Knowing Everything about Nothing: Specialization and Change in Research Careers

Seeking answers to the crucial questions facing scientists who need to change the direction of their careers, John Ziman provides scientists & non-scientists with a close look at this ever-growing concern. A research scientist takes years to acquire specialized knowledge & skills & a whole career may then be spent as an expert in a very narrow field. Yet new discoveries & social demands are bringing rapid change to science & technology. Is it really so difficult for scientists to move into new fields of research in mid-career? How are their attitudes toward change affected by their education, their research experience, their conditions of employment, & their personal ambitions? How can they be helped through such periods of change & re-deployed for further scientific work? Despite the great practical importance of this issue for science policy throughout the world, such questions have not yet been studied systematically. This book is written primarily for working scientists & their employers. For the non-scientist, it provides many vivid glimpses of modern science as a career, & at the same time opens up a whole new area of the sociology of science, of social psychology & of management studies.John M. Ziman is the author of 'Knowing Everything about Nothing: Specialization and Change in Research Careers', published 1987 under ISBN 9780521323857 and ISBN 0521323851.