Research: Can behavioral scientists help managers improve their organizations?

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ome social scientists claim to be able to help organizations. Some organizations claim to be utilizing social science. Both clai,ns need examining, not because they are essentially false, but because they ca; mislead us if we conclude that there is anything unique about the transactions between the organization on the one hand and the university, research institute, or behavioral science consuhancy organization on the other. True, we know a great deal more about what is nowadays called "organization behavior" as a result of studies made and published by researchers in the field of social sciences. But knowing about organizational be. havios is not equivalent to being in a position to offer assistance or advice to organizations.

TH~ GAP BETWgaN KNOWt.aD~E AND ACTION We often compartmentalize our knowledge in such a way that it is available for solving crossword puzzles, but not for meeting our occupational or family problems. The social life of social scientists and the behavior of behaviofal scientists are not usually offered as models for the rest of the community. What, then, do r~rganizations that claim to be "using social sciertce" mean by that assertion ? To begin with, they are most likely to describe what they use as '~behavioral science," a term that has acquired a more hard-headed image than social science. The latter sounds as if it has something to do xvith social welfare or even socialism. Another reason is that "behavioral" science has a more manipulative feel about it; applying it will help ye~zto alter behavior-other people's, of course--in the direction you want. If you press these organizations further, it often turns out that they h,'zveadopted one or other of the packaged prosrams currently available. It has been ~bointedout that British 52 firms are more susceptible than their Ameri-

can counterpart~- to this kind of packaged offering, possibly because their confidence in nostrums is greater, but also perhapa because American firms that have taken the package route have by-and-large been disappointed. Anyway, ! find that I need m draw a very clear distinction between these packages and what I would accept as social science. Our knowledge of organizational behavior is advanced by carefully controlled comparative research, by intensive field studies, and econ. sionally by flashes of insight that transform our ways of looking at familiar patterns. By contrast, the application of packages is rarely preceded by more than a superficial study of the client system. In some cases, the package is a chunk of methodology---a "survey" whose results are expected to tell the client what aspect of his organization is functioning inadequately. When scientific knowledge is made available m organizations, it is usually in the form of technology. This has led people to assume that knowledge derived from the social sciences can take the same form. A3d this has encouraged the premature wrapping of scientific concepts into technological packages that are not only of limited value in themselves but are regarded as alternatives m the detailed analysis that our social science knowledge can, and should, provide. There is thus a gap between the kind of research that increases our knowledge of organizations and gives us the analytical tools for understanding what any particular organization is about and the kind of "behavioral science" that organizations commonly use. Organizations use these packages in the way that many sufferers use patent medicines. Like patent medicines, they have the tendency m suppress symptoms, transferring the impact to some other problem area. I v.'ill draw on Lawrence and Lor::~ m illustrate ~:hispoint. In Figure I is their list of packages, developed

at different times over the last 50 years. Some derive from the scientific management movement, some from the human relations movement, others from the postwar explosion of management sciences, including those which can be called "behavioral." As they point out, the odd-numbered packages are all designed to tighten the organization, the even-numbered packages, to loosen it. If you run through the whole gamut you should be like Leacock's young man who took so many chemical treatments for his skin that he ended by being able to open and close his pores at will.

INPUTSFROMSOCIALSCIENCE

There is a good deal of misunderstanding on both sides about what it is that social scientists can do and what kinds "of input organizations can expect from social scientists. Like any science or disciplined mode of analysis, what the social sciences provide are theories, concepts, and facts. These are clearly not of equal importance, and the most important from their point of view is neither theories, nor facts, but concepts. I shall have more to say a little later about the distinction I am making between "theories" and "concepts." Broadly speaking, our theories tell us "what causes what;" our concepts define for us "what goes with what." But if you ask people who aim to "use" the social or behavioral sciences what they hope for, they are most likely to tell you that they want "facts." Fa.'ts have a reassuring, hard-headed sound about them. If you are challenged to show what you got for the money you spent on a social science study, you can point to "facts" that you didn't previously have access to. You may find, bowever, that you have paid a high price for them, particularly if you don't take action on the basis of what you have now discovered. One

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SOCIAL~|ENOE UPACKAGR$" I. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. I 1. 12. 13. 14. 15.

PERT and critical path systems Business gaming Value analysis Sensitivity or T-group hboratories Long-range planning techniques Decentralization, profit-center management, unit managemem System design techniques Creativity training---brainstorming or synectics Operations research, with linear programming, dynamic programming, etc. Management grid training Cost effectiveness analysis Scanlon plan and other profit-sharing techniques Decision theory--decision trees, allocation models, etc. Motivation hboratories Human factors engineering

Source: P. R. Lawrence and 1. W. Lorsch. "Organization and Environment: Managing Dil~vrentiution and lutegration,'" Harvard Universit~ Press, 1967, p. 160.

trouble about a fact is that by itself it conveys little. Facts belong in sets and acquire meaning from the fellow members of that set. In other words, they derive meaning from the concepts you use. Unless we share a concept, a fact may mean vastly different things to us. We are all familiar with the distinction between a half full and a half empty glass. (The facts that people feel they need are those that derive from their own appreciation of what the major issues involved are, and these in turn derive from the concepts that they have about their situation.) There is, of course, a complicated relationship linking facts with concepts, both with theories, and all three with ideologies, and I hope that Figure 2 may make this point a litde dearer. As you will see, I have put ideologies at the top because their influence is 53

Figure 2 How MANAOaU/,S~ SeC~U. ScxmN~sn T t . ~ ! CONC~,. Mana0sra' IOEOI.OQIES

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the greatest. If you know my ideology you will be able to predict to a fair extent the theories I will have about a number of issues. The term " i d ~ ! o g y " is used in two ways, often confused; on the one hand, it is used to mean our views of what the world ought to be like, together witi: a commitment to make it so--the way we are using it h e r e - a n d on the other hand it is used to mean a coherent body of ideas about what the world is like. During recent yea~s, our studies in organizations have made us increasingly aware of the influence of prev,~iling managemeat ideologies on the possibilities of productive relationships between managor~ and social

scientists. A change is deafly discernible in ideologies of management: Ideologies built around managerial prerogatives are yielding to ideologies that favor employee participation. The latter are much more in harmony with the current social ethos; unfortunately, they provide almost unlimited possibilities for self.deception. It should, in principle, be no part of the task of the social scientist to alter a management's ideology, to tackle it head on, so to speak. This is not at all the same thing as claiming an "objective," ethically neutral stance for social science. It is just the wrong level of abstraction for a confrontation.

ACZERMt=NTBETWE~.NTHEORIES ANn

In~o~ms Managers have theories of organization, theories of human nature, and theories to describe their firm's activities. Theories of this variety in most cases form a compatible set, an ideoL ogy. One such set is that immortalized by McGregor as Theory X; another, of course, is Theory Y. Thus, if you hold a theory of organization that emphasizes the functions of control, you probably also have a theory about human nature that implies that people need controlling. You probably also have a theory that your firm has a clear mandate from its shareholders. Since these theories are compatible with an ideology that exalts the managerial prerogative, I would expect you to subscribe to that, too. On the other hand, if you stressed in your theory of organization the cooperative harnessing of diverse activities and simultaneously have a theory of human nature that emphasizes man's need to enjoy joint activity with others and a theory about your firm as exercising social responsibility, I would be surprised if you failed to subscribe to an ideology of participation. In practice, the two different manao gets we have been caricaturing--taking a lead from McGregor, we will call the former Manager X and the latter Manager Y--would have available different sets of concepts for interpreting reality as well as different sets of values for determining what aspects of reality were important. These concepts serve to operationalize the theories that each manager possesses and bring them to bear on experience. Nor is there any reason to suppose that either Manager X or Manager Y will find his experience contradicting to his beliefs. Theories of the type we are discussing have the characteristics of self-fulfulling prophecies. If, for example you believe people to be irresponsible, you are likely to arrange things so that

there is no opportunity for them m take responsibility. ['heir consequent lack of responsible action then becomes evidence of their irresponsibility. O u r concepts and ~h~.ories can also influence our observations. Many years ago 1 was investigating the problems of the apprentices' and boys' training schools in the Royal Air Force. Officers in command at all levels assmed me that the principal cause of infringements of discipline lay in the boys themselves: Those who caused trouble were the products of "broken homes." Statistical evidence purported to show that separ~.tion from the father between the ages of two to six increased the probability of subsequem delinquency. The term "delinquent generation" was not infrequently used. We first established the fact that the schools were not the dumping grounds for products of broken homes; they received somewhat tess than would be expected if they took in a random sample of the population. Next we showed that the 20 percent coming from broken homes did contribute somewhat more than their fair share of problems, being responsible for 25 percent of the "crimes." But this was only a quarter of all crimes. H o w was it, then, that the belief that they were responsible for most of the trouble persisted ? This became clearer when we looked into officers' implicit views ahat.t causador,. When a boy on a charge appeared before an officer, the officer's theories about what caused delinquency determined what aspects of the boy's story or circumstances would be regarded as the reason or "cause" of the delinquent act, A broken home was one of these, and it occurred in 25 percent of the cases. Having delinquent companions was seen as another explanation. Thus, if A was delinquent and was friendly with B w~,o was delinquent and came from a broken home, B's broken home was at one remove ~,ssodated 5 5

AlbertBernardCheruswas bern in 1921, educated at St. Pmd's School and Trinity College, eamkq'dge, where his studies were interrupted by the war. He wrwed in the drmy at a Captain and returned to Cambridge to cempleW ~is studies, graduating in psyrhol. oZY.

d/ter researchin the psychology deportment at Cambridge, he joined the $cien. tifie Cioil $eruice. He was Chic/Research G~cer O[ the Training Command o/tbe Royal dir Force and then moued i,~o sclen. sifi¢ administration in the Department o/ $eiensifieand IndustrialResearch. He was Secretary o/the Gotternmen/s Committee on Social $tudies, as a result o/which the Bcisisb Social Science Research Council was set up with Prolessor Clterns as its first Scientific Secretary. In 1966 be mooed to Lougbborougb

with A's delinquency. In this way, the officer's theory was validated for him by the way he interpreted his experience, by his giving special vak,e to the "facts" that fitted in with his beliefs.

THR TOOLSoF T H E ~gOCIALSCIENTIST

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Now let us turn to the social scientist with his ideologies, his theories of organizational behavior and c.i"human nature, and the concepts that he uses to interpret w ~ t he sees. These concepts, which together with his methodologies make up the tools of hh trade, include some that are familiar to managers and some that tend to be less familiar. For example, the concept of system is used by the manager in a

as Pro/essoro/ Soda/ Sciencesand Head o/ Department where be alsoset up the Centre /or Usiliuatiano/ Social Science Research. dmang bls outsideactioitiesbe has been chairman o/bo#b the Oc:icpotionaland SocialPsychology Sectionso/ the Brisisb Psyehologlcal Society, and is this year president o/the $odology Section o~ tbe Reisish Asso. elation/or the Advancement o] Science. lie is o Goneenor o! the British 5tcel Corporation's dsboene Hill College and member o/the Council o/the Tavi~o¢~ Institute o/Human Relations and o/the Beisish dssociasian Jar the .4duancement o/Science. He is editor o/ the OP$ (Organization, People and Society) series published by Ta~istoci~ Publications. He has traoclled widely in the United States, India and/tustrolia and is to.author with Andrew Sbonficld o/a report on the so. dot sciencesin India.He also has published numerous articles in journals on social science utilinasion,social sciencepolicyand social research in organinasious, and is joint editor o! two boo~s: SocialScienceResearchand Industry,published by Harrap and Social Sciencesand Government,published by Tool. stocl~ Publications.

variety of contexts. A similar concept leads the social scientist m expect certain relationships among the departments or subsystems that he observes, and indeed to identify the boundaries of subsystems by observing these relationships. The notion of the "open" system helps the social scientist to understand the organization as a system in dynamic equilibrium with its environment, responding to environmental change ;n predictable ways. The idea of a "sociotechnical system" has exposed the strains on the interactions and communications of people in the firm (the social system), which result from ~ e jobs being designed soldy on technical considerations. To the manager, this concept ha., brought a realization that he has a choice among tech. nological &~'~ignsand that the best choice is

one that jointly optimizes both the social and the technical systems of his organization. To the social scientist the concept of an organic-mechanistic continuum has provided a way of analyzing the effective organization structure from the actual patterns of communications: a predominantly vertical flow of communications (up and down the command ladder) representing a mechanistic functioning suitable for settled environments and static technologies, a predominandy horizontal flow representing an organic functioning suitable for turbulent environments and changing technologies. Too often managers perceive "organic" as "good," "mechanistic" as "bad" without regard to the context, but where they successfully understand the concept they can see whether they and their organizations are flexible enough to cope with change and with the anxieties that acmmpany dispersed decision making. Another concept that is becoming better known to managers is Goldthorpe and Lockwood's typology of calculative, bureaucratic, and solidaristic orientations to work. Again, the fact that workers bring different expectations to their working life enables the social scientist to understand some aspects of behavior at work in terms of the family and community pressures on the worker. For the manager, the distinctions among the "orientations" indicate that a payment system that suits a "calculative" worker whose involvement with the firm is that of economic man may fail to motivate a "solidaristic" worker to whom work is a way of life and may alarm the worker whose involvement is "bureaucratic," to whom the firm represents a lifetime career. A diagrammed presentation that will become increasingly familiar is that of Perrow, who relates the characteristics of an organization to fundamental characteristics of its technology. He employs a simple 2 z 2

schema of "technology variables." Are there many "exceptions" or few? Is the "search" procedure for dealing with exceptions analyzable or not? From this simple pattern he constructs the characterization of a firm's technology shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 T1'l,~soi' T~cHNoI.~Y Unanalyzable Search Analyzable Search

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In any activity in an organization, the worker or supervisor or manager receives a great many signals, items of information, stimuli, that require him m respond. Usually he knows from experience what to do, hut sometimes something occurs for which he has no ready-made or programmed response. This may be a rare event--in our figure, "few exceptions"---or comparatively frequent--"many exceptions." If he is engaged in production, the source of stimuli may be his raw material. Some raw material is highly consistent (few exceptions), some very variable (many exceptions). The other dimension, "Search," concerns the response. When faced with the problem of how to deal with the exception, he may be able to proceed systematically through a program. This may include consulting a manual or follawing a "drill" or carrying out a carefully learned sequence of actions. His "search" procedure is analyzable and can be reduced to a drill if this has not already been done. On the other han :1, the stimulus presented by the exception may be quite un- 57

familiar-each exception is new and different from previous ones. In that case our operator is thrown hack on problem-solving skills, on his unanalyzable experience, skills, knack, or intuition. His search procedure is "unanalyza. hie." Perrow offers several examples. "A factory manufacturing a standard product like heating elements for electric stoves" will [it ;nto box 4. Raw material has few exceptions, and they are dealt with by standard procedure. An engineering firm building drill presses or electric motors to order (box 3) will also have standard procedure for dealing with exceptions but will encounter far more occasions when search must be instituted, constantly introducing modifications to meet customers' needs. In a firm making fine glassware (box 1) the variety of exceptions is small, although there can he no star_dard procedure for dealing with them. And in a firm making nuclear fuel systems (box 2), we are faced with great variety as well as unanalyzahle search. These differences in turn will be reflected in the type and style of organization and in the relative powers of technical and supervisory staffs. 1"he concepts that 1 have sketchily outlined vary in generality but are all employed by soci.d g:iemists in looking at organizations and thc~ are becoming, to a greater or lesser extent, part of the managers' own ways of looking at their activities. To my mind, the most important coraribution of the .social scientist to managemen.' is just this pmvisiou of concepts for the manag::r to use.

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But how is the social scientist to provide concepts for the manager to use? Obviously, in management courses and at business schools

it is port of the task of the social scientist m introduce his students to whole sets of concepts of relevance to management in general. But a management that asked for assistance or advice on its current problems would not appreciate the recommendation, *'Come get our MBA and take the courses involved." Indeed, in the context of social scientists helping individual firms with problems, a whole hag of concepts may he more a hindrance than a help. Thus, the social scientist has two prc'.~ lures: First, he has to discover which concepts are most likely to be useful to managers in their particular situation. And he finds out by learning the concepts that managers actually use to understand, explain, and control their own .~i~,~*ion. Second, he has to devise a strategy for introducing his own concepts where they are likely to be appropriate. Elsewhere ! have called this process one of mutual learning; perhaps we should describe it ~ . r e precisely as "trading concepts." Shared concepts that emerge from this trading process provide a basis for making a fruitful analysis, determining "facts" and influencing perceptions. Can we, however, share concepts with management, without, to some extent, sharing its ideology? Churchman and Emery claim that shared values are the indispensable basis on which joint action can take place between social scientists and organizations; in their account a new, if temporary, "institution," including researchers and employees of the organization under study, has to emerge enshrining a jointly used ideology. We would not go that far. In the Centre for Utilization of Social Science Research, we have assisted organizations through assisting cbanges in the values that were already incubating in the organization. There is no need to he pessimistic about the possibilities of ideological or value change. There are two reasons for optimism. First, quite farreaching decisions can he influenced without

altering the entire organizational climate. Social scientists often find it easier to influence personnel managers whose ideologies are closer to their own than accountants' or production managers'. And nowadays significant organizational design and development are increasingly the province of personnd man. agement. Second, ideologies are more rationally determined than we often assume. People are not always aware that they really have a choice of ideologies. The ideology of productivity bargaining has become prominent in recent years in Britain. But first there had to emerge the concept of a working group's ownership of its restrictive practices. In the plumbing trade, for example, a plumber, by custom and practice, had acquired the right to take an apprentice with him each time he goes out on a job. Productivity bargaining sets the terms of buying out of the rights acquired by workers through custom and practice. Similarly, the current ideologies of industrial democracy or shop-floor participation as we labeled it earlier were not available until the concept of the autonomous group was developed and it was shown that at least quasiautonomous groups could function satisfactorily in practice. Ideologies can, of course, change under other pressures as well. We have recently in Britain seen the emergence and acceptance of an ideological change. Over the past decade it has become a commonplace that workers made redundant by technological change should receive compensation. More recently, workers have claimed that their jobs represent an investment that is not liquidated when the firm that provided the job goes bankrupt. When the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders were put into the hands of a receiver, the workers occupied the shipyards and staged a "work-in," taking over the running of the yards themselves. This represented an ideological shift from the worker's right to a job to the work-

"r's right to his job. Some astute politicians have been quickly converted m this view. More surprisingly, the government is now behaving in a way that suggests it has undergone a similar conversion. We are often prisoners of other people's values, obliged m behave in a manner that implies ideological positions that we really have not assented m. Let me summarize what I have said so far. Most so-called usage of social or "behavioral" science has taken the form of purchasing packages ~ a t contain few new concepts, but that make interpersonal relationships more explicitly felt; that is, they have a low judgmental but a high "experiential" content. At the same time they have often aimed at changing management ideology through providing new kinds of experio ence. Even where successful in this way, they do not provide managers with the concepts that would enable ,.hem to select among and use other inputs from social scienct--and it is just these concepts that should be the social scientist's contribution.

ACTIONRESEARCHASFRAMEWORKFOR BlUOCINCTtU~GAP I must turn now to my thesis that action research provides an appropriate framework. Unfortunately, "action" research is a term that has acquired a medley of meanings. As it has become more fashionable, so bare more and more meanings scrambled aboard until it threatens to become a synonym for applied research of all kinds. Action research is not just research on somebody dse's actions. Fig. ure 4 indicates wha~ action research is and how it fits into the total spectrum of social science research. The action experiment phase can take place only a/ter a great deal of mutual understanding and value sharing has been acc~n- 59

Figla¢ 4 TvPzs o~" Bu~4.VlOlt.~SClENCZRIESZAaCH I. s,*axasAssc nslAaea is research arising out of perceived needs of a discipline and is, genecally speaking, oriented towards resolving or illuminating or exemplifying a theoretical problem. 2. ~ t e osl'ecrtvx xzs~xe.n is oriented toward a problem that arises in some field of application of the discipline, but is not aimed at prescribing a solution m a practical problem. 3.

assFAaen is aimed at tackling an on.going problem within an organizational framework but does not include or involve experimental action. This kind of research is distinguished hy its strategy and methods. Broadly speaking these are: a) Observation of the "mission" of the organization. b) Identification of its goals. c) Establishment of criteria of goa! attainment. d) Devising measures for assessing perforrr.ance against these criteria. e) Carrying out these measurements and comparing them with the goals. f) Completing the feedback loop by reporting on the discrepancy between goal and achievement. Note: In the course of an operational research project changes may occur as a result of the activities of the operational researchers, but this is not perceived as the aim of the research, although it may be a more-or-less welcome concomitant of it. oPsax~oHat,

4. a c n o s x~s~aca may involve operational research, but it is distinguished from ordinary operational research by adding the introduction and observation of planned change. The change proposed may be arrived at as a result of a piece of operational research, and operational research techniques are often used within a scheme of action research.

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plished It is during the operational research phases that we in our research have most influenced the values of organizations with which we h~ve worked. Let me offer a very simple example. It is part of the conventional wisdom of many personnel mana,~ers that women prefer repetitive jobs without responsibility. If you think about this, you realize it's really odd. The very same women, when ~hey become housewives, undertake a range of the most diverse activities, t:~any of them involving very responsible decisions. A n d we knc,w few housewives whose favorite job is the most repetitive--say, washing the dishes. It is obvious that situa. tional aspects enter strongly into these prefer-

ences. But the concept of woman worker and housewife are kept separate, as parts of different conceptual domains. The executives of the firm to which we made this point were not prepared to bear the cost of making a film of the housewife's day, but they did perceive the importance of determining the orientations to work of different groups of women employed in the firm. As they looked ahead m the types of jobs mat would survive the next round of technological change, it became clear that the women who would be most needed, whose orientations fitted the requirements, were precisely those middle-age parttime employees whom the firm had planned to phase out. While these executives were dis-

cussing their commitment to participation and their conversion from "paternalism," they were simultaneously installing new management systems that threatened to eliminate the pockets of shop floor decision-making that already existed. The system contained a built-in contradiction. It was set up in a way that put a premium on team responsibility and quick corrective action. At the same time the machine layout designed by industrial engineering separated the girls from each other and made rapid cooperation difl~cuh or impossible to achieve. Once we pointed out the contradiction between the organizational structure and the machine design, management acted quickly to change the layout and eliminate the problem. Another firm was faced with deteriorating relationships between supervisory and technical people in one of a group of three apparently similar sections. We introduced managers concerned to Perrow's typologies and worked with them through one of his analytical frameworks. This showed that when the characteristics of the raw material were well known, when there were few exceptions and "sezrch" procedures involved in problem solving were analyzable, supervisors exercised more power than technical specialists. When the opposite set of conditions prevailed, technical specialists had more power. Although the jobs to be performed were similar, one of the three, sections was dealing with newer and less familiar materials. Attempting to run them on the same lines as the other two resulted in constant conflict between specialist and supervisor. These differences between the section affected and the other two were immediately spotted by the managers. They also realized at once that the structure of control had to differ also. A problem hitherto seen as a peculiarity of sets of personorities now became intelligible in a way

that pointed to remedial action. The production-oriented supervisor of the pre-production section was switched with the more technically oriented supervisor of one of &e production sections--the performance of both improved. In the same firm, managers were puzzled by the behavior of the men in one shop. Usually c~operative, they had begun to be intransigent. When we inquired abunt the firm's experiences in the past in similar phases of their p~oduct-innovation cycle, simihr behavior was recalled. The cause of the trouble became clear, as did the appropriate strategy for meeting it: When the product was in full production, the scheduling of work through the pattern-making shop was a relatively routine matter; the time taken to produce a pattern was predictable, and the problems of using the patterns in the casting department had been overcome. The shop could function with a mechanistic type of organization, and the job d the supervisor was relatively straightfurward. In the developmental phase, however, work scheduling became problematic; the time taken to produce patterns was highly variable, and the problems of using them required constant interaction between pattern makers and the casting department. Cohtinuation of mechanistic ways of functioning raised tensions and hindered a problemmiring approach to the task. Feelings ran so high that a strike looked imminent. This surprised managers, who regarded the Patternmakers as sober, skilled men who were interested in their jobs and who, though they kept themselves somewhat apart, gave no trouble. The last time there had been any trouble was some seven or eight years previomly--which turned out to be the time when the last major product had been in Rs developmental phase. Remedial action in this case required little more than tbe alerting of management 61

