State of the Field The Conceptualization of Scientific Specialties

Chubin, Daryl E.

doi:10.1111/j.1533-8525.1976.tb01715.x

Cited by 188 publications

(103 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…Recently, as described in Howe (2008: p.150 (Mullins 1972), and protein crystallography (Law 1973) found that scientists responsible for major innovations in a field tended to be marginal to that field (Chubin 1976). However, marginality need not be responsible for big scientific breakthroughs only; it can also operate within disciplines and be helpful in solving micro-issues and "smaller" problems (Dogan and Pahre 1990).…”

Section: Section 3 the Advantage Of Marginalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Marginality and Problem-Solving Effectiveness in Broadcast Search

Jeppesen

Lakhani²

2010

Organization Science

967

754

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We examine who the winners are in science problem solving contests characterized by open broadcast of problem information, self-selection of external solvers to discrete problems from the laboratories of large R&D intensive companies and blind review of solution submissions. Analyzing a unique dataset of 166 science challenges involving over 12,000 scientists revealed that technical and social marginality, being a source of different perspectives and heuristics, plays an important role in explaining individual success in problem solving. The provision of a winning solution was positively related to increasing distance between the solver's field of technical expertise and the focal field of the problem. Female solvers -known to be in the "outer circle" of the scientific establishment -performed significantly better than men in developing successful solutions. Our findings contribute to the emerging literature on open and distributed innovation by demonstrating the value of openness, at least narrowly defined by disclosing problems, in removing barriers to entry to non-obvious individuals. We also contribute to the knowledge-based theory of the firm by showing the effectiveness of a market-mechanism to draw out knowledge from diverse external sources to solve internal problems

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Section: Section 3 the Advantage Of Marginalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Marginality and Problem-Solving Effectiveness in Broadcast Search

Jeppesen

Lakhani²

2010

Organization Science

967

754

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“…Our algorithm unambiguously reveals that, in terms of the hierarchy of different community sizes, specialties are the smallest subset of authors that can be "brought together". These techniques could be of great use to historians or sociologists of science, by tracking the emergence, demise, proximity or fusion of specializations, as well as the evolution of scientific paradigms (Mullins, 1972;Chubin, 1976;Mullins et al, 1977;Small, 2006). Given a specific community, we can identify -using keywords, for instance -its ideas, methods and membership.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new approach for detecting scientific specialties from raw cocitation networks

Wallace

Gingras

Duhon

2008

J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci.

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We use a technique recently developed by Blondel et al. (2008) in order to detect scientific specialties from author cocitation networks. This algorithm has distinct advantages over most of the previous methods used to obtain cocitation "clusters", since it avoids the use of similarity measures, relies entirely on the topology of the weighted network and can be applied to relatively large networks. Most importantly, it requires no subjective interpretation of the cocitation data or of the communities found. Using two examples, we show that the resulting specialties are the smallest coherent "group" of researchers (within a hierarchy of cluster sizes) and can thus be identified unambiguously. Furthermore, we confirm that these communities are indeed representative of what we know about the structure of a given scientific discipline and that, as specialties, they can be accurately characterized by a few keywords (from the publication titles). We argue that this robust and efficient algorithm is particularly well-suited to cocitation networks, and that the results generated can be of great use to researchers studying various facets of the structure and evolution of science.

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“…The first bibliometricians tended to use counts of citations as an indication of the directions in which science was moving. However, according to Chubin (1976Chubin ( , 1981, limitations associated with measuring and scaling these outputs soon went beyond simply counting of citations to more complicated statistical and mathematical techniques that would allow bibliometricians to describe, in quantitative terms, the structure of the information base reflected in the scientific literature. Now that these tools have been developed, bibliometricians are attempting to use them to evaluate research projects and programs on an ex post basis.…”

Section: Biblwmetric Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methodology for evaluating energy R&D. Final report

Carter¹

1997

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DISCLAIMERThis report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed. or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, OK service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement. r a mmendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United S t a t u Government or any agency thereof. . 81. 61. 65. 68. 70 124 ABSTRACTRecent budgetary shortfalls and hightened concern over balancing the federal budget have placed increasing demand on federal agencies to document the cost effectiveness of the programs they manage. In fact, the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) requires that by 1997 each executive agency prepare a Strategic Plan that include measurable performance goals. Beginning in Fiscal Year 1999, agencies must also prepare an Annual Performance Plan that describes how actual program results will compare with performance goals. By the year 2000, the first round of Annual Reports will become due which describes actual program performance.Despite the growing emphasis on measuring performance of government programs, the technology policy literature offers little in terms of models that program managers can implement in order to assess the cost effectiveness of the programs they manage. To date, technology evaluation literature only consist of short-term indicators of performance.While GPRA will pose a major challenge to all federal government agencies, that challenge is particularly difficult for research-oriented agencies such as the Department of Energy. Its basic research programs provide benefits that are difficult to quantify since their values are uncertain with respect to timing, but are usually reflected in the value assigned to applied programs. The difficulty with quantifying benefits of applied programs relates to the difficulties of obtaining complete information on industries that have used DOE'S supported technologies in their production processes and data on cost-savings relative to conventional technologies.Therefore, DOE is one of several research-oriented agencies that has a special need for methods by which program offices can evaluate the broad array of applied and basic energy research programs they administer. The Office of Science and Technology Policy, which supported this project, seeks to aid DOES program offices in their efforts to evaluate programs. More specifically, this report seeks to familiarize program offices with available methods for conducting program evaluations. To a...

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State of the Field The Conceptualization of Scientific Specialties

Cited by 188 publications

References 71 publications

Marginality and Problem-Solving Effectiveness in Broadcast Search

Marginality and Problem-Solving Effectiveness in Broadcast Search

A new approach for detecting scientific specialties from raw cocitation networks

Methodology for evaluating energy R&D. Final report

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