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Constraints and Opportunities I I
The technical man who asks “Why doesn’t my management learn how to use me?” “Why is management so short-sighted?” “Why do they waste me on undemanding assignments?” can find support among the social scientists for his feelings of frustration. For example, three economists in a recent study (Technology, Economic Growth, and Public Policy, by R. R. Nelson, M. J. Peck, and E. D. Kalachek) find that, “. . . outside of defense and space work, the bulk of the nation’s R & D resources are allocated to projects seeking relatively minor improvements or modifications in products and processes. . . . For applied R & D, the decision rules of business firms tend to screen out far-reaching projects. . . .” There seems to be little doubt about the wisdom, from the businessman’s point of view, of such a conservative policy. After all, he is responsible for the survival first and then the profitability of his organization. But, as economists Nelson, Peck, and Kalachek point out, “The emphasis on short-reach work within the applied part of the R & D budget may be rational from the point of view of the individual business firm, but it may be less desirable for the economy as a whole. . . . Within applied R & D the concentration on modest design improvements therefore probably represents a failure of market incentives to reflect the public interest in major technological advances. . . . The concentration on short-reach applied R & D probably distorts the process of technological advance . . . severely . . .” It would appear, therefore, that the industrial technical man’s complaints about constraints upon him have considerable validity. The constraints on the management require constraints on the technical man. But the constraints on the technical man are more related to the nature of the project than they are to the technical approach to the project. For the most part, the scientist or engineer who feels constrained to approach his problem in a “short-reach’’ way is assuming attitudes on the part of his managers that they do not have. Managers do not always communicate their attitudes effectively. Indeed, in some cases, they purposely leave ambiguities in their statements so that those who must do the work and develop or use the technology will be free to let their minds roam. The ambiguities, therefore, are meant to enlarge the area of operation, not to constrain it. Those who see the opportunity thus created are the ones who separate in their minds the modesty of the objective from the limitless intellectual and technological resources they can use to reach it.
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