Entrepreneurial scientists

When we compare the research performance of entrepreneurial scientists with that of conventional academics, the results of a quantitative analysis applied to a sample of 1,957 scientific papers published by 66 scientists active in advanced materials research in Japan confirm that (i) entrepreneurial scientists (Pasteur and Edison scientists) publish more papers than traditional scientists (Bohr and Other scientists) do; (ii) the papers published by Bohr scientists demonstrate better citation performance than those published by Pasteur scientists, do on average; (iii) the prestige of high-impact papers is favored by the authorship of Pasteur scientists; and (iv) the degree of the multi/inter-disciplinarity of the papers authored by Pasteur scientists is higher (more diverse) than that of Bohr scientists.

Source: Shichijo, Sedita, & Baba (February 2013). 

The authors explain:

To compare the entrepreneurial orientation of scientists, we classified scientists by using Stokes’ (1997) quadrant model. In the quadrant model, four types of scientists are identified: Edison, Bohr, Pasteur, and Other. Edison scientists conduct mainly pure applied research, oriented toward discovering knowledge to be applied to the real world and having little interest in deepening the understanding of basic science. Bohr scientists are keener to develop pure basic research, oriented to the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, having little interest in the potential uses of their research findings for the real world. Pasteur scientists are devoted to application-oriented basic research, never losing sight of their hope to advance scientific understanding while contributing to real-world utility. By applying this classification, which is rather peripheral with respect to the current literature, we investigate differences in publication performance among differently modeled scientists. Adopting Lam’s (2010) typology, Edison scientists are mainly entrepreneurial, whereas Bohr scientists are “ivory tower” traditional, and Pasteur scientists turn out to be the “hybrids.”