Sangchan Park

To Share or Not to Share? Professional Norms, Reference Groups, and Information Withholding Among Life Scientists

Why do scientists withhold information from colleagues, violating the professional norm of sharing? Norm violations are usually attributed to individual interests that lead scientists to reject professional norms. In contrast, we take the view that norm violations can occur when professional norms are valued but it is difficult to ascertain the appropriate course of professional conduct. This view suggests that scientists may look to cues from their professional reference groups to resolve sociological ambivalence arising from conflicting role expectations. We analyze a data set of 1,251 geneticists and other life scientists from 100 U.S. universities and find that beyond individual-level explanations, information withholding is influenced by the behaviors of peers as well as the attitudes of superiors in the profession. We discuss the implications for the professions literature, theories of organizational learning, and knowledge management initiatives in firms.

Professions, Organizations and Institutions: Tenure Systems in Colleges and Universities

A common strategy used by professions to support claims of workplace jurisdiction involves the institutionalization of professionally endorsed formal structures, yet both theory and research suggest that ensuring the implementation of such structures after formal adoption can be problematic. This study investigates the influence of organizational characteristics on the implementation of one professionally created institution in higher education organizations, tenure systems for faculty employment. Our results suggest that implementation of tenure systems is negatively affected by internal resource pressures but positively affected by countervailing pressures from professionally linked constituents. The results also suggest self-limiting aspects of the use of tenure systems.