It is becoming clear that many of today’s management theories are inadequate theoretically and practically to move understanding, scholarship, and practice to where it needs to be for scholars, business leaders, and policy makers to cope with an increasing fraught world. This Special Issue’s focus is on sustainability. Sustainability challenges need to incorporate multidisciplinary interventions and the trans- and interdisciplinary nature of solutions. To actively seek transformation toward sustainability, fundamental and innovative short-term as well as long-term efforts are required (...) in society, economy, technology, and education, including our understanding of human behavior and attitudes toward the management of the environment. This introductory piece presents natural science theories as a promising approach for achieving progress toward transformation for sustainability. (shrink)

The methodology of this paper is documentary, compiling textbooks and scientific articles related to Argentine scientific history, mainly referring to CONICET. The purpose is to show that a complete epistemological study cannot be done without giving an account of its sociological and historical context, in this case, specifically referred to the management of science. The perspective of this paper is more philosophical than historical, doing discourse analysis and interpretation. Management, a sociological element, has a close relationship with (...) science, and its study is part of epistemology. So, first, we must be careful to use the classification of basic and applied science in order to prioritize the latter with funding. Secondly, science should be autonomous but not independent from society and the market in which it is embedded, and the private sector should be harmonized with the public sector as regards scientific production. Third, betting on scientific production by Argentina helps demystify the classification of developed and underdeveloped countries, or the first and the third world. Fourth, in the management of science, university plays a key role, so management of university and the centralized management of the scientific bodies should be harmonized. Fifth, regarding the strengthening of the human component, subsidies offering should be balanced with the professionalization of research based on dedication. La metodología de este ensayo es documental, recopilando libros y artículos científicos que hacen referencia a la historia científica argentina, principalmente referida al CONICET. El propósito es mostrar que no puede realizarse un completo estudio epistemológico sin dar cuenta de su contexto sociológico e histórico, en este caso, precisamente referido a la gestión de la ciencia. La perspectiva del trabajo es más filosófica que histórica, realizando análisis del discurso e interpretación. La gestión, elemento sociológico, tiene una relación estrecha con la ciencia, y su estudio forma parte de la epistemología. Por lo que, en primer lugar, hay que cuidarse de utilizar la clasificación de ciencia básica y aplicada para priorizar con financiamiento a la última. En segundo lugar, hay que autonomizar pero no independizar la ciencia de la sociedad y el mercado en los que está inmersa, así como armonizar la iniciativa privada con la pública en el ámbito de la producción científica. En tercer lugar, apostar a la producción científica por Argentina contribuye a desmitificar la clasificación entre países desarrollados y subdesarrollados, o del primer o tercer mundo. En cuarto lugar, en la gestión de la ciencia, juega un papel clave la universidad, por lo que habría que armonizar la gestión de la universidad y de los organismos centralizados en la administración de la producción científica. En quinto lugar, en relación al fortalecimiento del componente humano, debería equilibrarse el ofrecimiento de subsidios con la profesionalización de la investigación en función de la dedicación. (shrink)

Universities and funders in many countries have been using Journal Impact Factor (JIF) as an indicator for research and grant assessment despite its controversial nature as a statistical representation of scientific quality. This study investigates how the changes of JIF over the years can affect its role in research evaluation and science management by using JIF data from annual Journal Citation Reports (JCR) to illustrate the changes. The descriptive statistics find out an increase in the median JIF for (...) the top 50 journals in the JCR, from 29.300 in 2017 to 33.162 in 2019. Moreover, on average, elite journal families have up to 27 journals in the top 50. In the group of journals with a JIF of lower than 1, the proportion has shrunk by 14.53% in the 2015–2019 period. The findings suggest a potential ‘JIF bubble period’ that science policymaker, university, public fund managers, and other stakeholders should pay more attention to JIF as a criterion for quality assessment to ensure more efficient science management. (shrink)

