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This study looks at the United States biotechnology industry as a community of practice caught between two evolutionary logics by which valuable scientific knowledge and valuable innovations are selected. We analyze the publications and patents of 116 biotechnology firms during the period 1988-1995. In models that link scientific capabilities to patent citations, we show that scientific ideas are not simply inputs into inventions; important scientific ideas and influential patents follow different and conflicting selection logics. Publication, collaboration, and science intensity are associated with patented innovations; however, important scientific papers are negatively associated with high-impact innovations. These results point to conflicting logics between science and innovation, and scientists must contribute to both while inhabiting a single epistemic community. We identify individuals listed on patents and scientific papers and find they effectively integrate science with innovation, leading to more successful innovations. Our findings suggest that the role of the small, research-intensive firm is to create a repository of knowledge; to act as an organizational mechanism to combine the capabilities of versatile scientists within and outside the boundaries of the firm; and to manage the selection of scientific ideas to produce valuable technical innovations.
(Science; Citations; Patents; Scientists; Epistemic Community; Biotechnology)
Introduction
One of the important lessons of the sociology of science is that the creation of scientific knowledge is an activity that is institutionally constructed and organized. Until the sixteenth century, scientific endeavors were cloaked in secrecy to withhold knowledge and the powers it conferred from the "vulgar multitude" (David 1998). The institut!onalization of science encouraged the validation and diffusion of ideas as open to public scrutiny (Merton 1973). To support these institutions, norms that standardized the language and presentation of results developed under the auspices of academic journals. The careers of scientists were tied to their success in publishing these results in prestigious journals and withstanding subsequent public criticism. As science evolved, it also fragmented into distinct communities, with separate identities, journals, and models of experimentation and validation.
The sociology of science, though rich and variegated, broadly agrees with the view of science as embedded in distinctive communities. As Merton (1973) and economists such as Dasgupta and David (1994) and Stephan (1996) have noted, these norms create incentives that are efficient insofar as professional ranking...