What is Mertonian sociology of science?

In order to investigate the nature of Merton's contribution to the sociology of science, I examine how his work has been cited by groups of authors who are highly co-cited with Merton. The groups differ substantially both in terms of which of Merton's publications they cite,and how they cite them. This implies that subsequent scholars have found Merton's sociology of science work valuable for many different reasons. This pattern is probably true for Merton's sociological oeuvre as a whole, and suggests that scholarly preeminence in the social sciences consists of making contributions that many different groups of scholars judge to be useful in justifying the importance of their own research.