Dominique Vinck

Les objets intermédiaires dans les réseaux de coopération scientifique: Contribution à la prise en compte des objets dans les dynamiques sociales

Dominique Vinck : Die Zwischenobjekte in den wissenschaftlichen Kooperationsnetzen. Beitrag zur Berucksichtigung der Objekte in der sozialen Dynamik. ; ; Dieser Aufsatz beschaftigt sich mit der Rolle der Zwischenobjekte innerhalb der koordinierten menschlichen Aktivitaten. Die Frage stellte sich, was die wissenschaftlichen Kooperationsnetze sind und was sie tun. Der Aufsatz mochte die Gegenwart dieser Zwischenobjekte aufzeigen und ihre Bedeutung bewerten. Er fragt sich danach, ob sie auf soziologische Konzepte reduziert werden konnen (Regel, Vereinbarung, Bedeutung, Organisation, Macht, usw.). Er zeigt, dass die Koordination innerhalb der Netze nicht auf diese Konzepte reduziert werden kann. Er schlagt vor, sie als Vermittler zu behandeln, die die Koordinationsmodalitaten beeinflussen. Der Artikel stutzt sich auf die Ergebnisse einer Untersuchung zu den wissenschaftlichen Kooperationsnetzen, die im Rahmen des Europaischen Forschungs- und Entwicklungsprogramms fur medizinische Wissenschaften und offentliche Gesundheit angeregt wurden. Es geht hier darum, den Platz und die Rolle der Zwischenobjekte in der Entstehung und der Dynamik dieser Netze zu untersuchen.

Interweaving Objects, Gestures, and Talk in Context

In a large French hospital, a group of professional experts (including physicians and software engineers) are working on the computerization of a blood-transfusion traceability device. By focusing on a particular moment in this slow process of design, we analyze their collaborative practices during a work session. The analysis takes a praxeological and interactionist approach and is inspired by discussions on the role of artifacts in social practices currently developed within various research frameworks in this field: activity theory, distributed cognition, conversation analysis, and actor network theory. After a brief presentation of the place of objects and artifacts in these ways of approaching action and human cognition, we show how the collective activity analyzed here is generated by the interweaving of discursive, gestural, and artifactual resources.

Assessment of an intervention to train teaching hospital care providers in quality management

Background: Successful implementation of continuous quality improvement (CQI) programs in hospitals remains rare in all countries, making it necessary to experiment with implementation methods while considering the cultural factors of resistance to change. Objective: To assess the impact of an educational intervention on involvement of clinical department staff in the quality process. Setting: Twelve voluntary clinical departments (six experimental and six controls) in a French 2000-bed university hospital comprising 40 clinical departments. Intervention: Three day training seminar to a group of 12–20 staff members from each department. Design: Quasi-experimental post-test only design study with control group conducted 12 months after the intervention with a questionnaire completed in a face-to-face interview. Subjects: 98 trained staff and 100 untrained staff from the six experimental departments and 100 staff from the six control departments. Principal measurements: Declared knowledge of the CQI methods and participation in quality management activities. Results: 286 people (96%) were involved in the study. More of the trained staff knew the CQI methods (62.4%) than staff in the control departments (16.5%) (adjusted odds ratio (ORa)  =  10.6 (95% CI 4.97 to 22.62)). More trained staff also participated in quality improvement work groups than control department staff (76.3% v 14.0%; ORa  =  27.4 (95% CI 11.6 to 64.4)). In the experimental departments the untrained staff’s knowledge of CQI methods and their participation in work groups did not differ from that of control department staff. Conclusions: A continuing education intervention can involve care providers in CQI. Dissemination of knowledge from trained personnel to other staff members remains limited.

Taking intermediary objects and equipping work into account in the study of engineering practices

This article shows that the equipping of intermediary objects is a central concern of engineers and technicians. Through the process of equipping, new properties are conferred on the intermediary object and this contributes to the shaping of the design space and collective work. I follow in particular how equipping is used in practices of mediation, temporal set-up and framework outlining and how it creates spaces of exchange. The argument developed is based on ethnographic studies of engineering design activities in the manufacturing industry and in a design office in charge of developing a large instrument for the CERN cyclotron.

