It's quite common. Xerox probably started it via PARC & you can find social scientists/sociologists of various flavours in the research labs AND the 'strategic marketing' functions of many telcos/tech sector corporates. Intel for example. epic is a good place to start from the ethnographic perspective... http://www.epic2009.com/ Ben On 17 Sep 2009, at 11:05, Nicholas John wrote:
I was wondering if anyone knows anything about social scientific research for the hi-tech sector? (That's "for", not "on".) Has anyone given thought to the question of how to make a convincing case to hi-tech companies for investing in sociological studies of their fields of operation? Or does anyone know how common the post of "in-house sociologist" is among hi-tech firms?
Thanks Nicholas
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---- Dr Ben Anderson Sociology @ Essex http://www.essex.ac.uk/sociology/staff/profile.aspx?ID=118 Centre for Research on Economic Sociology and Innovation http://cresi.wordpress.com