The ‘Costs’ of Institutional Isomorphism: Science in Non-Western Countries

Social Studies of Science

Volumn 21, Issue 3, 1991, Pages 527-545

  Shenhav, Yehouda A ^a   Kamens, David H ^b  

^a TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY   (Israel)

^b NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84972654456     PISSN: 03063127     EISSN: 14603659     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030631291021003005     Document Type: Article

References (44)

1. We use the term ‘institutional theory’ despite the existence of several versions. For a detailed discussion, see: W.R. Scott, The Adolescence of Institutional Theory’, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 32 (1987), 493-511; L.G. Zucker, ‘Institutional Theories of Organization’, Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 13 (1987), 443-64.
2. W.J. Meyer and B. Rowan, ‘Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony’, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 83 (1977), 340-63; P. DiMaggio and W. Powell, ‘The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields’, American Sociological Review, Vol. 48 (1983), 147-60; L.G. Zucker (ed.), Institutional Patterns and Organizations: Culture and Environment (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1988).
3. CS. Hill, ‘Contrary Meanings of Science: Interaction Between Cultural and Personal Meanings of Research in a Developing Country Scientific Research Institution’, in S.S. Blume (ed.), Perspectives in the Sociology of Science (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1977), 195-230; Hill, ‘The Hidden Agenda of Science Studies for Developing Countries’, Science and Technology Studies, Vol. 4 (1986), 29-32; Y.A. Shenhav, ‘Science in LDCs: Connectedness Versus Universalism’, Vol. 5 (1987), 124-25.
4. R.K. Merton, Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth-Century England (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1970); B. Hessen, ‘The Social and Economic Roots of Newton's Principia’ in N.I. Bukharin et al. (eds), Science At The Crossroads (London: Frank Cass, 1931), 1-62.
5. R. Wuthnow, ‘The World Economy and the Institutionalization of Science in Seventeenth-Century Europe’, in A. Bergesen (ed.), Studies of Modern World-System (New York: Academic Press, 1980), at 39.
6. R. Wuthnow, Meaning and Moral Order: Explorations in Cultural Analysis (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987), 297.
7. Max Weber, as in Hans H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946).
8. F.O. Ramirez and J. Boli-Bennett, ‘Global Patterns of Educational Institutionalization’, in P.G. Altbach, R.F. Amove and G.P. Kelly (eds), Comparative Education (New York: Macmillan, 1981), 15-36.
9. W.J. Meyer, ‘The Effects of Education as an Institution’, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 83 (1977), 55-78.
10. S. Dedijer, ‘Underdeveloped Science in Underdeveloped Countries’, Minerva, Vol. 2(1963), at 61.
11. D. Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (New York: Basic Books, 1973).
12. D. Jorgenson and Z. Griliches, ‘The Explanation of Productivity Change’, Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 34 (July 1967), 249-83; C.E. Ferguson, The Neoclassical Theory of Production and Distribution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969); J. Bhagwati, The Economics of Underdeveloped Countries (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966); B.R. Williams, Technology, Investment and Growth (London: Chapman & Hall, 1967).
13. N.J. Smelser, ‘Mechanics of Change and Adjustment to Change’, in B.F. Hoselitz and W.E. Moore (eds), Industrialization and Society (Paris: UNESCO/ Mouton, 1963), 32-54; A. Giddens, Sociology: A Brief but Critical Introduction (London: Macmillan, 1982).
14. Nathan Rosenberg, Inside the Black Box: Technology and Economics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 157; Rosenberg, ‘The Role of Science and Technology in the National Development of the US’, in W. Beranek and R. Gustav (eds), Science, Technology and Economic Development (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1978), 114-68.
15. Meyer & Rowan, note 2; DiMaggio & Powell, note 2; W.R. Scott and J.W. Meyer, The Organization of Societal Sectors’, in Meyer and Scott (eds), Organizational Environment: Ritual and Rationality (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1983), 129-53.
16. J. Habermas, Toward a Rational Society (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1970).
17. For an extensive analysis, see S. Aronowitz, Science as Power (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1988).
18. R.K. Merton, ‘The Normative Structure of Science’, in N.W. Storer (ed.), The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigation (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1973), 267-78.
19. For example, Ben-David has persuasively advocated one broad international scientific system. Smallness and provincialism, he argues, impede the evolution of scientific critical mass in a country and hinder development. See J. Ben-David, ‘Scientific Endeavor in Israel and the United States’, The American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 5 (December 1962), 12-16.
