary method, (Mannheim 1964, quoted by Asbrand 2011, zitiert nach Asbrand Jahr) the initially general distinction between strategies and 7 motives was further refined and complemented by inspecting the material and working out, particularly succinct aspects. 7 The documentary method is a procedure of reconstructive social research and goes back to Karl Mannheim (1964) and asks how social reality is produced. The research with the documentary method aims to see the social world from the perspective of the actors. Thereby, the analysis of the practical knowledge of action is the central object of the reconstructions.