In this chapter, we argue that in order to understand the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary dialectics in sustainability science, it is useful to see sustainability science as a kind of management science, and then to highlight the hard-soft distinction in systems thinking. First, we argue that the commonly made natural-social science dichotomy is relatively unimportant and unhelpful. We then outline the differences between soft and hard systems thinking as a more relevant and helpful distinction, mainly as (...) a difference between perspectives in systemic modeling toward models. We also illustrate that the distinction is methodologically useful to advance sustainability science by enabling us (i) to suggest novel ways of using existing theoretical, experimental, and computational resources of the sciences for renewable resource management, and (ii) to disentangle disciplinary disagreements in climate science. (shrink)

In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, we created and implemented from November 2020 to February 2021 a monthly educational pilot program of philosophical management of stress based on Science, Humanism and Epicurean Pragmatism, which was offered to employees of 26 municipalities in the Prefecture of Attica, Greece. The program named “Philosophical Distress Management Operation System” (Philo.Di.M.O.S.) is novel and unique in its kind, as it combines a certain Greek philosophical tradition (Epicurean) that concurs with modern (...) scientific knowledge. The program was designed to be implemented in a period of crisis; therefore, it used a fast-paced, easy to learn and practice philosophical approach to stress management, based on cognitive psychotherapy. The philosophical approach to stress management has the advantage that it can be offered to most people, regardless of age and educational level. The pilot program was effective in achieving its objectives, shown by statistical comparisons of the trainees’ responses to anonymous questionnaires before and after the month-long training. The successful Philo.Di.M.O.S. program, thus, based on a solid scientific and philosophical basis, offers a paradigm of stress management during crises and could be useful in Greece and internationally. (shrink)

Earth system science (ESS) has identified worrying trends in the human impact on fundamental planetary systems. In this conceptual article, we discuss the implications of this research for business schools and management education (ME). We argue that ESS findings raise significant concerns about the relationship between business and nature and, consequently, a radical reframing is required to embed economic and social activity within the global sustainability of natural systems. This has transformative implications for ME. To illustrate this reframing, (...) we apply the ESS lenses of social-ecological interdependence, multiscalar relations, environmental governance, and environmental values to the ME functional domains of institutional purpose, social context and engagement, pedagogical practice, curricular design, and research focus. Our work contributes to the literature on business education for sustainability and the business-society-nature nexus. We explore and apply key ESS findings and concepts, discuss normative implications of these ideas, and offer guidance on transformational pathways for business schools and ME. (shrink)

The theory of boundary organizations was developed to address an important group of institutions in American society neglected by scholarship in science studies and political science. The long-term stability of scientific and political institutions in the United States has enabled a new class of institutions to grow and thrive as mediators between the two. As originally developed, this structural feature of these new institutions—that is, their location on the boundary between science and politics—dominated theoretical frame-works for explaining (...) their behavior. Applying the theory of boundary organizations to international society requires a refocusing of some of the theory’s central features, however. In this article, I introduce a new framework—hybrid management—to explain the activities of boundary organizations in the more complex, contingent, and contested settings of global politics. I develop the framework of hybrid management using the specific example of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice. (shrink)

Moss is right to state that management theory needs to address its epistemological foundations by considering questions in epistemology and the philosophy of science. Whether management theory needs Popper is a more tricky question. It is not clear that all theories should be falsifiable in Popper’s terms. His proposed methodology for social scientific research is inherently conservative and threatens to inhibit intellectual and social progress. But Popper’s philosophical realism and rationalism need to be preserved. Coherentism and associated (...) forms of anti-rationalism (including postmodernism and relativism) threaten to provide a rationale for the worst excesses of management theory. Indeed, the poverty of contemporary management theory is a symptom of a broader intellectual malaise: debate is increasingly characterised by the exchange of persuasive rhetoric, making it difficult to hold those in positions of power accountable for rationally justifying the positions they espouse. (shrink)

