caa a22 4500 445822376 CHVBK 20180317145248.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170323e20110101xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s11186-010-9136-y doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s11186-010-9136-y Owen-Smith Jason Department of Sociology, University of Michigan, 500 S. State St., # 3001, 48109-1382, Ann Arbor, MI, USA aut The institutionalization of expertise in university licensing [Elektronische Daten] [Jason Owen-Smith] This article draws on ethnographic data from a field leading university licensing office to document and explain a key step in the process of institutionalization, the abstraction of standardized rules and procedures from idiosyncratic efforts to collectively resolve pressing problems. I present and analyze cases where solutions to complicated quandaries become abstract bits of professional knowledge and demonstrate that in some circumstances institutionalized practices can contribute to the flexibility of expert reasoning and decision-making. In this setting, expertise is rationalized in response to institutional tensions between academic and business approaches to deal making and professional tensions between relational and legal approaches to negotiation. Abstraction and formalization contribute both to the convergence and stability of routines and to their improvisational use in professional work. Close attention to these processes in a strategic research setting sheds new light on an interesting tension in sociological theories of the professions while contributing to the development of a micro-level, social constructivist institutional theory. Springer Science+Business Media B.V., 2011 Technology transfer nationallicence Innovation nationallicence Knowledge nationallicence Professions nationallicence Ethnography nationallicence Institutional change nationallicence Theory and Society Springer Netherlands 40/1(2011-01-01), 63-94 0304-2421 40:1<63 2011 40 11186 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-010-9136-y text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-010-9136-y text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Owen-Smith Jason Department of Sociology, University of Michigan, 500 S. State St., # 3001, 48109-1382, Ann Arbor, MI, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Theory and Society Springer Netherlands 40/1(2011-01-01), 63-94 0304-2421 40:1<63 2011 40 11186 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer