BASIC RESEARCH IN INDUSTRIAL LABORATORIES 



special and remote tower, on the contrary. Research, develop- 

 ment, and development planning all have much to gain from 

 close physical proximity, but one may not be responsible to the 

 other if each is to do its very special and demanding work. 



It is sometimes said that formal organization and research 

 are not compatible. I do not agree with this. Orderliness in rela- 

 tions among people, smoothness in function, and a free flow if 

 ideas within a conceptual framework are helped, not hindered, 

 by a charting of function and responsibility. But the organiza- 

 tion chart must not become master, and organizational position 

 must not be confused with scientific stature. 



A contributing scientist should be made to feel no need 

 for organizational tail feathers in order to attain personal satis- 

 faction and financial reward commensurate with his contribu- 

 tion. Within an industrial laboratory every effort must be made 

 to insure that salary bears a direct relationship to performance, 

 and that the compensation of professional scientists is competi- 

 tive with other related opportunities. But salary alone, however 

 important and honorable and desirable, cannot be made to 

 substitute for long for other factors which, in sum, constitute 

 a good research environment. 



With respect to size, it is sometimes argued that if a re- 

 search and development organization is large, certain psycho- 

 logical factors tend greatly to diminish its effectiveness. It is 

 alleged, for example, that large groups overdo engineering and 

 research in particular lines: that they become organizationally 

 rigid; that they create large, deep ruts; and that they lack the 

 flexibility to keep up with the latest discoveries in outside or- 

 ganizations. In a broad sense, diseases of this sort can appear 

 in anv larae organization, whether or not it is devoted to re- 

 search, and they are the subject of considerable concern among 

 contemporary thinkers. 



The cure, at least for research and development organiza- 



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