Abstract
Much research on organizational and institutional emergence samples on successful cases, and works backwards to trace a narrative, often highlighting the role of specific individuals or groups. Our approach begins with the formation of a new field – – biotechnology, and emphasizes sequence, organizational diversity, and catalytic organizations that provide relational and normative glue. We examine eleven regions in the U.S. that were rich in resources – – ideas, money, and skills – – that could have lead to the formation of life science clusters. Three of the communities formed robust groupings, but most did not. Although local details are always relevant, our argument transcends the nuances of history in each community to specify the processes and mechanisms that foster catalytic growth. The necessary conditions are a diversity of types of organizations, a local anchor tenant, and a web of local affiliations. These features make possible cross-network transposition, whereby experience, status, and legitimacy is one domain is converted into ‘fresh’ action in another. The argument does not hinge on specific types of organizations or ingredients; indeed, it is general enough to accommodate multiple pathways.
Biography
Walter W. Powell is Professor of Education and (by courtesy) Sociology, Organizational Behavior, Management Science and Engineering, and Communication at Stanford University. He is also an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute. He is co-director of the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. He joined the Stanford faculty in July 1999, after previously teaching at the University of Arizona, MIT, and Yale. He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences three times, and a visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna twice. Powell has received honorary degrees from Uppsala University, the Helsinki School of Economics, and Copenhagen Business School, and is a foreign member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences. He is a U.S. editor for Research Policy, and has been a member of the board of directors of the Social Science Research Council since 2000.
Professor Powell is pursuing the challenge of understanding distributed innovation in two current research projects. One, with Kjersten Whittington and Kelley Packalen, examines geographic agglomeration in the life sciences industry. In an industry based so heavily on money and ideas, why are organizations clustered in a small number of regions around the globe? With Stanford colleagues Dan McFarland, Dan Jurafsky, Chris Manning, and Kaisa Snellman, Powell is studying knowledge creation in interdisciplinary scientific communities. Using Stanford’s large multi-disciplinary initiatives in biology & engineering and energy & environment as research sites, we employ network and computational linguistic tools to study how research topics emerge, bridge, and enroll scientists.