INSTITUTIONAL VARIATIONS IN PROBLEM CHOICE AND PERSISTENCE AMONG SCIENTISTS IN AN EMERGING FIELD

This paper examines institutional variations in the factors that influ ence scientists in their choice and persistence in an area of research . More specifically, we study the problem choice behavior of early and late entrants in an emerging field. Early entrants are defined as tho se scientists who initiate and continue working in a field before it i s widely perceived as significant or even legitimate by their peers. E vidence is presented from an international survey of more than 700 sci entists working in the field of neural networks. Elaborating on previo us results, which find that early entrants differ from late entrants i n both their motivations to enter and their intentions to remain in th e field, this study suggests that it is academic scientists who merit special distinction. In general, compared with other scientists, early entrants in academia are more deeply influenced by the intrinsic inte llectual appeal of the field and are less influenced by the social dyn amics of the research community. No difference is found between early and late entrants who are employed in commercial institutions.