Moss is right to state that management theory needs to address its epistemological foundations by considering questions in epistemology and the philosophy of science. Whether management theory needs Popper is a more tricky question. It is not clear that all theories should be falsifiable in Popper’s terms. His proposed methodology for social scientific research is inherently conservative and threatens to inhibit intellectual and social progress. But Popper’s philosophical realism and rationalism need to be preserved. Coherentism and associated (...) forms of anti-rationalism (including postmodernism and relativism) threaten to provide a rationale for the worst excesses of management theory. Indeed, the poverty of contemporary management theory is a symptom of a broader intellectual malaise: debate is increasingly characterised by the exchange of persuasive rhetoric, making it difficult to hold those in positions of power accountable for rationally justifying the positions they espouse. (shrink)

Non-epistemic values pervade climate modelling, as is now well documented and widely discussed in the philosophy of climate science. Recently, Parker and Winsberg have drawn attention to what can be termed “epistemic inequality”: this is the risk that climate models might more accurately represent the future climates of the geographical regions prioritised by the values of the modellers. In this paper, we promote value management as a way of overcoming epistemic inequality. We argue that value management can (...) be seriously considered as soon as the value-free ideal and inductive risk arguments commonly used to frame the discussions of value influence in climate science are replaced by alternative social accounts of objectivity. We consider objectivity in Longino's sense as well as strong objectivity in Harding's sense to be relevant options here, because they offer concrete proposals that can guide scientific practice in evaluating and designing so-called multi-model ensembles and, in fine, improve their capacity to quantify and express uncertainty in climate projections. (shrink)

The word “sustainable” débuted in 1987 but has since become a hot topic issue, both for scientific research and wider society. Although sustainability may appear to be a thoroughly twenty-first century goal, sustainability science concepts and goals such as balance, endurance, order and change, reach back at least as far as the proto-scientific investigations of alchemy. Both alchemy and sustainability science can be understood as systems or strategies which individuals and societies can use to organise and manage themselves (...) in a complex world filled with dynamic problems. Alchemy never created a panacea or transmuted base metals into gold because those goals proved to be based on fundamentally flawed theories and premises. Nevertheless, alchemy did succeed in helping adherents manage themselves and their societies in advantageous ways. Alchemy also positively and significantly influenced subsequent scientific development. Likewise, science helps humanity manage itself on multiple scales, from the individual to the international, and will certainly contribute to further scientific research and development. However, it is not yet known whether carbon neutrality, entirely renewable energy and other sustainability goals will be achieved or whether these goals will also come to be seen as based on flawed understandings and theories. For this reason, this article explores key features of alchemy, traces how they persisted through Enlightenment-era science and how they continue to be present and influential within scientific efforts today. The article goes on to reflect on how the history, development and continued use of concepts such as balance, endurance, order and change may be useful portents of how humans and human society will manage themselves in the future. Such reflections may also temper the zeal with which individuals that accept or reject sustainability goals treat each other, thereby offering a way for divergent groups to manage their interactions. Flawed theories prevented alchemy from achieving many of its primary stated goals. However, alchemy was very beneficial, both during its period of use and subsequently through its influence on subsequent development. This article identifies ideas from alchemy that were originally beneficial and that have persisted through Enlightenment-era science and into contemporary science. The article also explores how those ideas continue to influence scientific and sustainability goals today. Understanding and reflecting on alchemy’s successes and failures facilitates reflection on the potential successes and failures of sustainability and the human consequences of trying to manage a sustainable future. (shrink)

