Cold Atoms – Hot Research: High Risks, High Rewards in Five Different Authority Structures
ISBN: 978-1-78350-684-2, eISBN: 978-1-78350-683-5
Publication date: 26 July 2014
Abstract
Bose-Einstein condensation is a scientific innovation in experimental physics whose realisation required considerable time and resources. Its diffusion varied considerably between and within five countries that were comparatively studied. Differences between countries can be explained by the variation in the national communities’ absorptive capacities, while within-country differences are due to the impact of authority relations on researchers’ opportunities to build protected space for their change of research practices. Beginning experimental research on Bose-Einstein condensation required simultaneous access to the university infrastructure for research and to grants. The former is largely limited to professors, while the latter made researchers vulnerable to the majority opinion and decision practices of their national scientific community.
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgement
We are grateful to Jochen Gläser whose suggestions have greatly improved a previous draft.
Citation
Laudel, G., Lettkemann, E., Ramuz, R., Wedlin, L. and Woolley, R. (2014), "Cold Atoms – Hot Research: High Risks, High Rewards in Five Different Authority Structures", Organizational Transformation and Scientific Change: The Impact of Institutional Restructuring on Universities and Intellectual Innovation (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 42), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 203-234. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20140000042007
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014 Emerald Group Publishing Limited