82 



National Resources Planning Board 



couraging such cooperative exrliaiige of information, 

 while only 7 recognized that collaborulion was essential 

 because of interlocking technology. Because the small 

 company tends to carve out for itself a unique technical 

 position, the engineering work of 11 such companies 

 has become more highly specialized, while 19 companies 

 are faced by an increasingly complex art. 



For the most part, the small company as represented 

 by 34 of the 50 companies studied prefer to hire men 

 with broad engineering training, while 5 had occasion 

 to emploj^ scientifically trained experts. Nine other 

 companies, however, look primarily to one of the owners 

 or a chief executive who is of the inventor type or genius 

 for their technical inspiration and developments. On 

 the other hand, 14 companies rely largely for their 

 technical persomiel upon long-service executives, while 

 19 draw much of their technical material from practi- 

 cally trained technicians or trade school graduates. 

 Twenty companies emphasized the importance for 

 their purposes of brmging men up through the ranks 

 with company training, rather than drawing upon the 

 sui)ply of college-trained engineers, which is the resource 

 of technical personnel for 1 1 other companies. Thirteen 

 companies make a specific point of periodically brmging 

 in new blood in the form of graduates fresh from 

 engineering colleges. 



Dependence Upon Outside 

 Research Agencies 



In spite of the fact that the small company recognizes 

 the importance of research to the extent of training 

 its own specialists or hiring engineering talent, the near- 

 term objectives of all their research activities preclude 

 their being totalh" self-sufficient. Naturally, the neces- 

 sity for being unique in its field demands that the small 

 company be self-sufficient in the matter of immediate 

 product or process developments. However, it is for 

 the longer-range type of development, anticipating the 

 trend in the art or creating new knowledge, that these 

 companies must turn to outside research activities.^ 

 Onl3- 15 companies have found it advisable to adopt 

 such long-term policies with regard to outside research. 



Of the 22 companies which in supplemonling tlieir 

 research efforts turn to the ou(si(l(\ 1 1 liav(> acquired 

 inventions from individuals, while in 12 instances 

 inventions or technical developincnts wore taken over 

 from the companies of origin. In 3 cases new develop- 

 ments were acquired from teclmical institutions. For 

 the most part, companies prefer to buy outright such 

 developments, although to clarify the art or to obviate 

 the duplication of research, 9 companies were willing 

 to take licenses. Not infrequently the research staff 

 may be regarded as a sieve for ideas Ijroiight in by 



> Industrial research laboratories of the United States. liuUetin I0(. 7lh cdltian. 

 Washington, D. C, National Research Council (IMO). 



others, and as such it enables the company to pay most 

 attention to the more promising ideas. 



Since the small company cannot for the most part 

 devote time to advancing the art or acquiring technical 

 knowledge for itself, it not infrequently turns to es- 

 tablished research agencies or technical institutions. 

 Only 8 were in such specialized fields as to have no 

 occasion to do so; their fields were considered so uniquely 

 their own that they knew them better than any agency 

 to which they could turn. Wliile 6 companies employed 

 the services of an expert consultant, 13 made inter- 

 mittent use of private laboratories. Twenty-four of 

 the small companies in our sample had had recourse to 

 the faculty and laboratories of engineering colleges, 

 whereas 3 had turned to research foundations. The 

 cooperative research carried on by trade associations 

 had proved to be a resource for 1 1 companies where 

 processing technique or technical problems common to 

 an industry predominate. One company made use of 

 governmental research activities through the National 

 Bureau of Standards. 



The nse by small companies of the afore-mentioned 

 research agencies appears to be more of the nature of 

 intermittent consultation as evidenced by the experience 

 of 19 companies. Twelve companies have periodically 

 employed experts on retainer, while 10 have sponsored 

 specific projects on a fee basis. Only 2 have financed 

 longer-term fellowships through research foundations. 



Professional-society activity proved to be a particular 

 resource for the technical personnel of 19 companies 

 whose participation the management activeh' encour- 

 aged. It is significant that the more self-reliant com- 

 panies made a particular point of their dependence on 

 following closely the current literature coming from the 

 technical press. 



Benefits from Cooperative 

 Research Activities 



A particular resource to the small company is the 

 exchange of technical information and the accumulation 

 of new ideas that comes through the informal contacts 

 between engineers in their technical work or in the 

 direct line of business. Twenty-seven companies spoke 

 particularly of the technical activities that grew out of 

 their relations with customers as a partictdar resource 

 fornewdevelopments. Similarly S concerns had derived 

 benefits in working out teclmical problems with 

 their dealers. Thirteen companies had found a partic- 

 ular resource in the research activities of noncompeti- 

 tors in allied fields, wherebj' they could adopt new 

 developments to supplement their own technical 

 activities and avoid the unnecessary duplication of 

 research. On the other hand, 9 companies readily 

 availed themselves of the opportunity to visit about 

 through the plants of noncompetitors to keep them- 



