Management Control in Science-Based Innovation Work

Alexander Styhre
Additional contact information
Alexander Styhre: Chalmers University of Technology

Chapter 7 in Science-Based Innovation, 2008, pp 192-213 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract While the last two chapters addressed the more soft or subjective aspects of scientific work and science-based innovation, that of management cognition and the play and risk-taking element in all scientific endeavours, and the influence of emotions and leadership in laboratory work, this chapter will return to the “hard core” of management practice, namely management control. While what Thrift (2005: 6) calls the “cultural circuit of capitalism”, the totality of “business schools, management consultants, management gurus and the media”, tends to portray contemporary knowledge-intensive organizations as some kind of bazaars where knowledgeable individuals meet and freely exchange know-how and experiences, such a market metaphor is not very representative of the day-to-day work of knowledge workers, perhaps with the exception of specific regions such as the Boston region or Silicon Valley where there is an abundance of job opportunities and possibilities for collaborations (see Owen-Smith and Powell, 2004; Powell, 1998; Powell, Koput and Smith-Doerr, 1996). In general, it is questionable whether the mobility of and autonomy of knowledge workers is as high as suggested in the some of the literature. Instead, many knowledge workers, especially in smaller economies such as Scandinavia, tend to pursue their career in a few large organizations.

Keywords: Management Control; Knowledge Worker; Management Control System; Senior Scientist; Epistemic Object (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-58251-4_7

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230582514

DOI: 10.1057/9780230582514_7

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().