The Social Location of Innovation

Abstract

In previous sections I have tried to show how processes of social exchange are involved in generating new scientific knowledge as well as in maintaining intellectual conformity. Central to the argument has been the assumption that research is normally guided by cognitive norms and, therefore, that significant innovation often entails intellectual nonconformity. If this is accepted, it should be possible to gain further insight into scientific innovation by trying to judge which kinds of researchers are most likely to be intellectually deviant. In this section I shall try to make such a judgement by applying to scientific innovation certain statements about nonconformity drawn from the literature on social exchange.