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THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH AND ITS MANAGEMENT WILLIAM A. HAMOR Mellon Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Around industrial research are crystallized innumerable successes, the fame of which is reflected upon i t . The management of this research contains many elements derived from industrial administration, partly latent in solution, partly evident i n operative form. Industrial research management is constantly rising, is capable of high refinement because i t is concerned with professional groups of scientists and their devotion to discovery for human good. Like the rest of the industrial realm, industrial research is in need of administrative leaders. To gain t h e n its management must study its executive problemsandmustseek,findand develop executivetalentscientifically.
INDUSTRIAL research has for its purpose the assimilation into technology of the principles evolved through experiment and systematic observation in scientific laboratories. It does not necessarily differ from pure research in methods or practices. Industrial research came to be recognized when it ceased being a poor relative of pure research and entered its territory in its own right. As industrial research has grown since then, demonstrating that this research, properly conducted, is a good investment, it has given more and more support to pure research, and is constantly on the alert for more substantial means of aiding the latter, realizing its human value and professional worth in devising experimental procedures and in effecting cardinal discoveries. In consequence many companies sustain such basic investigation in their own or institutional laboratories. Every piece of industrial research would be weak indeed were it not for the groundwork of pure science ininvestigation, the availability of underlying facts and methods. Industrial research is dedicated to attain those aggregated hopes of utility that emanate from fundamental scientific accomplishments. This research, which has become the major way in complex industrial life to meet demands for the betterment of production and for the development of new products, is always humanitarian in motive: sentiment and humanistic imagination as well as vital thought are essential to keep its action pliant to its activities. Industrial research can always be facilitated by environing it in a suitable organization where all its elements will intermesh smoothly. Close to fifteen years ago industrial research reached a new stage of maturity wkien biology, physics, and mathematics joined chemistry, chemical engineering, ceramics, and metallurgy in its fold. Since then it has be-
come usual for company presidents to give space to research in their annual reports. About $600 million is being spent annually in supporting research by American industries. This research is diffusely ramified, extending everyuvhere and touching everything in the manufactures. Industrial research is a means of societal adjustment. It has had strong development because of its services to mankind. Science has shown it can slow up social changes that take place too rapidly, can accelerate changes that lag. Improvement in technology as a main line of advancement must strengthen the foundations of society. Research results-discoveries and inventions-bring changes in the economic organization and social habits associated with them. Thus corporations, plants, and technical groups have come about in response to industrial developments through research. Thus have been derived beneficial changes in education and the family. Problems of the industrial community, such as air and vater pollution, with their many scientific aspects, constitute a ~vell-knownfield that is being tilled researchfully so as to enable sufficient control. The home is geared to technology, which determines where we live; service industries are linked to the home. An entire nation has become closely bound together like the old-time village; communication and transportation of various kinds are now executed speedily. Atomic energy is a great force that is beginning to penetrate the societal framework. Research and invention cause in every decade a heavy impact on society, bringing forth a stream of social effects and alterations.' Whatever happens to technology affects all of us. As Hnnnon, W. A,, "The role of scientific research in human reIrttions,"Advaneed Managemenl, 13,131 (September, 1948).
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JANUARY, 1930
research and invention proceed they create more, better, safer, and healthier jobs. THE SPIRIT AND STRUCTURE OF RESEARCH
There is an animating and inspiring influence that pervades and tempers the thought and work of researchists to a characterizing extent. This paramount principle, which imparts soul to action, can be ahstracted as the spirit of all men of scientific research in their quests for new knowledge. It is sustained not by dried fruits of the past but by the stimulating food of novelty. In science newness is supreme. I t incites productive effort and elevates human service. This spirit has established a methodology that has become a habit of mind. Exact thinking in other professions and especially in industrial management has added much to this result and to the breadth, solidarity, and precision of scientific research. But professional group attachment derived from motivational and emotional conditions has given research its structure. In scientific societies the appreciation of common aims and the process of professional identification evolve and render substantial feelings of aspiration, unison, and loyalty. Knit together by meetings and periodicals of such organizations, scientists have become associated with the group symbols, values, and leaders. They thus share the influence of their professional societies, and see in a clear light the importance of human relations and scientific cooperation. They are aided toward an experience of success in self- and joint-expression. Professional societies enable the transmission of news and ideas; they strengthen the bonds among scientists and, through them, among institutions and industries. I t is only by collaboratioii that scientists find full gratification. Many research directors have been advanced to posts in top industrial management because of their superiority in promoting cooperation with others through their knowledge of scientific and technologic objectives and of professional personnel. The training of an applied scientist can provide a sound basis for managemental responsibilities. With administrative attributes and experience he can become well qualified for a position of leadership. Inquiry has revealed that some fifty large companies of our nation have scientists or engineers in high executive posts. In attacking a problem entrusted to him a researchist first.decides what he ought to know, then what he ought to do. In research thorough study and reflection precede inspiration and its application by experimental methods. The problem may not be solvable even with the highest competence and perseverance and with the best of support and facilities. Certainly it cannot he rightly contended that science is able to ex~laine v e n of nature. The inexplicable; however, can often be recognized well in advance of experimentation. I t needs constantly to be borne in mind, of course, that some great contributions have come from scientists who refused to regard certain phenomena as incapable of explanation. The existing scientific knowledge and its correct interpretation usually display much in a cal-
culation of the satisfying nature and end of a research. Scientific investigation is svstematic and its findings are dependent upon antecedknt conditions, are links in the chain of planned research. Research is generally undertaken that has better argumentsproducibleforit than can be brought against it. For success this research depends upon gaining new data and upon solving unknown experimental factors. Seldom is it a gamble owing to the preliminary examination of the problem. In planning investigational projects, scientific scrutiny and research skill can almost always eliminate serious fortuity, although the probable occurrence of unforeseeable bypaths or outcroppings of research and also the possibility of encountering irregularities in phenomena, especially on a large problem, must be kept in mind in the midst of designed effort.? If an irregularity is met with in research it is traced to its cause. In researches in pure science elements of chance are not reckoned in the same manner as they are in investigations in applied science because pure scientists have personal freedom in selecting or accepting problems for study. Their minds, too, are generally on more fundamental and more long-term goals. In industrial research, management likes to see advantages and good prospects in all expenditures; but companies that possess a realistic concept of science and its research recognize the places of ingenuity, contrivance, foresight, and risk in their essential investigational work. I t has heenestimated that approximately 15 per cent of all industrial researches are unsuccessful immediately, largely for economic reasons. This figure takes no account of novel facts of possible future utility acquired in the -programs nor of the value of negation. -
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THE SCOPE OF INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH
Industrial research seeks to provide adequate depth of technologic penetration and to facilitate the translation into practice of the results of laboratory and plant investigations, with due regard to management, health, engineering, and economics. Research for users of products is being carried on extensively along side of producer research. I t is realized that the best consumer goods as to function and quality can come only from companies that reach the highest standards of scientific excellence. Every discovery in industrial research opens up new lines of thought, discloses new avenues of investigation, expedites the maturing of technology. Research of the past has many omissions, and a function of today's research is to avoid the repetition of such oversights as well as the occurrence of errors of any kind. Large problems have often resisted solution until the requisite team of collaborating specialists could he set in action with the right facilities. zThe discovery of things unsought is known as serendipity (WALPOLE, HO~CE "Letters , to Horace Mann," 1754, CCLI). Serendippors have the "gift" or luck of finding information by mere dipping or by "accidental sagacity" (N. Y. Times Sat. Rev., April 29, 1905, p. 282). In the research of scientists it is presumable that they have the ability to see at every time what is relevant and significant,,whether or not all the perceptions are aimed at in the work.
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The grafting of industrial research on to the traditional trades has had difficulties arising from the different mental disdplines of science and craft. But gradually numerous small tool and machine tool manufacturers, encouraged by the powerful science of metals, have incepted investigational activities. These tools are essential, not only for producing consumer goods, but also for maintaining big industries such as agriculture and transportation. Industrial life in general has given a sense of nkgency to research projects associated with workshop equipment and methods, physical technology and product.ion engineering, and the health of worker^.^ Research has yielded a system of approach to the problems of design of mechanical equipment that takes into consideration human factors as well as mechanical requirements. Many data are securable from the biological sciences and industrial hygiene that can be applied to direct engineering employment in machine design, in improving mechanical devices and processes, and in bettering building materials and constmction. Then, too, there are many branches of manufacture that have been founded on research and live by research. The electronics, pet,roleum, synthetic organic chemicals, synthetic mbber, and plastics industries are illustrations. Instmmentation is extending rapidly in the control of production processes as the joint result of advances in physical science and the ever-increasing needs of technology. Industrial research copes with technologic exigencies as discerned a t present. As to future contingencies, factors of today may on another day be absent and, when they are, the re'sult will differ from what it is now. Technology raises questions; industrial research answers them as xvf~11as it can. Thus science has helped almost every phase of manufacturing. Like the manufacturers, industrial research has had to adjust to the never-ending process of technologic change. The development of technology, on the other hand, is attributable to the plasticity of the professional fields wherein the contributing researches are carried on, to the expression of scientists' efforts to apprehend technologic influence and the importance of creativity for the industries. Most conspicuous is the speed at which research leads to discoveries and then to inventions. In the industrial research of today management has gained a technique of invention that assures technologic advancement. The outstanding incentive in all scientific research is that the work accomplished will endure as a part of our culture. Research for the industries is growing in its understanding of scientists in their relationship to other departments and employees, in its appreciation of the value of collaborative laboratory direction. Well conceived and taught, a university offering in industrial management would therefore be helpful to graduate students of science aspiring to careers in industrial research. Better still, universities that are strong reMOMAHON,JOHN F., "What's happening in industrial health,"Aduanced Mamgement, l3,154(December, 1948).
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search centers and also have schools of business administration should provide graduate courses in research management. In indoctrinating men of science in industrial research in companies they should be given a comprehension of the motives and philosophy of the business and an understanding of the management and of the need for maintaining sympathetic and cooperative viewpoints and morale. In their orientation they should likewise learn the history and general technology of their employers. Special reading kits aid in this process, which is much broader than can be effectedthrough the medium of the general employee guide- or handbook. Industrial researchists should have the knomledge and interest to serve as instructive escorts for company guests, especially professional visitors, as speakers before community groups, and as all-round promoters of good will and dependable information. Research changes with changes in conditions. There is in fact nothing fixed or static about research. I t is fluid and under a new set of conditions has often displayed new possibilities. Research has so progressed that every sizable technologic problem is an augury of something more effective or otherwise superior in the way of production. And the greater the problem, the bigger the change portended by the inception of research on it. Research therefore marks transitions in industrial life. Today is the outcome of yesterday's research and invention; and one can perceive the future unrolling in the technology of the present, although we know but little regarding the study of tomorrow, regarding how to look forward. A research executive can largely only try to scent what will be taking place in his domain a year or so hence. The future welfare of technology cannot be predicted without full attention to the subjective factors. Persons and not things bring about progress, notwithstanding the importance of such objective factors as resources and climate. Industrial scientists have by no means neglected planning, but do need to investigate future trends systematically. The cultivation of this field is necessary for an adequate attack upon the problems derived from social change, and in research and invention we have two useful keys to the future.' Industrial research should be a dependable provision for future expansion and a reliable insurance against obsolescence of product or market. A product continually becomes obsolete and should have a closely calculated life. History makes few if any repetitions in an era of technologic change; science has a large area of ostensible unpredictableness to e x p l ~ r e . To ~ be satisfied with the progress of history and science is to be uninterested in their development, in the ways they are changing. RESEARCHISTS AND RESEARCH MANAGERS
Several circumstances besides the influences of two OGBURN,W. F., Public Affairs Pamphlet No. 25, 1946. (On theilluminating effect of inventionson the worldof tomorrow.) HAMOR,W. A., "How well can management predict," Advanced Manogemat, 12,159 (December, 1947).
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JANUARY, 1950
world wars have stimulated the great growth of industrial research in the United States. Much of the American industrial domain developed after it had become generally clear that the forward movement of technology was dependent on the application of scientific knowledge. The definite cleavage between pure research and industrial research took place a t the inception of that era, forty years ago. The success of industrial research under the aegis of the university, as demonstrated by Robert Kennedy Duncan: gave deepseated impetus to this research in general and to its application and organization in technology in particular. When American industries started on their rapid expansion academic scientists, sympathetic toward technology, were in demand from the beginning. I n consequence close contact and mutual appreciation were eatablished between industrialists and applied scientists in universities. Courses in engineering and industrial chemistry and also the consulting work of faculty members and the setting up of fellowships all encouraged these advantageous relations. Many young men specializing in science, following the lead of engineers, became desirous of securing industrial positions; and as they succeeded in doing so and subsequently obtained wider opportunities and responsibilities, they in turn broadened the future scope for those with similar training who came on afterward. The effect has been cumulative, and both technology and education have benefited to a high degree from the gradually acquired prestige of science in industrial management. The mighty sway of industrial science and research will become more inclusive, more generative, with the further availability of suitably trained men having the right qualities. Universities are trying to evolve better research scientists, for the destinies of education, science, and technology are interwoven closely by basic verities and values. Graduate students in the sciences should not only gain a good howledge of facts and be conversant with fundamental theories, but they should he familiar with the limitations of what we now know and be inspired with professional enthusiasm and an appreciation of subjects outside their own fields of specialization. It seems to dominant industrial research directors that actual graduate instruction is less important than the proper choice of teachers and of students. There has been a shortage of competent research men, and therefore, in many laboratories, projects have been fitted t o the personnel available or partially trained youngsters have been getting occasions for performance not suggested by their expected ability. Over the next ten years there will be needed about twice as many scientists and engineers as were required annually in the prewar decade. There is no doubt about the want of the industries and of the government for more and better research scientists and for men who combine investigational skill with administrative qualifications. Over
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400 companies of our country are contributing to the solution of this problem by helping more than 2000 young persons to gain collegiate training a t a cost of upward of $10 million, thereby stockpiling skill for the future as well as advancing human relations.? And many of these students will certainly enter the realm of scientific research. There is a very large amount of knowledge that has not been put to use and much more remains to be disclosed. Great opportunities for ambitious scientists lie in executive work. In industrial research administration it is only where the reciprocal responsibilities of the investigatory staff and management are combined side by side that a true concept of them emerges. Researchists and executives of a laboratory are members of a social organization, and their principal determination should he how best to relate themselves to the social structure within which they are employed. The whole laboratory group presents a continuing study of the adjustment of professional personalities to each other and to a common cause. As elsewhere in a company, the management of course must determine how best to choose and use hortative and persuasive techniques in supervising a team of persons. One of the lacks in the research area is the aid of psychology to assist executives in the more effectual use of their ability by reaching more adequate emotional stability and control, and by adding insight into their own behavior and that of persons with whom they have professional contact, embracing applicants as well as employees. Then there is the help that can be had from sociology, which is affording greater and greater knowledge of the dependably typical behavior and thought patterns of social groups and of society a t large through opinion surveys, consumer and employee tests, and other procedure^.^ Industrial products are carriers of social value. Research managers naturally have personality problems and conflicts both as individuals and in their iuterpersonal relations. It may he that the management has not learned to enjoy teamwork well enough even a t the executive stage. There may be an inadequate contact with the research staff,a deficiency of collective esteem, a resistance to the value of sessions with confreres in planning and coordination. Opportunities may not be carefully connected to obligations. Ways of combating tension may be insufficient. I n research there is a strictly professional group, and the management should be particularly attentive to environment, conditions of work, morale, and due recognition of accomplishment^.^ A status system constantly has functions of high value. Status has reference not only to professional place in the chain of communication but also to the expected patterns of behavior or roles and the different titles, rewards. and svmbols associated with ~osition. The ' HOWARD, R. W., Nation's Business, 37,43 (June, 1949).
HAMOR,W. A,, Advanced Management, 12, 163 (December, 1947). a HAMOR, W. A,, Advanced Management, 11, 132 (December, WEIDLEIN,E.R.,ANDW.A.HAMOR, "Glanee~atIndustrialRe- 1946). Human relations in research institution management are search," 1936, Chapters 2 and 3; also "Science in Action," 1931, diiicussed at length and in the main the considerations are applipp. 39 and 57. cable to laboratories of companies.
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achievement of status in research is a personal incentive of vower.
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various zones of companies." In active human relations scientists learn to speak the lay language everyone can understand. OWING SUBSTANCE INDUSTRIAL The director of an extensive industrial research lab* MANAGEMENT ratorv should see all the timber instead of solelv the Industrial research management is being synthesized trees-in his departmentshould be a generalist in his out of principles followed in the direction of academic thinking and doing who can thereby effect the identifiinvestigation plus pertinent procedures of industrial cation, with him and the company, of his staff of spemanagement. Its texture is being gradually formed un- cialists and assistants. Like every group leader he must der the pressure of incumbent duties and experiential possess and enjoy in common the interests and values of truths. It does not possess a generally applicable orga- all-he must have the full character of membership. non, although large industrial research laboratories are By his generalistic superiority, which must never obconstituted and operated upon systems that bring out scure this membership, he must own the professional something more than a managemental analogy among and personal qualities held in high regard by his staff them. The motives and methods of scientists are simi- members, who are then happy to be associated with him lar and certain necessities determining their work gov- as a prominent man. Scientists always desire as leadern them in common in all spacious industrial estab- ers good executives who will give them voices in manlishments. Uneven growth has occurred in industrial agement, who will encourage self-reliance and produce research management by scientists learning adminis- confidence among them, thereby nurturing coefficiency. tration by association in a managed group and not by The knowledge of ability, professional status, and unique organizational position by an industrial research education. In being groomed for managemental posts in indus- laboratory may conduce to self-dependence. It seems trial research laboratories scientists could well have the that where ideas are generated there is the connection of advantage of the special intense courses in management self-determination. But such a laboratory that is selfthat are being offered to select groups of industrial em- sufficient has inexperience in management, for the power ployees by schools of business administration. The be- of research can always be increased by external imstowal of such opportunities by companies should not be pulses. Therefore the industrial research director confmed to men who are favored for production or sales. should look everywhere, in his company and outside, for Scientists of promise in research management should facts and principles that would contribute to the invesalso have by rotation and other techniques thorough de- tigational nutrition of his staff. He should extract from velopment of the perception, initiative, and judgment to all procurable managemental schemata ideas that would be exercised in the moral, social, professional, and busi- benefit his co-workers, would be liked by them. He ness work of laboratory life. They should be given op- should be conscious of himself as a subject of obsewaportunities to acquire insights into themselves and other tion to others in the company; he should combat too employees. The relatively small literature of research much inwardness. He should become aware of defects management teems with inadequacies. The big litera- in his management, which might often be mended by ture of industrid management, whose classics should be learning about how other parts of the organization or in the comprehensive laboratory library, has the width other laboratories are run. and strength that, by surely gained knowledge thereof A research laboratory well associated withother divithat is useful, an industrial research executive finds it sions of a company is never disconnected into more or not a crutch but a most helpful walking-stick in his less remote individualism. The processes that coopermanagerial progress. In large laboratories the carefully ate in the evolution of good industrial research manageplanned application of rating scales can assist in distin- ment depend upon the maintenance of external as well guishing executive talent.IO Industrial research man- as internal equilibrium and adjustment. Industrial reagement should strive to raise its knowledge by ana- search management should not be wrapped up in itself, lytical surveys, including special attitude studies, should never be self-complacent. Any want of efficacy which have shown that they enable the collection and in the examination of managemental problems by inselection of relevant facts for the definitionof the best dustrial research directors collectively could often be pattern to follow in human relations in and through remedied by drawing upon the abundance of information available from specialists in other branches of into CLEETON, G . V., Persmnel, 23,321 (1947). Merit rating of dustrial administration. Just as rnernbers of a laborathis scope is treated here. llOnuncoveringandevaluatingemployeeattitudes see WORTHY, tory would find of value addresses by personnel, proJ. c.,personnel Series NO. 113, American Management Associa- duction, and marketing officers of their company, 80 tion. 1947, OD. 13-22. The criteria which can he detected in at- would industrial research directors gain assistance a t titudes ari-dealt with by SEERIP,MUZAFER, AND HADLEY CAN- group meetings from talks by and the exchange of execTRIL,Psychological Review,52, 295. Social attitudes and iden- utive experience with different managemental experts. tifications are explained in SEERIF,M., AND H. CANTRIL, "The BY SO peering into the shadows of industrial research ~ ~ ~see ~ talso ~ ,MURCHISON, " Psychology of ~ g o - I n v ~ l ~1947. management, many of the obscurities would pass away. CARL,"A Hsndhook of Social Psychology," 1935, Chap. 17.
