Institutions,Organizations,Medical Disciplines,and the Dissemination of Research Results

Abstract

This article summarizes the story of a failure in research, and shows how this failure led to new directions of inquiry. The first part of the article explains how an attempt in France to replicate an American study designed to link the organizational structure of hospitals to the adoption of innovations by these institutions failed. It was not possible to find identical measures for similar concepts in the two countries. Questions are raised on the adequacy of the methodological and theoretical assumptions shared by students of organization. The second part of the article uses French data to explore the relation ship between the pattern of diffusion of innovations and the structure of knowledge in the medical field, a structure which has been produced and negotiated through time.

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