20. See: D. Crane, Invisible Colleges: Diffusion of Knowledge in Scientific Communities (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1972); Y.A. Shenhav and G. Drori, ‘On Science, Technology and Their Effects on the Economies of Less Developed Countries’, Economic Quarterly, Vol. 138 (1988), 316-23 (in Hebrew); Y.A. Shenhav and D. Kamens, ‘Should Nations Publish or Perish?: Research Productivity and Economic Development in the Less Developed Countries’, paper presented at the American Sociological Association annual meeting, New York, August 1986.
21. Y.A. Shenhav, ‘Dependency and Compliance in Academic Research Infrastructures’, Sociological Perspectives, Vol. 29 (1986), 29-51.
22. M. Polanyi, The Logic of Liberty (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1951).
23. Baron et al. have found that the effect of organizational size on the availability of personnel departments declines over time: see J.N. Baron, F.R. Dobbin and P.D. Jennings, ‘War and Peace: The Evolution of Modern Personnel Administration’, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 92 (1986), 350-83. See also P.S. Tolbert and G.L. Zucker, ‘Institutional Sources of Change in the Formal Structure of Organizations: the Diffusion of Civil Service Reform 1880-1935’, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 28 (1983), 22-39, for a similar argument.
24. E. Yuchtman and S.E. Seashore, ‘A System Resource Approach in Organizational Effectiveness’, American Sociological Review, Vol. 32 (1967), 891-903.
25. J.D. Frame, ‘National Economic Resources and the Production of Research in Lesser Developed Countries’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 9 (1979), 233-46.
26. UNESCO, Statistical Yearbook (Paris: The UNESCO Press, 1973).
27. The World Bank, World Development Report 1982 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983).
28. W.J. Meyer and T.M. Hannan (eds), National Development and the World System (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1979).
29. See H.D. Kamens and K.T. Lunde, ‘Institutional Theory and the Expansion of Central State Organizations, 1960-1980’, in Zucker (ed.), note 2, 170-95.
30. See R. Rubinson, ‘The World-Economy and the Distribution of Income Within States: A Cross-National Study’, American Sociological Review, Vol. 41 (1976), 638-59.
31. 'Poor vs Rich: A New Global Conflict’, Time Magazine (22 December 1975), 34-42.
32. R.R. Nelson, ‘Less Developed Countries - Technology Transfer and Adaptation: The Role of the Indigenous Science Community’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 23 (1974), 61-77.
33. D.J. de S. Price, ‘Nations Can Publish or Perish’, International Science and Technology, Vol. 70 (October 1967), 84-90; Price, ‘Measuring the Size of Science’, Proceedings of The Israel Academy of Science and Humanities, Vol. 4 (1969), 98-111; M. Blute, ‘The Growth of Science and Economic Development’, American Sociological Review, Vol. 37 (1972), 455-64.
34. For the UDCs, the correlations of the INSTRUMENT with the publications count and the log GDP per capita (in 1980) are 0.59 and - 0.07, respectively; for the LDCs, the correlations are 0.48 and - 0.07, respectively.
35. Williams, note 14; Bhagwati, note 14; K. Pavitt, ‘Technology, International Competition and Economic Growth: Some Lessons and Perspectives’, World Politics, Vol. 25 (1973), 183-205.
36. S.N. Eisenstadt, Modernization: Protest and Change (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1966); Smelser, note 15. See also D. Chirot and T.D. Hall, ‘World System Theory’, Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 8 (1982), 81-106, for a review.
37. See, for example, P. Evans and M. Timberlake, ‘Dependence, Inequality and the Growth of the Tertiary: A Comparative Analysis of Less Developed Countries’, American Sociological Review, Vol. 48 (1980), 421-28.
38. F.R. Sagasti, ‘Underdevelopment, Science and Technology: The Point of View of Underdeveloped Countries’, Science Studies, Vol. 3 (1973), 47-59; Nelson, note 47.
39. H.R. Coward and J J. Franklin, ‘Identifying the Science-Technology Interface: Matching Patent Data to a Bibliometric Model’, Science, Technology and Human Values, Vol. 14 (1989), 50-77.
40. O. Mayr, The Science-Technology Relationship’, in B. Barnes and D. Edge (eds), Science in Context (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982), 155-63.
41. B. Barnes, ‘The Science-Technology Relationship: A Model and A Query’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 12 (1982), 166-71.
42. For a theoretical discussion, see also W. Shrum, ‘Are “Science” and “Technology” Necessary?: The Utility of Some Old Concepts in Contemporary Studies of the Research Process’, Sociological Inquiry, Vol. 56 (1986), 324-40.
43. For concrete examples, see M.J. Moravcsik and R.H.B. Exell, ‘Third World Needs “Barefoot” Science’, Nature, Vol. 276 (23 November 1978), 315-16.
44. As Whetten has noted: ‘One of the shortcomings of the resource control theory of effectiveness is that it does not adequately acknowledge the relationship between an organization's efficiency in utilizing its resources and its need to acquire additional resources’: D.A. Whetten, ‘Coping with Incompatible Expectations: An Integrated View of Role Conflict’, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 23 (1978), at 255.