The word “sustainable” débuted in 1987 but has since become a hot topic issue, both for scientific research and wider society. Although sustainability may appear to be a thoroughly twenty-first century goal, sustainability science concepts and goals such as balance, endurance, order and change, reach back at least as far as the proto-scientific investigations of alchemy. Both alchemy and sustainability science can be understood as systems or strategies which individuals and societies can use to organise and manage themselves (...) in a complex world filled with dynamic problems. Alchemy never created a panacea or transmuted base metals into gold because those goals proved to be based on fundamentally flawed theories and premises. Nevertheless, alchemy did succeed in helping adherents manage themselves and their societies in advantageous ways. Alchemy also positively and significantly influenced subsequent scientific development. Likewise, science helps humanity manage itself on multiple scales, from the individual to the international, and will certainly contribute to further scientific research and development. However, it is not yet known whether carbon neutrality, entirely renewable energy and other sustainability goals will be achieved or whether these goals will also come to be seen as based on flawed understandings and theories. For this reason, this article explores key features of alchemy, traces how they persisted through Enlightenment-era science and how they continue to be present and influential within scientific efforts today. The article goes on to reflect on how the history, development and continued use of concepts such as balance, endurance, order and change may be useful portents of how humans and human society will manage themselves in the future. Such reflections may also temper the zeal with which individuals that accept or reject sustainability goals treat each other, thereby offering a way for divergent groups to manage their interactions. Flawed theories prevented alchemy from achieving many of its primary stated goals. However, alchemy was very beneficial, both during its period of use and subsequently through its influence on subsequent development. This article identifies ideas from alchemy that were originally beneficial and that have persisted through Enlightenment-era science and into contemporary science. The article also explores how those ideas continue to influence scientific and sustainability goals today. Understanding and reflecting on alchemy’s successes and failures facilitates reflection on the potential successes and failures of sustainability and the human consequences of trying to manage a sustainable future. (shrink)

The word “sustainable” débuted in 1987 but has since become a hot topic issue, both for scientific research and wider society. Although sustainability may appear to be a thoroughly twenty-first century goal, sustainability science concepts and goals such as balance, endurance, order and change, reach back at least as far as the proto-scientific investigations of alchemy. Both alchemy and sustainability science can be understood as systems or strategies which individuals and societies can use to organise and manage themselves (...) in a complex world filled with dynamic problems. Alchemy never created a panacea or transmuted base metals into gold because those goals proved to be based on fundamentally flawed theories and premises. Nevertheless, alchemy did succeed in helping adherents manage themselves and their societies in advantageous ways. Alchemy also positively and significantly influenced subsequent scientific development. Likewise, science helps humanity manage itself on multiple scales, from the individual to the international, and will certainly contribute to further scientific research and development. However, it is not yet known whether carbon neutrality, entirely renewable energy and other sustainability goals will be achieved or whether these goals will also come to be seen as based on flawed understandings and theories. For this reason, this article explores key features of alchemy, traces how they persisted through Enlightenment-era science and how they continue to be present and influential within scientific efforts today. The article goes on to reflect on how the history, development and continued use of concepts such as balance, endurance, order and change may be useful portents of how humans and human society will manage themselves in the future. Such reflections may also temper the zeal with which individuals that accept or reject sustainability goals treat each other, thereby offering a way for divergent groups to manage their interactions. Flawed theories prevented alchemy from achieving many of its primary stated goals. However, alchemy was very beneficial, both during its period of use and subsequently through its influence on subsequent development. This article identifies ideas from alchemy that were originally beneficial and that have persisted through Enlightenment-era science and into contemporary science. The article also explores how those ideas continue to influence scientific and sustainability goals today. Understanding and reflecting on alchemy’s successes and failures facilitates reflection on the potential successes and failures of sustainability and the human consequences of trying to manage a sustainable future. (shrink)

