Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

Problem-focused research 615
the differences which may result according to whether the relations are personal
or are established only through a huge administrative structure; or according to
whether the research worker is employed in the organization which finances the
research or stands outside it as a consultant or independent expert.
Practical utilization of results may depend on facilities for their reception,
whether a person is responsible or a study committee, and if these are absent
the report containing the results may remain wasted effort.54
The research workers and their clients often have profoundly different values
or casts of mind. Riley recalls that the difference in attitudes to time between
the specialist in social sciences and the business man sometimes creates an
acute problem.55 The business man is largely used to a daily rhythm of making
decisions and putting them into effect. Although he may recognize the impor-
tance of long-term research, he is generally forced to act in the short term. The
research worker does not feel the same pressures and has not the same habits:
he may disappoint the client or even discourage him by not keeping to the time-
table of work on which agreement has been reached.
In the field of values, there are other divergencies more fundamental. Among
research workers, there is the liking for independence, the sense of ‘academic
freedom’ and of scientific work well conducted with a feeling of autonomy,
what Blau and Scott call ‘professional orientation’ as distinct from ‘bureau-
cratic orientation’.j6 For this reason, many prefer to work in universities or in
organizations composed entirely of research workers and sometimes to earn less
there, doing the things which interest them, rather than earning more in doing
things which do not interest them. Research workers are not always co-opera-
tive, for fear of being regimented, of being subjected to excessive tutelage or of
being unable to express their ideas freely. To administrators these attitudes may
reflect a dangerous independence of spirit, or the absence of political sense or
of a practical bent. It is not uncommon on the one hand for research workers to
be very pleased to have brought new facts to light, or to have put forward origi-
nal explanations, and yet to have only a dim perception of the practical bearing
of their work, while on the other hand the users, anxious for an immediate and
striking translation into practical terms, make no effort to extract from research,
with its results formulated in abstract terms, the indications for practice that they
hold.
Administrators sometimes show themselves mistrustful towards research
workers, partly, no doubt, because the latter do not adequately recognize their
authoiity, and also partly because they have different ideas and are concerned
about different things. The mistrust of trade unions towards intellectuals, and
particularly towards those who have not come from their ranks, is a classic
example. But it is not only trade unions: generally speaking, most mass
organizations, concerned with social influence and strategy, may prefer propa-
ganda and the moulding of opinion in a particular direction to objective,
scientific information. The ‘organization man’s7 is more malleable and more
useful than the research worker. And in the same way, the reactions of authori-
ties, the potential users of the results of research which they have subsidized,
may prove more sensitive to the momentary political situation and may react