Laurel Smith-Doerr

Flexibility and Fairness: Effects of the Network Form of Organization on Gender Equity in Life Science Careers:

Why do women have more opportunities in some employment settings? I investigate how organizational form affects gender stratification among life scientists. I propose that firms governed by networks, rather than bureaucracies, allow for greater equity. Hierarchy and rules hide gender bias, while reliance on ties outside the organization provides transparency and flexibility. I analyze the careers of 2,062 U.S. life scientists and interviews with 41 scientists. I examine employment data by gender for two patterns: early entrance into the biotechnology industry and promotion within network and hierarchical organizations. Gender does not affect when a scientist enters the biotech industry but is related to promotion. Men are more likely to attain early supervisory-level positions across organizational settings. Female scientists are nearly eight times more likely to supervise in biotech firms than in more hierarchical settings. The two organizational forms—network and hierarchy—provide different employment experiences for female scientists.

Stuck in the Middle: Doctoral Education Ranking and Career Outcomes for Life Scientists

Why do some Ph.D.s languish in positions with little authority, and what does educational background have to do with it? Hypotheses predicted that life scientists with Ph.D.s from elite programs would be the most likely, those from middle-ranked programs the next most likely, and those from lower ranked programs the least likely to achieve supervisory positions. A sample of 2,062 life scientists with doctorates from U.S. universities was collected from records archived from 1983 to 1995. In contrast to hypotheses, Ph.D.s from elite and lower ranked schools did not have a significantly different chance of supervising. Within prestigious organizations, however, Ph.D.s from top 10 programs did have a greater likelihood of leading. Ph.D.s from middle-ranked programs were less likely to advance into supervisory positions. Qualitative interviews explored how, in a knowledgeexpanding field such as the life sciences, being stuck on the bottom rung early on can adversely affect a scientists career.

Expanding Entrepreneurship: Female and Foreign-Born Founders of New England Biotechnology Firms

Research on immigrant entrepreneurs in the United States has focused on small businesses in the retail and food service sectors rather than on high-technology start ups. Scholarship on women and immigrants in the U.S. science and technology workforce has focused on academia rather than scientists in industry. This article aims to bridge the gaps in these two literatures by examining the role of women and immigrants in founding science-based biotechnology firms. This research thus speaks to the sociological perspective on power inequalities for women and foreign-born people in entrepreneurship and in the U.S. science and technology workforce. Opportunities and barriers vary by organizational context, and the flexibility of the biotechnology industry has previously been found to benefit female scientists. But what of foreign-born scientists and women who play founding roles in biotech firms? A survey conducted of 261 biotechnology firms located in Massachusetts and New England in 2006 provides the data. The results show that 42% of the firms had at least one foreign-born founder, and 21% of firms had at least one female founder. These numbers suggest that foreign-born life scientists are well represented and female life scientists are somewhat underrepresented in founding roles in biotech. The role of entrepreneurs who have the double status of female immigrants is less clear and needs further study. The research finds significant variation in biotech entrepreneurship of immigrants by their world region of origin. Interviews supplement the survey data to illustrate the barriers and opportunities for foreign-born biotech entrepreneurs.

Firm Network Position and Corporate Venture Capital Investment

This study investigates why some firms have been more likely to make corporate venture capital investments than others. We anchor this study within a social networks perspective and prior network research that shows that information about business practices diffuses unevenly through interlocking boards, thereby influencing the corporate adoption of novel business practices. Using annual data on interlocking boards and corporate venture capital investments for S&P500 companies for the years 1996–2006, we show that a firms corporate venture capital investment behavior can be predicted by its cumulative access to information about corporate venture capital practices gained through interlocking boards.

Flexible Organizations, Innovation and Gender Equality: Writing for the US Film Industry, 1907-27

Why did women writers do so well in the early American film industry? Content analysis of articles published in Moving Picture World and the New York Times, 1907–27, shows early film studios were flexible in job assignments and collaborated with other studios. This non-bureaucratic configuration was more conducive to female screenwriters than the hierarchical studio system that emerged later in the 1920s. Women writers had more visibility and authority in this network form of organization than in the large bureaucratic studio system. Investigating a case prior to World War II suggests how organizational arrangements affect womens place in the labor market when odds are against equality.

Contexts of Equity: Thinking About Organizational and Technoscience Contexts for Gender Equity in Biotechnology and Nanotechnology

One of the most visible inequities in scientific research and development is the small number of women involved. But while this has traditionally been the case, there are groups working to remedy this imbalance in the future. In this chapter, Laurel Smith-Doerr considers the probable place of women in nanotechnology research and production, viewing these developments through the lenses of feminist theories and past experience with biotechnology in the United States. She notes that very little is known so far about the participation of women in nanotechnology research or production, but its association with physical sciences and engineering suggests that participation rates will be lower, since women are better represented in the life sciences and biotechnology. In addition, the non-hierarchical organizational environments that characterized startup firms in biotechnology—environments where women thrived—appear less frequently in nanotechnology. Smith-Doerr identifies a number of questions that are ripe for research during nanotechnology’s formative stages, questions about how nanotechnology work serves the broader society, interdisciplinarity, patenting, and authority relationships.

A global need for women's biotech leadership

Increasing womens participation in leadership of biotech policy making, funding, research and implementation will strengthen the race to solve global problems.