Research Policy 44 (2015) 1513–1526 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Research Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/respol Selling science: Resource mobilization strategies in the emerging field of nanotechnology Jade Yu-Chieh Lo ∗ Department of Management, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 23 August 2011 Received in revised form 7 May 2015 Accepted 11 May 2015 Keywords: Field emergence Scientific fields Institutional entrepreneurship Nanotechnology a b s t r a c t Pioneers in emerging scientific and technology fields face liabilities of newness at both individual and collective levels. Insights from the literature of institutional entrepreneurship and sociology of knowledge suggest that, to overcome this double hurdle, early entrants may want to participate in a field’s hot center and connect their ideas to multiple existing fields to broaden their audience. However, these strategies have their drawbacks too, and the payoff of these strategies also decreases as a field gains cognitive legitimacy. Moreover, both the positive and negative effects of these mobilization strategies are more pronounced for less-experienced scientists. Findings from a comprehensive database on grant proposals in the emerging field of nanotechnology confirm these propositions, suggesting that an effective mobilization strategy is a balancing act between isomorphism and differentiation, breadth and boundary maintenance, especially in early stages of field development. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The emergence of organizational fields has attracted increasing interest among organizational scholars (Aldrich, 1999; Chiles et al., 2004; McKendrick et al., 2003; Romanelli, 1991; Russo, 2001), but inquiries about conditions and struggles within emerging scientific fields remain limited. Considering that new scientific specialties are often the precursor of new organizational fields and industries, and that many scientists are also entrepreneurs themselves or play important roles in the corporate world (Aldridge and Audretsch, 2011; Gibbons et al., 1994; Grimaldi et al., 2011; Powell and Owen- Smith, 1998), this omission is striking. Scientific workers in nascent fields, just like entrepreneurs in new industries, face liabilities of newness at both individual and collective levels. A field is a group of actors that in aggregate, con- stitute a recognized area of institutional life. (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; emphasis added.) But how does a member of a field get rec- ognized when the field itself is not yet recognized, or not even not yet recognizable? As argued by Aldrich and Fiol (1994), participants in new industries or new markets tend to lack credibility and legiti- macy due to their newness. Under such circumstances, not only the entrepreneurs themselves face the liability of newness, but the field as a whole also tends to suffer from its lack of familiarity and hence ∗ Tel.: +1 215 571 4441. E-mail address: jadelo@drexel.edu low cognitive legitimacy. So the question for those who participate in emerging fields, then, is how to overcome the liability associated with both the newness of their own ideas and the novelty of the emergent field in which they work. When it comes to the recogni- tion of innovative ideas, one important indicator—especially in the world of research and development (R&D)—is the research fund received by a project. Given the importance of external (especially federal) funding in pursuing scientific projects in the context of U.S. scientific community (Ma, 2008), it should be of theoretical and practical importance to study how pioneers in a nascent field can mobilize more research funds for their intellectual inquiries. Specifically, how do scientists in emergent fields mobilize resources to fund their scientific inquiries when the field itself is not yet well understood? This is the central concern of this paper. Recent research in institutional entrepreneurship has shown that entrepreneurship is not just about technical superiority, but also about cultural and institutional savviness (Lounsbury and Glynn, 2001; Rao, 1998). This is especially true in nascent fields where accepted criteria to evaluate technical strength have not yet been established (Aldrich and Fiol, 1994; Garud et al., 2002; Maguire et al., 2004). Similarly, the success of intellectuals lies not only on their creativity and human capital, but also more on their cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1984; Collins, 1998)—their ability to join the conversation, attract attention, and promote their ideas in a competitive intellectual market—and this type of capital is needed more in emerging knowledge domains than in mature ones (Cole and Zuckerman, 1975). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2015.05.005 0048-7333/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.