Knowledge networks among Australian biological scientists

Scientific and technical human capital (STHC) is central to economic development in knowledge societies. Traditional models have viewed human capital as a private good. This has given rise to zero-sum understandings of the mobility of highly skilled human capital such as research scientists. Public policies to attract and retain STHC are designed to enable a region or a country to compete for knowledge workers and avoid the brain drain phenomena. However, recent theoretical and empirical studies have emphasized an alternative approach focused on a network model of human capital distribution. These approaches look at connections between scientists, seeking evidence for the transnational organization of knowledge production through distributed or diaspora knowledge networks (DKNs). This approach poses an alternative to the zero-sum approach to scientific human capital, by positing real knowledge flows and economic benefits that can spillover into different countries and regions. This paper uses evidence regarding a small number of Australian biologists working overseas to test the idea that transnational collaboration can result in real knowledge benefits flowing back to the sending country. The paper uses survey and bibliometric data to search for evidence of such knowledge flows through networks and research collaboration. The data shows that amongst this group of biological scientists there is evidence of transnational networks involving Australian scientists overseas and professional colleagues working in Australia. There is also empirical evidence that these networks are producing scientific knowledge in the form of co-authored scientific papers

Changing professions: General Practitioners’ perceptions of autonomy on the frontline

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyright version of an article published in Journal of Sociology 39(1) 2003: 44-61. The definitive version is available at: http://jos.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/39/1/44Professional autonomy is a much used concept which has operated with scant empirical attention directed at understanding its meaning amongst practitioners. This study investigates how General Practitioners (GPs) understand their professional autonomy, and what they perceive to be the main threats to it. Four focus groups were attended by 25 GPs in Melbourne. We found that GPs aspire to an ‘ideal type’ of professional who has the freedom to determine what is best for patients, but they believe their autonomy is threatened by financial constraints, greater accountability requirements, and more demanding patients. These findings reveal how GPs understand autonomy in their practice, and indicate that their concerns may have little to do with the deprofessionalisation and proletarianisation theses. Micro level studies of GPs in the workplace, combined with greater understandings of different aspects of professional autonomy, appear useful in understanding how GPs work and autonomy is changing

Football Fandom and Authenticity: A Critical Discussion of Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

Many debates within the sociology of football fandom allude to the ostensible lack of authenticity, or the idea that all forms of football fandom in the present day are merely different forms of post-fandom (Redhead, 1997; King, 1998; Crabbe et al, 2006), and are categorised as such (Giulianotti 2002, Crabbe et al, 2006). It is stated by scholars that to consider one football fan being more authentic than another is problematic. This paper will critically discuss the relevant football fandom literature indelibly linked to fan typologies and authenticity to consider the implications of football support for shaping football fans identities and what this tells us about what it really means to be an ‘authentic’ football fan, in what Bauman (2000) calls a liquid modern society underpinned by consumerism