Marketing Science, Marketing Ourselves
David C. Montgomery,
Academe,
Oct 23, 2003
The point of this article: "We need to ask whether we really want or need to proceed further down the market-driven path. Is some implacable economic mechanism forcing us to do so - is the deck stacked?" Enthusiasm for the pre-Cold War model of noncommercial academia, writes the author, stems from the idea that the academic has a committment to open enquiry, separated from personal or national prejudices. This has produced a heritage of credibility - "It is difficult to imagine this level of believability being awarded to a politician, a lawyer, or a corporation executive, let alone a car salesman." Commercial and sponsored research, though, risks damaging that credibility. "We should not delude ourselves that the final price will not be much higher than has been paid thus far when the bill is presented. When the sole value of anything we do is measurable only in dollars, we will be just like everybody else, scrambling in the economy for what they scramble for and having no more credibility than they do."
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