He started a PhD in sociology at the London School of Economics under the supervision of John Westergaard and Percy Cohen.
He began a study, with Christopher Husbands and Ray Bromley, of early British sociology, focusing on the work of Victor Branford and Patrick Geddes.
Scott was elected as president of the British Sociological Association in 2001, succeeding Sara Arber, having previously held the posts of Newsletter Editor, Secretary (1990–1992), Assistant Treasurer (1996–1998), and Chairperson (1992–93).
Scott was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to social science.
Critical of the prevailing managerialist interpretation of business enterprise, he developed the influential concept of 'control through a constellation of interests' to describe the dispersed forms of ownership and control that allow representatives of dominant shareholding interests in Britain and the United States to exercise a constraining power over internal business decision-making.
[6] His research on networks of shareholding and interlocking directorships has documented the structures and mechanisms through which this constraining power operates.
The research has depicted the varying, path-dependent patterns of control found in major capitalist economies.
He has, in addition, undertaken work on the use of documents in social research, producing, in 1990, A Matter of Record as one of the first texts on this topic.
[11] Scott's view is that behind the contending theoretical explanations proposed by different theorists there is a set of concepts that constitutes a shared foundation for sociological analysis.
Conceptualisations of the social world can be seen as complementary to each other, and sociologist should eschew the overemphasis of difference if comprehensive, cooperative endeavours are to be produced.
His books on theory have concentrated on the earliest statements of the various arguments considered and have led him to investigate the ideas of many now-forgotten figures.