To solve a problem, needed information and problem-solving capabilities must be brought together. Often the information used in technical problem solving is costly to acquire, transfer, and use in a new location-is, in our terms, "sticky." In this paper we explore the impact of information stickiness on the locus of innovation-related problem solving. We find, first, that when sticky information needed by problem solvers is held at one site only, problem solving will be carried out at that locus, other things being equal. Second, when more than one locus of sticky information is called upon by problem solvers, the locus of problem solving may iterate among these sites as problem solving proceeds. When the costs of such iteration are high, then, third, problems that draw upon multiple sites of sticky information will sometimes be "task partitioned" into subproblems that each draw on only one such locus, and/or, fourth, investments will be made to reduce the stickiness of information at some locations.

Information stickiness appears to affect a number of issues of importance to researchers and practitioners. Among these are patterns in the diffusion of information, the specialization of firms, the locus of innovation, and the nature of problems selected by problem solvers.

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Sticky Information and the Locus of Problem Solving: Implications for Innovation

What is research collaboration

http://www.managingforimpact.org/sites/default/files/case/stilgoe_owen_macnaghten_2013_developing_a_framework_for_responsible_innovation.pdf

Developing a framework for responsible innovation

Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Readings and responses 2. Preface to the 1st edition 3. Introduction to the 1st edition 4. Interactive artifacts 5. Plans 6. Situated actions 7. Communicative resources 8. Case and methods 9. Human-machine communication 10. Conclusion to the 1st edition 11. Plans, scripts and other ordering devices 12. Agencies at the interface 13. Figuring the human in AI and robotics 14. Demystifications and re-enchantments of the human-like machine 15. Reconfigurations Notes References.

Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions

This paper explores the heterogeneous processes of social and technical change, and in particular the dynamics of techno-economic networks. It starts by considering the way in which actors and intermediaries are constituted and define one another within such networks in the course of translation. It then explores, first the way in which parts of such heterogeneous networks converge to create unified spaces linking incommensurable elements, and second how some of these links achieve longevity and tend to shape future processes of translation.

Techno‐economic networks and irreversibility

This paper reviews the growing body of research that explores ‘the social shaping of technology’ (SST) — how the design and implementation of technology are patterned by a range of ‘social’ and ‘economic’ factors as well as narrowly ‘technical’ considerations. It shows how researchers from a range of disciplinary backgrounds were brought together by a critique of traditional conceptions of technology (for example, ‘linear models’ of innovation that privileged technological supply or restricted the scope of social inquiry into technology to assessing its ‘impacts’). Though their analytical frameworks differ to a greater or lesser extent in terminology and approach, some explanatory concepts have emerged, and constitute an effective model of the innovation process. Here, it is suggested, SST offers a deeper understanding and also potentially broadens the technology policy agenda. These claims are assessed through a review of recent research into specific instances of social shaping, particularly in relation to information technology. Finally the article discusses some of the intellectual dilemmas in the field. Though the intellectual cross-fertilisation has been creative, points of tension and divergence between its constituent strands have resulted in some sharp controversies, which reflect upon the theoretical and policy claims of SST.

