PhilSci Archive

The Diffusion of Scientific Innovations: A Role Typology

Herfeld, Catherine and Doehne, Malte (2017) The Diffusion of Scientific Innovations: A Role Typology. [Preprint]

This is the latest version of this item.

[img]
Preview
Text
Herfeld and Doehne Diffusion of Scientific Innovations - A Role Typology.pdf

Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

How do scientific innovations spread within and across scientific communities? In this paper, we propose a general account of the diffusion of scientific innovations. This account acknowledges that novel ideas must be elaborated on and conceptually translated before they can be adopted and applied to field-specific problems. We motivate our account by examining an exemplary case of knowledge diffusion, namely, the early spread of theories of rational decision-making. These theories were grounded in a set of novel mathematical tools and concepts that originated in John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1944, 1947) and subsequently spread widely across the social and behavioral sciences. Introducing a network-based diffusion measure, we trace the spread of those tools and concepts into distinct research areas. We furthermore present an analytically tractable typology for classifying publications according to their roles in the diffusion process. The proposed framework allows for a systematic examination of the conditions under which scientific innovations spread within and across both preexisting and newly emerging scientific communities.


Export/Citation: EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL
Social Networking:
Share |

Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Herfeld, Catherinec.s.herfeld@gmail.com
Doehne, Maltedoehne@soziologie.uzh.ch
Keywords: Diffusion of scientific innovations; Thomas Kuhn's essential tension; history of rational choice theories
Subjects: General Issues > Decision Theory
Specific Sciences > Economics
General Issues > History of Science Case Studies
General Issues > Philosophers of Science
Specific Sciences > Sociology
General Issues > Theory Change
Depositing User: Catherine Herfeld
Date Deposited: 17 Dec 2017 20:53
Last Modified: 26 Jan 2018 17:11
Item ID: 14229
Subjects: General Issues > Decision Theory
Specific Sciences > Economics
General Issues > History of Science Case Studies
General Issues > Philosophers of Science
Specific Sciences > Sociology
General Issues > Theory Change
Date: December 2017
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/14229

Available Versions of this Item

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item