® 'if Dewey Working Paper Alfred P. Sloan School of Management Science and Industry: a Theory of Networks and Paradigms Science and Industry: a Theory of Networks and Paradigms Science and Industry: a Theory of Networks and Paradigms

The recent interest in 'network' forms oforganization serves as a starting point to better understand the dynamic characteristics of technology development. Net-work theory allows one to describe the relations between 'actors' involved in the development of new technologies both crosssectionally and longitudinally and, as a consequence, to model the structural and behavioral development of a community of actors (regardless whether this 'community is defined as a set of individuals, e.g. the 'scientific community, or -whether it is defined as a collection of organizations, e.g. an industry). In this paper, this network approach is used to develop a theoreticalframework to understand the knowledge transition from 'scientific paradigm status to a 'technological' paradigm status. It is believed that the propositions made in this paper will enable truly empirical studies on the nature of the development of 'scientific' and 'technologicaF paradigms.