What I have tried to do here is to provide a historical example of the interdependence between nature and culture that is one of the themes of this conference. To sum up: Scientific descriptions of the world emerge out of a complex interaction between nature, economic production, and the legal system. “Science” consists of a struggle among scientists, and between scientists and citizens, over what counts as “reality.” Lawmaking, in turn, consists of a struggle between people who want to (...) allocate access to resources for particular purposes, whether for commercial use, recreational use, or “natural” uses. Production, for its part, is a complicated function of technology, the sociology of user groups, the structure of legal entitlements to access, and the availability of resources. Nature, finally, is at any point, to no small degree, the product of past and present human impacts on it — which impacts, in turn, are determined in no small way by the sociology and the legal structure of the market.Each process takes place in continual conversation with all the others. As John Muir put it, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”45 Historically, resource managers have gotten into trouble when they have unconsciously assumed that such is not the case — yet such, assumptions are powerful because they are made instinctively, unthinkingly, at the level of people's basic understanding of the world and their place in it. Lots of them persist.On the other hand, in a few experimental cases in the United States and Canada where government and users have shared power and responsibility for resources management, including long-range planning for recovery and enhancement, here have been some notable improvements. The strategy goes under the name of “co-management” and involves negotiated agreements for shared decision-making between central authority and local groups. Typically, both government and industry resist such arrangements because they involve restructuring the power relations between different sectors in the industry; the result is that the few experiments in co-management that we have seen in the United States have come in areas, typically fisheries and wildlife, where the resource is in serious crisis and all of the parties to the agreement have had to abandon the positions they held previously.Examples of successful co-management regimes include those among American tribes in the Pacific Northwest, among commercial salmon fishers in Alaska, and in a project to rehabilitate the clam industry in New Jersey. Government employees and local groups share responsibility for gathering scientific data about the resources, for developing plans to manage them, and for enforcing regulations. Successful experiments at co-management seem to generate better scientific data about their resources than traditional management regimes do; they significantly reduce enforcement costs; and they enhance the economic power of the resource users. Most importantly, they nurture among the user groups a sense of control over their own destinies, and a willingness to share both costs and benefits of managing the resources rationally and to develop lasting, stable mechanisms for conflict resolution. The process is both democratic and ecologically rational. The key is to link the day-to-day work of producers to their long-range interests as residents in their communities and as working parts of the ecological systems in which they live.45At a minimum, it is clear that objective certainty about the state of the resources or the likely effect of whatever regulations we do impose is simply not attainable. This is partly because of the important role that random shocks play in the environment (and should play in our thinking about it), and also because of the sheer complexity of the system in which we are embedded. There will always be something that even the most complete model leaves out; and in any event the total system of ecology, production, and management will change every time something changes in any part of it.The policy lesson to be derived from all of this, finally, is that what we ought to sustain when we approach conservation problems is not the size of a particular resource, or even the prosperity of a particular harvesting group, but the long-term health of the interaction between nature, the economy, and the political system. We can recognize that the balance of the system, our attempted insurance against an uncertain future, democracy among user groups, and our moral duty to avoid extinguishing species — all of these things being difficult to quantify — do play integral roles in the conversation between nature and humankind, and perhaps more significant roles than the more objective measures to which we usually look for guidance. We can recognize, as John Muir did, that because everything in the universe is hitched to everything else, every step we take will change the total system in some way. When we make choices, then, we can keep an eye on what kind of conversation we want to have with the rest of Creation and make our choices accordingly. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A8402064 00014 *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A8402064 00015. (shrink)

Many leading management scientists have advocated ethicalism: the incorporation of social and ethical concerns into traditional "rational" OR-MS techniques and management decisions. In fact, elementary forms of decision analysis can readily be augmented, using ethical theory, in ways that sweep in ethical issues. In addition, alternative conceptual models of Decision-Analysis, Game-Theory and Optimality are now available, all of which have brought OR-MS and Business-Ethics into a closer alignment.

(1993). Managing the future: Science, the Humanities, and the myth of omniscience. World Futures: Vol. 38, Theoretical Achievements and Practical Applications of General Evolutionary Theory, pp. 157-164.

Like any social science, management and organization sits astride two literary and epistemic disciplines; the empirical and the conceptual. I argue that emphasizing the former to the detriment of the latter, as is often the case in management and organization research, creates a conceptual blindness that compromises progress in the field. I show how adopting a more philosophically attuned methodology buttresses the conceptual tools of management and organization research via deduction, induction, normative grounding, and overcoming the (...) illusion of unanimity. (shrink)

