Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T02:20:37.594Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Contradictions of Commercialization: Revealing the Norms of Science?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Tarja Knuuttila
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The proponents of the entrepreneurial university have claimed that it implies adjustments in the normative structure of science. In this article, I will critically examine whether a qualitatively new kind of academic ethos can emerge from the commercialization of academic research. The traditional conception of norms of science as institutionalized imperatives is distinguished from the constructivist conception of norms as strategic or ideological resources. An empirical case study on the commercialization of the research of one academic language-technology group is presented. The case study does not support the constructivist conclusion that the norms of science are malleable at will.

Type
Norms of Science and Science Policy
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 79 , Issue 5 , December 2012 , pp. 833 - 844
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barnes, Barry S., and Dolby, Robert G. A.. 1970. “The Scientific Ethos: A Deviant Viewpoint.” Archives Européennes de Sociologie 11:3–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Etzkowitz, Henry. 1998. “The Norms of Entrepreneurial Science: Cognitive Effects of the New University-Industry Linkages.” Research Policy 27:823–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Etzkowitz, Henry. 2003. “Research Groups as ‘Quasi-Firms’: The Invention of the Entrepreneurial University.” Research Policy 32:109–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Etzkowitz, Henry. 2011. “Normative Change in Science and the Birth of the Triple Helix.” Social Science Information 50:549–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Etzkowitz, Henry, and Leydesdorff, Loet. 2000. “The Dynamics of Innovation: From National Systems and ‘Mode 2’ to Triple Helix of University-Industry-Government Relations.” Research Policy 29:109–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garfinkel, Harold. 1989. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Gibbons, Michael, Limoges, Camille, Nowotny, Helga, Schwartzman, Simon, Scott, Peter, and Trow, Martin. 1994. The New Production of Knowledge. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Krimsky, Sheldon. 2003. Science in the Private Interest. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Merton, Robert K. 1942/1957. “Science and Democratic Social Structure.” In Social Theory and Social Structure, rev. ed., 550–61. Repr. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.Google Scholar
Merton, Robert K.. 1957. “Priorities in Scientific Discovery: A Chapter in the Sociology of Science.” American Sociological Review 22:635–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merton, Robert K., and Barber, Elinor. 1963. “Sociological Ambivalence.” In Sociological Theory, Values, and Sociocultural Change, ed. Tiryakian, Edward A., 91–120. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.Google Scholar
Mitroff, Ian I. 1974. “Norms and Counter-Norms in a Select Group of the Apollo Moon Scientists: A Case Study of the Ambivalence of Scientists.” American Sociological Review 39:579–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mulkay, Michael. 1976/1991. “Norms and Ideology.” In Sociology of Science: A Sociological Pilgrimage, 62–78. Repr. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Nowotny, Helga, Scott, Peter, and Gibbons, Michael. 2001. Re-thinking Science: Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Owen-Smith, Jason. 2006. “Commercial Imbroglios: Proprietary Science and the Contemporary University.” In The New Political Sociology of Science: Institutions, Networks, and Power, ed. Frickel, Scott and Moore, Kelly, 63–90. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Radder, Hans. 2010. “Mertonian Values, Scientific Norms, and the Commodification of Academic Research.” In The Commodification of Academic Research: Analyses, Assessments, Alternatives, ed. Radder, Hans, 231–58. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Resnik, David B. 2010. “Financial Interests and the Norms of Science.” In The Commodification of Academic Research: Analyses, Assessments, Alternatives, ed. Radder, Hans, 65–89. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slaughter, Sheila, and Leslie, Larry L.. 1997. Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies, and the Entrepreneurial University. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Stehr, Nico. 1978. “The Ethos of Science Revisited: Social and Cognitive Norms.” Sociological Inquiry 48:172–96.Google Scholar
Vallas, Steven P., and Kleinman, Daniel Lee. 2007. “Contradiction, Convergence and the Knowledge Economy: The Confluence of Academic and Commercial Biotechnology.” Socio-Economic Review 6:283–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ziman, John M. 1994. Prometheus Bound: Science in a Dynamic Steady State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ziman, John M.. 2000. Real Science: What It Is, and What It Means. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar