Economic sociology and Australian biotechnology

This paper draws upon interviews with the CEOs of 14 Australian biotechnology companies to explore the relevance of the new economic sociology in understanding economic behaviour. In the course of interviews, CEOs regularly described ‘cheap scientists’ as a comparative advantage of the Australian industry, consistent with neoliberal economic theory. At the same time, interviews also drew attention to a variety of social and political factors that shaped the local industry, consistent with the new economic sociology. These included first, the pivotal role of public research organisations in generating the intellectual property of the local industry; second, the distinctive career pathways of entrepreneurs; third, the influence of local public research organisations and venture capitalists in creating local clusters; fourth, the network structure of biotechnology companies, both at local and international levels; fifth, the search for stability and survival in the context of industry instability; and sixth, the demand to generate convincing ‘stories’ or models of how their companies would prevail, notwithstanding instability. The paper concludes that the new economic sociology provides compelling tools for understanding the biotechnology industry in Australia.