to the facts involved and their introduction to the concept of the mechanistic-organic continuum and its relationship to innovation. Work scheduling was delegated to the pattern-makers themsclv~ and the trouble subsided, These examples illustrate different kinds of concepts that we have been able to introduce to managers in a way which they could use them, In each case, the application of the~ concepts implied change in theories if not in ideology, ia the first example, managers had theories about the behavior of women, which they later were prel~red to modify. In the second and third examples, changes occurred in people's theories of the origins of conflict. It would be going beyond my evidence to argue that a change in theory was always preceded by the adoption of a new concept more powerful in u~e than the one it displaced, but 1 suspect that this is the usual Frocess.

PagggUUlSlTlgS]FOR ACTIONRESgARnH

The actioLsresearch phase of the mutual relationship between social sciemists and organizations can occur only when mutual trading of concepts ha~ occurred and at least a partly shared ideological framework has emerged, because action research is essentially aimed at producing change ,,hat is considered desirable both by the researchers and the people within the organization to be affected by the change. The essential features it.,clude joint action f~,llowing joint commitment to action by both the organization and the social scientists. This joint action does not always :ake the form of a formal experiment. If you ~nduct a kind of operational research and simultzneously feed back your perceptions and go in for concept trading, you may equip managers with the 62 necessary insights for them to correc~ what m

wrong without the need fla" a coatrdled a periment. This, while ,=tidactory in tome respects, falls short of the ideal if no proper evaluation of the change is conducted and if no indicators are set up. We can be of considerable help to firms and still fall short of reaching that happy state of ideology sharing to which I have referred that would make a joint commitment to action possible. How. ever, the preliminary stages take time, usually longer than anyone imagines and other events may supervene. Most important of all is an issue which it is very tempting to fudge, genre you can enter an action experiment, you must have the approval and commitment to cooperate from all the interested panics. Lip to this point, it may be enough for you to share ideas with and trade concepts with senior and middle management only. Beyond this point you need m involve junior management, unions, the shop floor in the same way. It is theoretically possible to involve people in an action experiment without obtaining their sanction beforehand. There are, however, two good reamns against it. First, people can very easily refuse to cooperate or to help you solve the inevitable problems that arise. Second, it implies that people are objects or "variables." Not only is that attitude ethically abhorrent, but it repeats the "scientific management" ermr of using only the hands, not the man. The kind of information you obtain will be constrained by the relationship you impose. Another Air Force experience illustrates clearly some of the problems involved.

The problem concerned the apprentice schools of the RAF. At the time the study was conducted~ the schools were encountering difficulties of two kinds: Too many boys were failing to complete the three.year course and emerge into the service as fully trained advanced tradesmen, and the problems of maintaining discipline were giving concern. In the first phase negotiation was prolonged, because the parameters of the research had to be agreed on at three levels; the Commandant of thc school, his Group Commander, and the Commander-in.Chief. Their interests in the study differed considerably, and the research team was ultimately re. sponsihle to the Commander-in-Chief. We had to spell out the methods we would use and the estimated duration of the project without tying ourselves to impossible targets. We then entered the operational research phase and went through the five stages involved. 1. Determining the Statements o] eke Organization's Obieetives This sounds simple, but the obiectives of the school were three-fold, and the three objectives were not necessarily mutually compatible. They were to turn out a product who would (a) be a well-disciplined airman with a sound service training; (b) be a welltrained technician; and (c) have a good allround education. Because each of these three objectives made demands on the time, interest, and attention of the apprentice, they were often in conflict. Indeed, each objective was cham-

pioned by a separate staff group, which compounded our problem. The technical training staff, made up of officers and technical noncom"nissioned officers, were preoccupied with the second objective; another group of ex-air crew members and noncom drill instructors focused on discipline and housekeeping; a third group of education officers were equally convinced of the primary importance of giving the apprentices a good, all-round education.

2. Determine Criteria o/Successful Functioning H o w were the three objectives to be measured? The technical aim could be, and was, assessed by a trade test, the educational aim, by an examination. But the first.; We had to invent our own measures, but first we had to find out what criteria they had to measure. These turned out to be largely adjustment to the communal service life of the appreutice~ But we had to discover this by dim of careful questioning and ob,~rvation.

