For Money or Glory? Commercialization, Competition, and Secrecy in the Entrepreneurial University
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2277314 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Wei Hong (0000-0001-5779-8912, Tsinghua University), John P Walsh (0000-0001-8568-9289, Georgia Institute of Technology, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 145-171 |
| Publication date | 2009-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sociological Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0038-0253 • E-ISSN: 1533-8525 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1533-8525.2008.01136.x |
| OpenAlex | W2069211810 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 42 |
Scholars have grown concerned that the commercialization of academic science is increasing secrecy at the expense of cooperation and information sharing. Using data from comparable surveys of academic scientists in three fields (experimental biology, mathematics, and physics), we test whether scientists have become more competitive and more secretive over the last 30 years. We also use the recent survey to test a multivariate model of the effects of scientific competition and commercialization (patenting, industry funding, and industry collaboration) on scientific secrecy. We find that secrecy has increased, and has increased particularly for experimental biologists. Only 13 percent of experimental biologists in 1998 felt safe discussing their ongoing research with all others doing similar work. Our multivariate analysis shows that this secrecy is most related to concerns about being anticipated (scientific competition). We find that patenting is associated with increased secrecy among mathematicians and physicists, but not for experimental biologists. We find that industry funding is associated with more secrecy, while industry collaboration is associated with less secrecy, across fields. Our results suggest that the recent concern over increasing scientific secrecy has merit. However, this increased secrecy seems to result from a combination of increasing commercial linkages and increased pressures from scientific competition. Our research highlights the central role that scientists' competition for priority plays in the system of science and that, while such competition spurs effort, it also produces negative effects that recent trends toward commercialization of academic science seem to be exacerbating
Biology · Business · Commercialization · Competition (biology) · Political science · Secrecy · Test (biology) · Ecology · Intellectual Property and Patents · Law · Marketing · Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy · scientometrics and bibliometrics research
Scientific Norms/Counternorms
What motivates academic scientists to engage in research commercialization
The challenges of the expanded availability of genomic information
Scientific Norms/Counternorms
Managing academics vis-a-vis the university’s third mission
Structure of university licensing networks
Research commercialisation performance in different types of universities
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Factors as Motivation Roles in Scientific Research Activities of Professors at Several Vietnamese Universities
Busy academics share less
Academic Entrepreneurship and Exchange of Scientific Resources
Linear Probability, Logit, and Probit Models
The growth of patenting and licensing by U.S. universities
Appropriating the Returns from Industrial Research and Development
Scope and Impact of Financial Conflicts of Interest in Biomedical Research
Protecting Their Intellectual Assets
The norms of entrepreneurial science
Toward a new economics of science
The market economy, and the scientific commons
Academic Capitalism and the New Economy
Mapping Crime in Its Community Setting
Universities as a Source of Commercial Technology
The Triple Helix and New Production of Knowledge
The Triple Helix and New Production of Knowledge
The Simple Economics of Basic Scientific Research
Science as a Vocation in the 1990s
Regression Models with Ordinal Variables
Priorities in Scientific Discovery
Competition in Science
Scientists' Attitudes toward Data Sharing
Norms and Counter-Norms in a Select Group of the Apollo Moon Scientists
The Emergence of a Competitiveness Research and Development Policy Coalition and the Commercialization of Academic Science and Technology
Communication, Competition, and Secrecy
The Sources of Economic Growth
Competition in Bio-Medical Science
University Administrators, Agricultural Biotechnology, and Academic Capitalism
| Unique citing works | 10 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,53 |
| Citation span | 2007 - 2026 (20) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 9 |