Lack of supportive workplaces may be depriving babies and mothers of the health advantages of breastfeeding. This citizen science pilot project set out to engage women in photographing and sharing information on the available facilities for breastfeeding and expressing and storing breastmilk in Australian workplaces. While some useful insights were gained, the project failed in the sense that 234 people ‘liked’ the project Facebook page set up to recruit participants, but only nine photographs were submitted. The heaviest loss of (...) participation occurred after the ethics committee requirements were explained, in particular, the requirement for employer consent to take a photograph, or alternatively, for a participant to agree to bear the risk of taking a photo without permission. The ethics committee also made stipulations about the formality of language to be used. Thus, the project’s potential role as an enabler for health action was neutered. We argue that the ethics requirements worked contrary to our purpose and possibly acted to reinforce the powerlessness some women experience at work. (shrink)

In this document, the objective is to identify organisational management under an approach that includes Risk Prevention in the College of Sciences and Humanities (CCH) of the Universidad Juárez del Estado de Durango (UJED), emphasising the actions and priority of offering certainty to students and their families, extending the commitment to risk-free facilities and contexts.

La gestión del conocimiento es un proceso relacionado con la producción, transmisión y utilización del conocimiento y su pertinencia para el desempeño organizacional; en la actualidad han aparecido diversidad de modelos que prescriben su configuración. El presente artículo describe el modelo que fundamenta teórica y metodológicamente la aplicación de la gestión del conocimiento en el Centro de Desarrollo de las Ciencias Sociales y Humanísticas en Salud. Esta entidad dedicada a la producción y transmisión del conocimiento científico en estas áreas de (...) conocimiento, no contaba con un modelo que permitiera estructurar el funcionamiento del proceso de su construcción y difusión en su interior y hacia el contexto. El modelo propuesto atiende la especificidad de los procesos de la entidad, y guía teórica y metodológicamente los flujos de información y conocimientos, las redes de actores presentes y los procesos de gestión de conocimiento que se integran en la dinámica de la organización. Knowledge management is a process related to the production, transmission and use of knowledge and its relevance to the organizational performance; nowadays there are several models that prescribe its configuration. This article describes a model that theoretically and methodologically bases the implementation of knowledge management on the Centre for the development of social and humanistic sciences in Health. This entity devoted to the production and transmission of scientific knowledge in these areas of knowledge, did not have a model that allow to structure the operation of its construction and diffusion process from inside and towards the context. The proposed model deals with specificities of the entity´ s processes, and theoretically and methodologically leads flows of information and knowledge, networks of actors and knowledge management processes that are integrated into the dynamics of the organization. (shrink)

El trabajo tuvo como objetivo caracterizar los resultados de la gestión de la investigación en ciencias sociales y humanísticas aplicadas en salud en el contexto de su institucionalización a través del Centro para el desarrollo de las Ciencias Sociales y Humanísticas en salud. Con el fin de alcanzar el objetivo propuesto se determinaron los siguientes momentos: primero se fundamentó el proceso de gestión de la investigación en estas áreas de conocimientos en el Cendecsa; se presentaron los resultados de la gestión (...) de la investigación de 2013-2017; y por último se realizó una valoración de sus impactos científicos y sociales de la entidad. Se utilizó el enfoque de los estudios sociales de la ciencia y la tecnología, con el enfoque metodológico cuanticualitativo: la revisión bibliográfica y de documentos elaborados como informes de Balance anual de la ciencia, de los planes de ciencia del centro y de otros procesos como los expedientes presentados en el proceso de reordenamiento de las entidades de ciencia de 2013 y 2014, documentos normativos y entrevistas a informantes clave. The aim of the paper was to characterize the results of research management in Social and Humanistic Sciences applied to Health in the context of its institutionalization through the Center for the Development of Social and Humanistic Sciences in Health. To achieve this aim, the following moments were determined: first, the research management process in these areas of knowledge in Cendecsa were underpinned from the context which knowledge production; second, Social and Humanistic Sciences applied to health research management results from 2013 to 2017 were presented; finally, its scientific and social impacts were assessed. The social studies of science and technology approach was used, with the quantitative-qualitative methodological approach: bibliographic review and documents such as annual science assessment reports, science plans in the institution and other processes like files presented in the science organizations restructuring process and other normative documents. (shrink)