The Social Shaping of Technology

The social shaping of technology

ed, usually colloquial, frequently incomplete, and often vague. The communicator here is not seeking to report a finished scientific work. He often knows, in fact, that the person with whom he is communicating needs only a minimal communication of an idea to understand fully its meaning and importance for their common subject of research. The recipient embodies integrated knowledge; therefore, the message need not, in itself, be integrated. 49 One is tempted to say that formal communication in science is 'the tip of the iceberg', were it not for two facts: (a) the 'tip' is very large, extensive and important; and (b) there is every indication that the 'tip' is radically dijjerent in kind from what is 'below the waterline'. (Perhaps 'the soft underbelly of science' might be a more appropriate metaphor I) The difference is signalled in Garvey and Griffith's very next sentence: "Such loose communication cannot, of course, be tolerated in the journal literature of science where a more universal audience exists."50 Formal 'communications' in science represent a process of assimilation: of "separating scientific fact from conjecture", 51 and of "the transformation of research findings into scientific knowledge". 53 The object of a formal research paper is to persuade and convince the appropriate audience that the results presented should be accepted as valid knowledge: the form and style of argumentation is determined by that institutionalized goal, and the paper is assembled, and its list of references compiled, with that end in view.P It is an 'after the event' view, re-ordered and re-presented in accordance with established canons of proper practice; referees and editors ensure that certain decencies (including adequate referencing) are observed. It is not at all surprizing that Garvey and Griffith, comparing final published papers with their antecedent technical reports, found that "the corresponding journal articles were typically better written and better related to other work in the same subject areas". 54 'Communication', as it is usually understood, appears to be a relatively minor role of formal 'communications': While 'current' journal reading is relevant to the dissemination of research findings, it seems to be a minor portion of the use to which journals are put. For example, it amounted to only about one-third of the journal reading of one group ofextremely active psychologists.55 ... it was quite clear in 1962 that the journal article in psychology. was no longer the medium for disseminating current scientific findings to researchers active on the research front. 56 . What, then, is its 'use' ? Since most citations are given to research papers, how can these be assumed to reflect an influence? Gaston claims that "The QUANTITATIVE MEASURES OF COMMUNICATION 115 scientific community must wait until every aspect of the research is published before it can use the results to guide new research or correct an earlier perspective".57 Is this true? As we have seen, Cole seems to equate 'use' with 'citation' -that is, with the process of public 'assimilation' in the formal literature. And even Garvey and Griffith seem to define 'science' so that the formal 'tip' characterizes the whole: they note that, on average, some two or three years after publication, an article ... is cited by another author. Here the scientific information in the article is built upon, evaluated in the light of new information, and linked to new information which has been generated since its publication ... analysis, evaluation and synthesis have been proceeding ever since the work first appeared in the journal literature, in a process so central to science as to be virtually indistinguishable from it. 58 It is my contention, as I said earlier, that the tendency to characterize 'science' in terms of this formal process, and to employ methods designed to analyze the formal literature, "obscures key features" of scientific research. I t diverts attention from "the soft underbelly" : worse, it proposes that the informal should be understood in terms of insights gained by the study of the formal. I submit that this is to reverse the priorities of explanatory logic. Explanations of scientists' behaviour in the informal domain should surely be extended so as to include within their scope the formal aspects-including the relatively trivial behaviour of adding citations to papers. But, quite apart from this 'logical' point, it is simply my judgment that illumination is more likely to accrue from this contrary strategy. To claim that co-citation methods can locate actively interacting groups and specialty boundaries is not to claim that such features can only, or most economically, be discovered in this way-nor that these methods uncover (or point to) sufficient, or sufficiently accurate, detailed andrelevant, information on the groups and specialties. To refer back to the 'gas laws' analogy, and the claim that scholars must await the establishment ofnumerical patterns before they can know what 'problems' they have to solve, my response is to suggest that the everyday, detailed behaviour of scientists in the conduct of their research provides an abundance of problems of much more obvious importance than any correlations contained in a computer printout. Whenever a scientist (or a research group) decides to develop a new technique, or to pursue a fresh and unexpected phenomenon, or to adopt a perhaps unfashionable theoretical approach, there is a (sociological or historical) problem: each decision brings together 'cognitive' (intellectual, technical, cultural) and 'social and historical' factors: one task of the historian (or sociologist) of science is to explicate such decisions, and to explore the 'grounding' of their rationality. 59 In relation to this task (or,

Quantitative measures of communication in science: a critical review.

This collection of eighteen readings provides a basic text for undergraduates taking sociology of science courses. A general survey of articles published between 1961 and 1981, the book is also a useful overview for students taking courses in social and political studies of science; science, technology, and society; and "social issues" components of courses in the environmental sciences, geography, philosophy, and history of science.The editors have organized the book around "the relationship between the subculture of science and the wider culture which surrounds it. Looked at from this perpective, science is primarily a source of knowledge and competence.... Thus to stress its interaction with its context not only highlights these aspects of science which most people find of overriding pragmatic interest, but also raises important basic issues concerning credibility, the distribution of authority in society, and the nature of the interaction between different forms of culture."Essays are grouped in five sections: The Organization of Academic Science: Communication and Control; The Culture of Science; The Interaction of Science and Technology; The Interaction of Science and Society; Science as Expertise. The editors have added a general introduction, part introductions, bibliographical notes, and a lengthy bibliography.Barry Barnes is Lecturer at the Science Studies Unit, University of Edinburgh, and editor of an earlier version of this book, "The Sociology of Science," published in the Penguin Sociology Readings series and now out of print. David Edge is Director of The Science Studies Unit at the University of Edinburgh and a joint editor of the journal, "Social Studies of Science."

David Edge

Papers

The Social Shaping of Technology

The social shaping of technology

Quantitative measures of communication in science: a critical review.

Science in Context: Readings in the Sociology of Science

Astronomy transformed: The emergence of radio astronomy in Britain