The Local-Cosmopolitan Scientist
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Abstract
In contrast to previous discussions in the literature treating cosmopolitan and local as two distinct groups of scientists, this paperi demonstrates the notion of cosmopolitan and local as a dual orientation of highly motivated scientists. This dual orientation is derived from institutional motivation, which is a determinant of both high quality basic research and accomplishment of non-research organizational activities. The dual orientation arises in a context of similarity of the institutional goal of science with the goal of the organization; the distinction between groups of locals and cosmopolitans derives from a conflict between two goals.
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References
References located within the endnotes:
i Revised version of a paper delivered at the 1962 meetings of the American Sociological Association. I am indebted to the encouragement of Alvin W, Gouldner and the editorial help of Anselm L. Strauss in preparation of this paper.
ii The Terms “cosmopolitan” and “local” were first used by Merton to describe different types of community leaders (Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure [Glenco, Ill.: Free Press, 1957], pp. 387-420). For a formulation of cosmopolitan and local as organizational types see Alvin W. Gouldner, “Cosmopolitans and Locals: Toward an Analysis of Latent Social Roles,” Administrative Science Quarterly, II (1957-58), 281-306, 444-80; see also Alvin W Gouldner, “Organizational Analysis” in Robert Merton, Leonard Broom and Leonard Cottrel (eds.), Sociology Today (New York: Basic Books, 1959), pp.410-19. For particular studies see Peter M. Blau and W. Richard Scott, Formal Organizations (San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co., 1962), pp. 64-74; Leonard Reissman, “A Study of Role Conceptions in Bureaucracy,” Social Forces, XXVII (1949), p. 308; Theodore Caplow and Reece J. McGee, The Academic Marketplace (New York: Basic Books, 1958)m p.85 and passim; Harold Wilkensky, Intellectuals in Labour Unions
(Glenco, Ill.: Free Press, 1956), pp. 129-53; Warren G. Bennis et al., “Reference Groups and Loyalties in the Out-Patient Department,” Administrative Science Quarterly, II (1958), pp. 481-500.
iii William Kornhauser, Scientists in Industry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962), esp. chap. v; Simon Marcson, The Scientist in American Industry (New YorkL Harper & Bros., 1960); Donald C. Pelz, “Some Social Factors Related to Performance in a Research Organization,” in Bernard Barber and Walter Hirsch (eds.), The Sociology of Science (New York: Free Press of Gencoe, 1962), p. 357; Herbert A. Shepard, “Nine Dilemmas in Industrial Research,” Administrative Science Quarterly, I (1956), 346; Hollis W. Peter, “Human Factors in Research Administration,” in Rensis Likert and Samuel P. Hayes, Jr. (eds.), Some Applications of Behavioural Research (Paris: UNESCO, 1957), p.142; Clovis Shepard, “Orientations of Scientists and Engineers,” Pacific Sociological Review, Fall, 1961, p. 82. Robert Avery, “Enculturation in Industrial Research,” IRE Transactions in Engineering Management, March, 1960, pp. 20-41; Fred Reif, “The Competitive World of the Pure Scientist,” Science, CXXXIV (1961), 1959.
iv Kornhauser, op. Cit., p.133; Leo Meltzer, “Scientific Productivity in Organizational Settings,” Journal of Social Issues, No. 2 (1956), p. 38; Marcson, op. Cit., pp.81-82, 104; Shepard, op.cit., p.347.
v Kornhauser, op. cit., p.130.
vi Ibid.; see also Shephard, op. cit., and Pelz, op. cit., p. 358.
vii I am indebted to Donald C. Pelz of the Survey Research Center, University of Michigan, for providing me with these data.
viii Institutional motivation has been dealt with extensively in: Talcott Parsons, Essays in Sociological Theory (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1954), chaps. ii, iii, Merton, op. cit., pp. 214, 531, 555, 558-59; Robert K. Merton, “Priorities in Scientific Discovery,” American Sociological Review, December, 1957, pp. 640-41. It should be noted that advancing knowledge as I deal with it here is institutional, a part of a normative pattern, not a mode of orientation that is simply natural to man. Thus, I make the distinction between institutional motivation (motivation based on internalized norms and goals) and typical human motives (assertive, friendly, ambitious, egotistic, etc.) as elements of concrete motivation.
ix Advancing knowledge is a process that, for any one scientist, is composed of many events. This process has at least two broad stages: research work and research results. Bernard Barber, in talking of “inventions and discoveries,” says “they have two aspects, that of process and that of products, and these aspects must be distinguished” (Science and the Social Order [Gencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1952], p. 193).
x I follow the procedure for index construction outlined and discussed by Paul F. Lazarsfeld, in Merton, Broom, and Cottrell (eds.), op. cit., chap. ii, pp. 47-67; in “Evidence and Inference in Social Research,” Daedalus, LXXXXVII, No. 4 (1958), 100-09; and with Wagner Thielens, The Academic Mind (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1958), pp. 402-7.
xi On reduction of property space see Alan Barton, “The Concept of Property Space in Social Research,” in Paul F. Lazarafeld and Morris Rosenberg (eds.), The Language of Social Research (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1955).
xii This performance score cannot be construed as a measure of recognition, since, to be sure, the scientists were not made aware by the research team of colleagues’ evaluations. The essence of recognition is that it is a known reward for one’s work. For a complete discussion of the construction of this index of research performance see Donald C. Pelz et al., Human Relations in a Research Organization (Vol. II, Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 1953), Appendix C; and Interpersonal Factors in Research (Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 1954), Part I, chap. i, Appendix A.
xiii See Parsons, op. cit., pp. 53-54, 143-44, 230-31, 239, for the formulation that the institutional norms reciprocally define relations between two classes of people or positions.
xiv Merton, “Priorities ...,” op. cit., p.645
xv This is not the only government medical research organization that bases promotions on professional recognition. There would seem to be many others. Meltzer reports for his national sample of 3000 physiologists that publication productivity for those in government was the same as those in the university, and that publication was as strong a factor in promotions in both contexts (Meltzer, op. cit.).
xvi Charles V. Kidd, “Resolving Promotion Problems in a Federal Research Institution,” Personnel Administration, XV, No. 1 (1952), 16.
xvii See my Organizational Scientists: Their Professional Careers (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, forthcoming), chaps vi and vii, and see below for the relation of performance process to accomplishing non-scientific work.