Author Description

This book shows how and why sciences differ in their organization of knowledge production and their intellectual structures. For this edition Richard Whitley has written a new introduction that examines the major changes in the production of formal knowledge since the 1970s, including the changing nature of business and management studies as a fragmented adhocracy. He approaches the sciences as differently organized systems for the production and validation of knowledge systems that become established in particular contexts and generate different sorts of knowledge. He identifies seven major types of scientific field and discusses the establishment and growth of these sciences, including the major consequences of the growth of employment opportunities for researchers in the nineteenth century; the competitive pursuit of public reputations; and the domination of intellectual work by employees of universities, government laboratories, and private research institutes. He also examines the divergences in the way research is organized and controlled both in different fields, and in the same field in different historical circumstances. This book will be of interest to all graduate students and academics concerned with the social study and management of knowledge, science, technology, and the history and philosophy of science.