Management Control in Science-Based Innovation Work

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.