This paper presents reports on discussions among an international group of science and technology studies scholars who convened at the US National Science Foundation to think about data sharing and open STS. The first report, which reflects discussions among members of the Society for Social Studies of Science, relates the potential benefits of data sharing and open science for STS. The second report, which reflects discussions among scholars from many professional STS societies, focuses on practical and (...) conceptual issues related to managing, storing, and curating STS data. As is the case for all reports of such open discussions, a scholar’s presence at the meeting does not necessarily mean that they agree with all aspects of the text to follow. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to trace the integration of education, science and production through the development of regional cluster policy. At the present stage of development of postindustrial society in the global economy, the processes of globalization and specialization of national markets significantly increase competition between countries, between regions and between producers within the country. In these circumstances, the state authorities of the Russian Federation, while maintaining global leadership in the energy sector, define as long-term development goals (...) of the country, the creation of a competitive economy based on knowledge and high technologies. Following this doctrine in the Russian regions in the period from 2012 to 2014 cluster policy is implemented on the basis of Federal and regional innovation strategies. An important role in this process belongs to the activities of leading higher educational institutions - national research universities, which contribute to stimulate an active scientific activity of students and the introduction of scientific achievements into production. One of the pilot cluster projects, funded by the Federal budget became the territorial cluster ‘ Pharmaceutics, medical technology and information technology ‘ formed in the Tomsk region with a unique starting opportunities for the development of sustainable regional innovation system is a developed scientific and educational complex, small and medium-sized innovative enterprises with the latest technological developments in pharmaceuticals and medical technology. In two years, the activity cluster, implemented with the financial support of public authorities, has been successful. In the future, there are plans to expand the range of pharmaceutical products and the collaboration with other clusters Tomsk. Cluster policy contributes to the emergence of stakeholders and large economic enterprises, thus providing a close relationship between science, business and regional authorities. (shrink)

This paper examines the integration, from 1978 to 2002, of six social scientists in five Australian natural resource management agencies: CSIRO Australia, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the Murray Darling Basin Commission, the Western Australian Social Impact Unit, and the Queensland Social Impact Assessment Unit. All but one of the social scientists in the study occupied the first formal social science position in the respective agency. The organisational arrangements for integration, the roles of the social scientists (...) and achievements of social science programs in those agencies illustrate a number of integration approaches and insights for effectively integrating social and natural science. Insights emanating from this research will be useful to inform future natural resource management that avoids integration failures. This paper illustrates both significant impediments to integration in practice and positive examples of integrated multidisciplinary approaches in natural resource management. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 5, Issue 2, pp 228 - 250 Despite inroads made by critical realism against the ‘scientific method’ in social science, the latter remains strong in subject-areas like human resource management. One argument for the alleged superiority of the scientific method lies in the taken-for-granted belief that it alone can formulate empirically testable predictions. Many of those who employ the scientific method are, however, confused about the way they understand and practice prediction. This paper takes as (...) a case study empirical research on the alleged empirical association between human resource management practices and organisational performance. By unpacking the confusion surrounding the two basic notions of prediction used, it reveals what is wrong with them, why the scientific method cannot actually make accurate predictions and why, therefore, the scientific method fails to meet its own criteria for scientificity. Finally, explanation is considered in order to prevent any confusion between it and prediction and to offer what we call _tendential prediction_. (shrink)

Despite inroads made by critical realism against the ‘scientific method’ in social science, the latter remains strong in subject-areas like human resource management. One argument for the alleged superiority of the scientific method (i.e. its scientificity) lies in the taken-for-granted belief that it alone can formulate empirically testable predictions. Many of those who employ the scientific method are, however, confused about the way they understand and practice prediction. This paper takes as a case study empirical research on the (...) alleged empirical association between human resource management practices and organisational performance. By unpacking the confusion surrounding the two basic notions of prediction used, it reveals what is wrong with them, why the scientific method cannot actually make accurate predictions and why, therefore, the scientific method fails to meet its own criteria for scientificity. Finally, explanation is considered in order to prevent any confusion between it and prediction and to offer what we call tendential prediction. (shrink)