3. Define Measures to Match Criteria and 4. TaRe Readings Again, we could use the existing measures of trade testing and educational examination, although there was a good deal of "contamination" of these measures--some boys would deliberately fail an exam in order to be discharged because they could or would not adjust to service discipline and communal life. For measures of these we took a number for which we had to set up our own collection of data. We measured popularity, using sodometric questionnaires. We used boys' "crime" records. We arranged for the medical officers to record sickness reports as due either to physical or to emotional causes. We recorded also apprentice promotions. Thus, we obtained a set of multiple indices of service adjustment.

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5. dsses$ Discrepancy Between Criterionand Measure We were able to show that our multi. pie indices of adjustment to service life and discipline taken early in the course predicted overall success better than any other measure, indoding intelligence and educational attainment. We were also able to show that thue were large discrepancies between boys' expec. tations of the course and the views of the ottl. cers and noncom staff about its aims.

6, Feedbae/C In feeding back our results, we were able to demonstrate the organizational deficiencies that contributed to the discrepancy between aim and achievement. Obviously, these included the existence of three separate groups of staff, each pursuing a different pri. mary goal.

TFIZACTIONRFAlg&ReHPHASZ

The action research phase of our activities was less st~cceHful. The three staffs had separate hierarchies, and no issue worth mentioning was resolved short of the top; constant bickering was endemic in the organizational design. Our key r~commendations were twofold: First, divide the school into nine trades and make the lower-level officer in charge of each trade responsible for the training; second, reorganize the training itself in ways that would make the models to he emulated by the apprentices more appropriate---not the ex.fliers, but the senior technical noncoms.

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Over the short m intermediate run, we encountered two fundamental blocks to the adoption of our recommendations: (1~ that of physical constraint--we wanted to divide the apprentices into nine trades and there were only three buildings--bricks and mortar got in our way; and (2) there was at least a temporary scarcity of the technical noncoms necessary to implement our training recommendations. However, we "sere able to obtain agreement in principle that any new schools would he set up along the lines that we had recommended. We were also able m set up a training program for staff members moving into posts in apprentice schools and to establish indicators along the lines of the measures collected for the study to evaluate changes in attitudes and adjustment to the communal life d the service. Although the dropout rate did not decline significantly, the indicators did show greatly improved adjustment among the boys and, over time, clear changes in attitudes toward the job on the part of staff merehers.

THr. CA3MMITMIgNTTOPARTICIPATION ~et us suppose we have analyzed the situaUon, traded concepts with management and have their agreement that a particular tast~ could be carried out by an autonomous group. This commitment implies that management will he disposed m agree to a participative, consultative handling of the arrangements for an action research phase. Unfortunatdy, comroitment in theory alone means nothing, ano we find all too frequeody the paradox that until management sees the concrete results of consultation, it cannot actualize its commit. meat--but until management has actualized its commitment, there can be no action research and no results.

Even worse is the (imaginary) situation that would arise if operational research indicated that an authoritarian type of organizatinn was required. Clearly, we could not invoke a democratic sanction for such an action experiment. The very methodology of action research implies a commitment to the ideology of participation. A great deal of claptrap is talked about action research and a great deal of misunderstanding accompanies it. It is obviously a very advanced tool, advanced in the sense that it can only occur alter a great deal of preliminary joint effort. If I think that it is a tool of immense power it is just because I think that the degree of shared concepts, theories, and ideology needed before the action phase can begin is also the essential requirement for utilization of social science.

EVALUATION 1 have pointed to the need for indicators of success to be built into the design of the project. It is impossible to know whether a change has been successful or not if you have not set up the necessary measurements before you start. Setting up such indicators, indeed, can be a tremendous discipline. It fcequently emerges that the data are just not readily at hand, that much of the material on which people should be evaluating the performance of their organization is just not collected. The process of setting up indicators themselves may in fact disclose new and unsuspected facts. The problem of devising indicators is especially difficult because one ordinarily records only those matters that appear m bc relevant and significant. A theory that all good accountants had red hair would be difficult to test from existing records, because in the ab. sence of such a theory the needed data would

not have been recorded. (For that matter we should experience difficulties from the fact that, for the same reason, there is no convention as to the exact shades that should be recorded as red.) Organizations are increasingly being made aware of the fact that their old views of what constituted their boundaries are no longer acceptable or tenable. A conservationconscious and pollution-sensitlve political climate forces "externalities" into interual reckoning. The criteria of profitability have m be changed, the items entering into the calculation grow wider. " H u m a n resource accounting" will have similar consequences. Furthermore, if organizations come m be held responsible for strains of the stressed executive previously borne by the family, for the costs of the surplus employee previously borne by the community, and for the loss of underutilized skills, also previously borne by the community, the present pattern of productivity measurement will prove seriously inadequate. Inevitably, our indicators represent today's concepts. Can we anticipate tomorrow's? To date, the scenarios we have developed with organizations have been of a very limited nature, confined to short-rime future developments. Ac¢loN Res~ARcla Am~ DESmn Pxocass Action research in the context of organizational change has been of limited value. One important reason is that the scope of acceptable and manageable change is usually restricted by the requirement that it take place while the organization is running its business.

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We ourselves have found action research of greatest value in the context of organizational design. The special advantage of the design situation is that it enables social science analysis to be used in an action research framework. The design perspective is: • Oriented to a class of problems rather than m one specific problem • Future oriented • Directed toward the generation of alternatives • Directed toward a goal of joint optimization • C.apabL" of accommodating muhidisciplinary inputs • Recursive (problems are recycled as the design develops) • Explicitly value-directed. The design perspective and the action research perspective are congruent, while the action research perspective is seldom reconcilable with the short-term, problem-oriented administrative perspective. The administrator has to operate within a policy framework. He needs answers to his problems that fit into this framework, and thus perceives his problems in terms that take this framework as given. But a satisfactory solution may be one that generates an alternative framework that is simply not a possibility for the administrator.

1 do not mean to suggest that administrators are "wrong" and social scientists are "right." Nor do I mean to suggest that the social scientist could not help the administrator within a given policy framework; after all, my example of the RAF apprentice school is one where the administraU~,e perspective was the starting point. But very often the constraints operating on the administrator are such that the help he can hope for is very limited indeed. The designer, by contrast, is 66 subject to far fewer contraints of thi,, kind.

SUMMING UP

The main point I wish to make is this. Social science c a n help managers, but not by solving problems for them, by selling packages to them, or conducting "surveys" or finding "facts" for them. That is not to say that none of these activities is of value, but each will yield at most short-term ad hcc resultr. What social scientists can most helpfully do is to provide managers with new ways of looking at their world. And to do this, sooal scientists themselves have to understand the managers' "pbenomenological" world--the world as it presents itself to managers, and the meaning to them of their lives and actions in their organizations. Beyond this, they can help managers m change their organizations in ways that release the abilities of the people in them. A new and powerful tool is action research, which is a vehicle both for concept-swanping and for changing and redesigning organizations. It involves identifying the goals of an organization, analyzing its operations, and introducing change by means of fully monitored and evaluated experiments. I have provided some examples of our own work, concentrating mostly on the concept-trading activity. I should like to conclude by assessing the present and forecasting the future contribution of action research. In the organizational field it is comparatively new, and its impact has been felt more in community action than in work organizations. The most thoroughgoing examples of action research in work organizations are the Norwegian experiments in workplace democracy. In these experiments, employers' organizations, unions, government, and social scientists have worked together to redesign the organizations of a pulp and paper mill, a metal manufacturing Oant, an electrical assembly plant, and a fertilizer plant. Work is now go-

ing on in other industries, including shipping. In each case, the objective was m obtain greater effectiveness in operation through redesigning jobs. The jobs were to be so designed that their occupants were able to cootribute more to the organization and simultaneously to develop themselves as workers and as people. The experiments have to date been notably successful in achieving their objectives. But the future is by no means secure. Each experiment is lengthy and requires immense preparation and intensive commitment of scarce social scientists. Not only are more action-research-trained social scientists needed, but only those with an understanding of the technology operated by organizations can fully contribute. We must now find ways of reducing the intensiveness of the social science effort required, either by finding new methods or by dra'~ing in managers to do much of the work themselves. In the U.S. there are signs that this can be done successfully. One manager in General Foods, for example, has learned how m organize action research projects and has carried them out in his own organization as an internal consultant. One last word: Because sanctioning and performing action research experiments requires collaborative action by management, employees, and unions, the very activity of instituting experiments involves creating the climate needed for their success. In this activity everybody learns, and what he learns can be learned no other way.

~ELECTEDBIBLIOORAPHY For a fuller account of action research and how it is used in organizational change, see Action Research and Organizational Change by P. A. Clark, Harper and Row, 1972. The same author, Co-Director with Professor Cherns of the Centre for Utilization of Social Science Research, has published a full and analytic account of one of the Centre's organization design projects: Organizational Design, Tavistock Publications, 1072. A collection of papers by members of the Centre, entitled Papers on Social Science Utilization, Monograph No. 1, is available from CUSSR, Loughborough. Other articles by Professor Cherns on the problems of using social science research include: (1) "Social Research and Its Diffusion," Human Relations, vol. 22, no. 3, 1969, pp. 209-218 (2) "The Use of the Social Sciences," Human Relations, vol. 21, no. 4, 1968, pp. 313-325 (3) "Models for the Use of Research," Human Relations, vol. 25, no. 1, 1972, pp. 25-33 (4) Social Science Research and In. dnstry, Wilson, Mitchell, Checns (Eds.), Harrap Publications, 1972. A forthcoming book of articles on action research is Symposium ol Action Research, A. W. Clark (Ed.), Tavistock Publications, 1972/3. For books on organizational research the reader wonld do well to consult Organizo. tional Analysis: ,4 Sociological View, C. Perrow, Tavistock, 1970 and Systems o/ Organization, E. Miller and A. K. Rice, Tavistock, 1967. Finally, a useful book on work design is Design o/lobs, L. E. Davis and I. C. Taylor (Eds.), Penguin, 1972.

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