Accessing Material Culture by Following Intermediary Objects

In this chapter, we outline a method for describing material culture in situations where there are many interconnected places to be studied, which is the case in organisational ethnography or multi-situated ethnography (Marcus, 1995). In these kinds of setting, the aim of ethnography is to describe the linkages along the chains and paths articulating different sites. To help perform multi-situated investigations, we suggest using the concept of intermediary object as an ethnography-enriching tool. The key methodological idea is to take into account material objects and to follow them as they move from one site to another and from one person to another. Following these intermediary objects proves to be very useful in terms of data collection, as can be seen in studies of scientific cooperation networks (Vinck et al., 1993; Vinck, 1999) and engineering practices in design offices (Vinck & Jeantet, 1995; Vinck, 2003), but also in studies of day-to-day relations within the couple (Kaufmann, 1998). This method helps to reveal activities, actors, connections, networks and processes and contributes to providing accurate accounts of localities without losing sight of their connections. Thus, it serves the purpose of studying dynamic and contingently settled activities across organisational borders. The spaces produced are made up of flows and translations of things, people and texts.

The Sociology of Scientific Work

More than ever before, science and technology play a significant role in modern society as evidenced by the development of nanotechnologies and the controversies surrounding GMOs and climate change. This book comprehensively explores the flourishing field of science and technology studies and examines its creation, development and interaction with contemporary society.

BASIC Lab: a software tool for supporting the production of knowledge in research organizations through the management of scientific concepts

Purpose – The important role of publicly funded basic research has been widely recognized. The knowledge produced is made available to society, who could use it for innovation and in this way contribute to economic growth. Thus, it is important to support scientific activities. Proposes to examine how researchers could profit from approaches such as knowledge management.Design/methodology/approach – Some research organizations were studied and their knowledge management practices analyzed. Special attention was paid to the realization of research projects.Findings – An approach is proposed based on the capitalization of all the artifacts managed during the bibliographical activities performed by researchers.Research limitations/implications – At the current state of advancement of the project, only a prototype of the software tool has been developed.Originality/value – As sociology studies have observed that a fundamental aspect of science is the modification and construction of new concepts, it is propos...

Introduction: innovation – from the forbidden to a cliché: Alternative Approaches to the Pro-Innovation Bias

The study of innovation has become an industry. Hundreds of studies on the subject have been published in the last few decades. Theories, models, frameworks and narratives of innovation abound, competing among themselves for authority. It was possible to write reviews of the field 25 years ago. Today, it is nearly impossible for even the most knowledgeable researcher. The literature is too voluminous. To be sure, reviews and handbooks appear regularly. Yet they remain selective and reflect specific disciplinary boundaries (management, economics, science policy, sociology, psychology) or thematic orientations (human resources, managerial tools, skills, financing, entrepreneurship and so on). Despite the differences, the studies produced in the last 65 years offer a relatively consistent view of innovation. Sociologist Everett M. Rogers has called this view the ‘pro-innovation bias’. Innovation is good, always good:

Moving towards Innovation through Withdrawal : the Neglect of Destruction

Innovation scholars and dominant discourses relegate destruction and withdrawal as being secondary, collateral or unavoidable aspects of innovation processes. The chapter qualifies these dominant thoughts on innovation, be they classical or contemporary, and identify destruction, deadoption, exnotion and withdrawal as a relevant phenomenon. It documents a case study, the withdrawal of tilling in agriculture, through which it proposes an alternative way of thinking about innovation, showing that withdrawal is not an evidence phenomenon; it’s a complex process, engaging strategic thinking and controversies, as well as creativity, invention and innovation. The chapter suggests that innovation through withdrawal is a growing phenomenon, which would require empirical and theoretical investigations. It also suggests that disciplinary bias, cultural values and ideology explain the neglect of destruction or withdrawal in discourses and theories about innovation.

Foundations and philanthropic organizations in the development of new science and technology: the case of micro-and nanotechnology in Mexico

The emerging science and technologies are accompanied by new dynamics in the production, use and dissemination of knowledge. In innovation processes we find new dynamics also where, through the processes of mutual learning, the actors achieve the performance of new functions. This chapter focuses on the study of development of microtechnologies in Mexico, where we observed the presence of an actor that is not taken into account by theoretical models on technological change and innovation processes. This actor is the Mexico–United States Foundation for Science, a non-governmental organization with philanthropic origins, which has played important roles in the development of microtechnologies in Mexico. Our observations lead us to question how to model the relationships among different organizations involved in the production, use and dissemination of new knowledge. This study aims to show how, in the new dynamics of technological development, different organizations from those that traditionally participate are fulfilling new functions in those processes. This results in a different arrangement among the organizations participating in scientific and technological systems, where each body fulfils one or a number of functions and this joint arrangement ensures the functioning of the system.