Scholars of the theory of the firm have begun to emphasize the sources and conditions of what has been described as “the organizational advantage,” rather than focus on the causes and consequences of market failure. Typically, researchers see such organizational advantage as accruing from the particular capabilities organizations have for creating and sharing knowledge. In this article we seek to contribute to this body of work by developing the following arguments: (1) social capital facilitates the creation of new intellectual capital; (2) organizations, as institutional settings, are conducive to the development of high levels of social capital; and (3) it is because of their more dense social capital that firms, within certain limits, have an advantage over markets in creating and sharing intellectual capital. We present a model that incorporates this overall argument in the form of a series of hypothesized relationships between different dimensions of social capital and the main mechanisms and proces...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/259373.pdf

Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the Organizational Advantage

Norms have never been absent from the study of international politics, but the sweeping “ideational turn” in the 1980s and 1990s brought them back as a central theoretical concern in the field. Much theorizing about norms has focused on how they create social structure, standards of appropriateness, and stability in international politics. Recent empirical research on norms, in contrast, has examined their role in creating political change, but change processes have been less well-theorized. We induce from this research a variety of theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the role of norms in political change. We argue that norms evolve in a three-stage “life cycle” of emergence, “norm cascades,” and internalization, and that each stage is governed by different motives, mechanisms, and behavioral logics. We also highlight the rational and strategic nature of many social construction processes and argue that theoretical progress will only be made by placing attention on the connections between norms and rationality rather than by opposing the two.

/pdf/international-norm-dynamics-and-political-change-37ig9r9dlq.pdf

International Norm Dynamics and Political Change

This account of the Matthew effect is another small exercise in the psychosociological analysis of the workings of science as a social institution. The initial problem is transformed by a shift in theoretical perspective. As originally identified, the Matthew effect was construed in terms of enhancement of the position of already eminent scientists who are given disproportionate credit in cases of collaboration or of independent multiple discoveries. Its significance was thus confined to its implications for the reward system of science. By shifting the angle of vision, we note other possible kinds of consequences, this time for the communication system of science. The Matthew effect may serve to heighten the visibility of contributions to science by scientists of acknowledged standing and to reduce the visibility of contributions by authors who are less well known. We examine the psychosocial conditions and mechanisms underlying this effect and find a correlation between the redundancy function of multiple discoveries and the focalizing function of eminent men of science—a function which is reinforced by the great value these men place upon finding basic problems and by their self-assurance. This self-assurance, which is partly inherent, partly the result of experiences and associations in creative scientific environments, and partly a result of later social validation of their position, encourages them to search out risky but important problems and to highlight the results of their inquiry. A macrosocial version of the Matthew principle is apparently involved in those processes of social selection that currently lead to the concentration of scientific resources and talent ( 50 ).

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/159/3810/56.full.pdf

The Matthew effect in science. The reward and communication systems of science are considered.

Preface - Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln About the Editors About the Contributors 1. Introduction: The Discipline and Practice of Qualitative Research - Norman K.Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln I. Methods of Collecting and Analyzing Empirical Materials 2. Narrative Inquiry: Still a Field in the Making - Susan E. Chase 3. Critical Arts-based Inquiry: The Pedagogy and Performance of a Radical Ethical Aesthetic - Susan Finley 4. Oral History - Linda Shopes 5. Observations on Observation: Continuities and Challenges - Michael Angrosino and Judith Rosenberg 6. Visual Methodology: Toward a More Seeing Research - Jon D. Prosser 7. Performative Autoethnography: Critical Embodiments and Possibilities - Tami Spry 8. The Methods, Politics, and Ethics of Representation in Online Ethnography - Sarah Gaston 9. Analyzing Talk and Text - Anssi Parakyla and Johanna Ruusuvuori 10. Focus Groups: Contingent Articulations of Pedagogy, Politics, and Inquiry - George Kamberelis and Greg Dimitriadis II. The Art and Practices of Interpretation, Evaluation, and Presentation 11. Qualitative Research, Science, and Government: Evidence, Criteria, Policy, and Politics - Harry Torrance 12. Reflections on Interpretive Adequacy in Qualitative Research - David L. Altheide and John M. Johnson 13. Analysis and Representation Across the Continuum - Laura L. Ellingson 14. Post Qualitative Research: The Critique and the Coming After - Elisabeth Adams St. Pierre 15. Qualitative Research and Technology: In the Midst of a Revolution - Judith Davidson and Silvana diGregorio 16. The Elephant in the Living Room, or Extending the Conversation About the Politics of Evidence - Norman K. Denzin 17. Writing into Position: Strategies for Composition and Evaluation - Ronald J. Pelias 18. Evaluation as a Relationally Responsible Practice - Tineke Abma and Guy A.M. Widdershoven, Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln Author Index Subject Index

Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a noninvasive technique for investigating neuronal activity in the living human brain. The time resolution of the method is better than 1 ms and the spatial discrimination is, under favorable circumstances, 2-3 mm for sources in the cerebral cortex. In MEG studies, the weak 10 fT-1 pT magnetic fields produced by electric currents flowing in neurons are measured with multichannel SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device) gradiometers. The sites in the cerebral cortex that are activated by a stimulus can be found from the detected magnetic-field distribution, provided that appropriate assumptions about the source render the solution of the inverse problem unique. Many interesting properties of the working human brain can be studied, including spontaneous activity and signal processing following external stimuli. For clinical purposes, determination of the locations of epileptic foci is of interest. The authors begin with a general introduction and a short discussion of the neural basis of MEG. The mathematical theory of the method is then explained in detail, followed by a thorough description of MEG instrumentation, data analysis, and practical construction of multi-SQUID devices. Finally, several MEG experiments performed in the authors' laboratory are described, covering studies of evoked responses and of spontaneous activity in both healthy and diseased brains. Many MEG studies by other groups are discussed briefly as well.

/pdf/magnetoencephalography-theory-instrumentation-and-1oezfk882m.pdf

Magnetoencephalography—theory, instrumentation, and applications to noninvasive studies of the working human brain

The sociology of science.

Patterns of Evaluation in Science: Institutionalisation, Structure and Functions of the Referee System.

Scientific Elite is about Nobel prize winners and the well-defined stratification system in twentieth-century science. It tracks the careers of all American laureates who won prizes from 1907 until 1972, examining the complex interplay of merit and privilege at each stage of their scientific lives and the creation of the ultra-elite in science. The study draws on biographical and bibliographical data on laureates who did their prize-winning research in the United States, and on detailed interviews with forty-one of the fifty-six laureates living in the United States at the time the study was done. Zuckerman finds laureates being successively advantaged as time passes. These advantages are producing growing disparities between the elite and other scientists both in performance and in rewards, which create and maintain a sharply graded stratification system.

Scientific Elite Nobel Laureates in the United States

Nobel laureates in science publish more and are more apt to collaborate than a matched sample of scientists. Interviews with 41 of 55 laureates and comparison of their research output with the output of the matched sample indicate that these patterns hold at every stage of the life-work-cycle. As laureates report and as their publications corroborate, they exercise noblesse oblige in arranging co-authorship in collaborative publications. Receipt of the Nobel prize is followed by declining productivity and changed work practices, as a result of changed role obligations and activities. Reductions in productivity are more severe for laureates who experience comparatively large increments in prestige through the prize than for those who were already eminent. The prize generates strain in collaborative associations so that most of these terminate soon after the award

Harriet Zuckerman

Papers

The sociology of science.

Patterns of Evaluation in Science: Institutionalisation, Structure and Functions of the Referee System.

Scientific Elite Nobel Laureates in the United States

Nobel laureates in science: patterns of productivity, collaboration, and authorship.

Marriage, motherhood and research performance in science.