The Productivity of Scientists in Industrial Research Laboratories
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2323767 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Steven Box, Stephen Cotgrove |
| Year | 1968 |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 163-172 |
| Publication date | 1968-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0038-0385 • E-ISSN: 1469-8684 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/003803856800200202 |
| OpenAlex | W2090452556 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
An important theme in the sociology of science has been a concern with the creativity and productivity of scientists.1 On the one hand, there has been some anxiety lest the growing scale of science and the consequent tendency for research to be more highly organized may limit the freedom believed to be essential for scientific creativity.2 On the other hand, there are those who have stressed the role of the creative individual, and have explored the psychological and sociological characteristics of individual scientists, which are associated with high levels of performance.3 A third approach adopts an action frame of reference, and sees research performance as a function of the relations between the characteristics of the scientist in interaction with his research environment.4 It is this approach which will be explored in this paper.5 A recent study of scientists employed in industrial research organizations provides an opportunity to investigate the relative importance of individual and organizational variables in the productivity6 of scientists. Our sample included scientists employed in eight companies in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. Two main variables were isolated. Firms were first classified according to the extent of scientific freedom experienced by research scientists (chemists) employed in them. Each company was scored for the percentage of scientists (i) who reported they were able either to select their own research projects or be influential in this procedure, (ii) who had more than twenty per cent of their work time made available to pursue their own research interests, (iii) who either by themselves or in close contact with their immediate supervisor were able to terminate research projects, and (iv) were engaged on basic or applied research, (assuming that there is more freedom and scope for individual creativity whilst involved in this type of work than, say, whilst engaged on service work, routine control procedures, and attending to customers' complaints about products). By this process, we were able to classify four of the companies as providing comparatively more research freedom. Our second variable was degree of commitment to science by the scientists employed in the companies. To measure this, we aggregated scores on a number of questions. For example, we sought to establish the scientists' reference group by asking, 'In whose eyes is it important for you that your work appears to be good?', and suggested that they might mention two out of eight groups of people
Action (physics) · Creativity · Economic growth · Economics · Engineering ethics · Function (biology) · Political science · Productivity · Public relations · Sample (material) · Sampling frame · Social science · Sociology · Theme (computing) · Computer Science · Creativity in Education and Neuroscience · Engineering · Innovation, Sustainability, Human-Machine Systems · Psychology · Social Psychology · Team Dynamics and Performance
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,05 |
| Citation span | 1971 - 2001 (31) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |