The Management of Scientific Manpower

Borje O. Saxberg and John W. Slocum, Jr.
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Borje O. Saxberg: University of Washington
John W. Slocum, Jr.: Pennsylvania State University

Management Science, 1968, vol. 14, issue 8, B473-B489

Abstract: Management control of professional employees such as engineers and scientists leads to a state of conflict in the business organization. To management, the control of human resources implies the limiting of individualistic behavior of subordinates in order to realize the objectives of the firm. In contrast, the industrial scientist, even as a subordinate in an organizational hierarchy, believes that control as applied to him should allow for autonomy and independence as attributes of professionalism in his work environment. In this paper we examine various approaches to managerial control-- traditional, bureaucratic, cybernetic, and behavioral--and their application to the engineer-scientist as the carrier of professional values in the work culture. A successful manager in this environment must create a work climate without emphasis on formal mechanisms of control and direction. Recent research indicates that to this effect optimum supervisory behavior involves neither excessive direction nor autonomy but frequent interaction with industrial scientists as participants in decision making. We conclude that management of industrial scientists in relation to their professional values should take place within the networks of informal organizational relationships. It involves the application of normative managerial control based upon the exercise of self-imposed sanctions by the industrial scientists themselves, and of colleague authority by their managers relying on communication and information for compliance with organization's objectives and goals.

Date: 1968
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