The Problem Economic efficiency is naturally thought to be a virtue of social policies and decisions, and cost-benefit analysis is commonly regarded as a technique for measuring economic efficiency. It is not surprising, then, that CB analysis is so widely used in social policy analysis. However, there is a great deal of controversy about CB analysis, including controversy about its underlying philosophical rationale. The rationales that have been proposed fall into three basic, though not mutually exclusive categories. There are moralist (...) views to the effect that an acceptable CB analysis would provide, or contribute to, an ethical appraisal of proposed policies or projects. There are rationalist views to the effect that an acceptable CB analysis would contribute to the selection of social policies and projects that are “socially rational.” Finally, there are so-called management science views to the effect that the purpose of CB analysis is to promote the achievement of objectives held by the policy maker, whatever they may be. Different positions are available within each of these categories. But there is also the possibility that CB analysis lacks any viable rationale. I will examine some of the major rationales for CB analysis in this paper, and I will suggest that the last view is close to the truth. (shrink)

Since the 1980s, two different paradigms have reshaped industrial societies: the Neoliberal paradigm and a Research and Innovation paradigm. Both have been conceptualized and translated into strong policies with massive economic and social consequences. They provide divergent responses to the environmental transition. The Neoliberal paradigm is based on economic models and geopolitical solutions. The Research and Innovation paradigm's goal is to manage knowledge differently in order to reorient the evolution of society. Since the mid-1990s, a version of the Research and (...) Innovation paradigm has led to the design of large-scale research and innovation policies. This book examines how these policies have evolved and how they can be extended and reformed to respond to present and future environmental constraints. It studies the transformation of the conception, organization and role of science and technology in the evolution of industrial societies and explores the future of these developments. The book offers three unique lines of enquiry. The first is to focus not specifically on economics, sociology, political science or history, but on knowledge creation from an institutional and reflexive point of view. The second is to establish a convergence between the British school of science and technology studies and the research trends opened by the work of Michel Foucault. Both introduced trans-disciplinary and policy-oriented research associating case studies, long-term perspectives and theory. The third is to consider climate change as the overwhelming challenge of our time. The book is an insightful guide for students, scholars and researchers across the humanities and social sciences, including philosophy, political science, law, economics, business and media. (shrink)

This book identifies and presents the four main network-based methodologies including network analysis, Boolean network simulation modeling, artificial neural network simulation modeling, and agent-based simulation modeling in addition to their conceptual-epistemological implications and concrete applications within the social and natural sciences.

–Whether celebratory or critical, STS research on science-industry relations has focused on the blurring of boundaries and hybridization of codes and practices. However, the vocabulary of boundary and hybrid tends to reify science and industry as separate in the attempt to map their relation. Drawing on interviews with the head of a research center in plant biology, this article argues that biology and biotech are symbionts. In order to be viable and productive, symbiosis needs to be carefully managed (...) and given room for divergence within mutual dependence. This process does not take place as the negotiation of a preexisting science-industry boundary. Rather, viability is obtained through a strategy of circumventing the science-industry food chain and sequestering biotech components within the research center. Symbiosis allows academic scientists to do biology while at the same time demonstrating entrepreneurial spirit. (shrink)

Despite inroads made by critical realism against the ‘scientific method’ in social science, the latter remains strong in subject-areas like human resource management. One argument for the alleged superiority of the scientific method (i.e. its scientificity) lies in the taken-for-granted belief that it alone can formulate empirically testable predictions. Many of those who employ the scientific method are, however, confused about the way they understand and practice prediction. This paper takes as a case study empirical research on the (...) alleged empirical association between human resource management practices and organisational performance. By unpacking the confusion surrounding the two basic notions of prediction used, it reveals what is wrong with them, why the scientific method cannot actually make accurate predictions and why, therefore, the scientific method fails to meet its own criteria for scientificity. Finally, explanation is considered in order to prevent any confusion between it and prediction and to offer what we call tendential prediction. (shrink)