Workshop: Experiences of Collaboration between Social Psychological Research and Technology Start-ups

This workshop is organized by HIIT researchers in cooperation with two start-ups. It brings together entrepreneurs and social scientists to discuss how to make room for mutual beneficial collaboration between technology start-ups and social scientists. Countless technology start-ups develop services with the aim to support a variety of social interactions. Social psychological research addresses these processes, struggling sometimes to consider contemporary technologies sufficiently. Yet, few start-ups have in-house social psychologists – and few social psychologists search actively ways to collaborate with start-ups. We consider what it takes to conduct user research in a start-up context and how social scientists can make societal contributions by taking part in (or raising) conversations on the social implications of technologies. The presenters of the workshop will tackle the topic based on their experiences of collaboration, bringing in concrete examples of recent and ongoing projects: What do start-ups have to gain from collaborating with social psychologists? Why would they bother? And what’s in it for the academians? How can rigorous social scientific inquiry be combined with the fast-moving everyday of early-stage start-ups?

Jesse Haapoja will present findings from a study he conducted among users of the feature story aggregator Scoopinion. Vilma Lehtinen and Airi Lampinen will discuss research collaboration with local online exchange service Sharetribe, focusing especially on recent research on indebtedness, reciprocity, and fairness (in press for CSCW 2013). Founders and team members from both start-ups will pitch in with their experiences and views on research collaboration. The session will conclude with a broader discussion on the potentials and pitfalls of cooperation between researchers and start-up teams. 

More details on the event: the website for the Annual Days of Social Psychology.