whyte 1986 on the uses of social science research

8/2/2019 Whyte 1986 on the Uses of Social Science Research

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On the Uses of Social Science ResearchAuthor(s): William Foote WhyteReviewed work(s):Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Aug., 1986), pp. 555-563Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2095587 .

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ON THE USES OF SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH*WILLIAM FOOTE WHYTE

Cornell University

To provide a basis for judgment on federal supportfor social science research,in 1985 a task force ofthe House Science and Technology Committeedirected the Congressional Research Service toreport on the extent to which such researchhasproven to be of practical value. The CRS draftreport seemed to me to provide a very weak casefor such support.When David Jenness, Executive Director ofCOSSA, brought this report to my attention, Irushed to provide him with further ammunition.An article that appears n anacademic ournal ongafter a Congressional Committee has asked forinformation and ideas will have no influence onCongress, but the problems of demonstratingtopolicy makers (and to ourselves) the practicalutility of social research will remain with us formany years to come.I amnot undertaking broadandgeneralreviewof the practicalcontributionsof social research. Ilimit myself to lines of researchwhich I know best.I have been involved in organizational esearch inindustry since 1943 in the U.S., Latin America,and Spain. From 1964 to 1983 I was involved inagricultural and rural development research inLatin America. Throughout my professional ca-reer, I have beenoperating rom a secure academicbase. Those whose primaryexperiencehas been inprivate consultingor employment in other organi-zations will, of course, have other perspectives,which I hope they will contribute to furtherdiscussion.I begin by summarizingthe thesis of the CRSreportand adding my own comments. I then raiseadditionalpoints that help to explain the currentweak position of applied social research. Finally, Iprovide examples of researchprojects or programsthat have been overcoming these limitations. Sincethe success stories are drawn from my ownexperienceand from that of colleagues who sharesome of my own interests,whatfollows may seemself-serving. I could overcome this impressionbyreporting my own numerous failures to linkresearch with action, but such coverage wouldrequire many more pages and would deflect mefrom the main point of this article: thatbehavioralscientists are achieving some success in appliedresearch.I also arguefor broadening he CRS conceptionof potential users of social science research. The

* Please addressall correspondence o William FooteWhyte, New York State School of Industrialand LaborRelations,CornellUniversity, thaca,NewYork14851-0952.

Congressional Research Service has made itsevaluation primarily in terms of the extent andperceived value of the use of research by thefederal government. This is too narrow a view.Social science research is increasingly used inpolicy makingand programplanning by state andlocal governments, by private companies andunions, and by citizens' organizations. In agovernment established to serve the generalwelfare, it does not make sense to evaluateresearch only in terms of how it contributesdirectly to the government hat supports t.

THE CRS CRITIQUEAs David Jenness points out (COSSA memoran-dum, September 20, 1985), the CRS mainargument or federalsupportof basic social scienceresearch is the "serendipity rationale"-at thetime the research s done, the researchershave noidea how it might be used, butsome day somebodyfinds something that can be applied somewhere.This also links with the enlightenmentargument:social science research does not lead directly topolicy decisions but broadens he understanding fpolicy makersand thereforemakes some positivecontribution.It is comfortingto believe this untilone recognizes that some works of fiction alsooffer enlightenment.CRS finds thatthe social sciences have contrib-uted little to the planningof governmentpolicies oractions and thereforequestionsthe value of federalsupport or suchresearch. CRS does find that therehas been substantial government utilization ofprogram valuationresearch.This sounds construc-tive until we recognize that it often brings theresearchersinto an adversarial relationship withpolicy makers. When we studya policy or programwith which key agency officials have been stronglyidentified, we find that describing any negativeaspects is likely to provoke opposition to ourresearch. To be sure, evolution research willcontinue to provide opportunities for appliedsociologists, but we should not have to limit ourappliedwork to this one type alone.

EXPANDING THE CRS CRITIQUEBefore rushingto the defense, we should considercertainadditionalweaknesses of social researchnotdealt with at all, or dealt with inadequately n theCRS report.

American Sociological Review, 1986, Vol. 51 (August:555-563) 555


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556 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWFew problemsof concern to government,privateagencies, or community organizations can besolved on the basis of research that is narrowlyconfinedwithin a single discipline, yet most socialscience research has been discipline bound. Weneed to broaden the base of our studies by

developing interdisciplinary projects and pro-grams.In general, social scientists have refrained romlinking research directly with action. We havebeen afraid that our involvement in action willcontaminatethe scientific basis of our research.Therefore, we have remained on the sidelines,playing the role of professionalexperts who couldtell people what to do if only we were asked.In basing our plans for the next researchprojecton our understanding f the state of knowledge asrepresentedn the academic iterature, oo often wehave been far behindjournalists and politicians inrecognizingemerging trendsthatshould be provid-ing the focus for studies that will have real utilityin policy making.Althoughthese crtiticismsapply to much socialresearch, they do not apply to a rapidlyincreasingnumber of projects and programsthat link socialresearch closely with action and policy making. Iillustratewith cases from the field.FROM RESEARCHTO ACTIONINORGANIZATIONALBEHAVIORResearch in what was earlier called "HumanRelations in Industry"and now is more generallyknown as "Organizational Behavior" becameestablished as a legitimate field of social researchin the United States in the 1940s. The books ofleading U.S. organizational researchers becamewell known in the academic world but receivedvery little attention from U.S. management. Incontrast, while academic work was slower todevelop and was less strongly supported inuniversitiesabroad,the works of U.S. behavioralscientistswere translatedand widely read in othercountries.Having lost World War II, the Japaneserecognizedthat theirold ways of doing things werenot working. As in past centuries, they looked toothercountries or new experiencesand new ideas.The U.S. humanrelations iteraturewas widely readin Japan.This led to what sociologist Robert Colecalls "a creative misunderstanding" (personalcommunication).The Japaneseassumed that par-ticipative managementdepicted favorably in aca-demic writings actually represented what waspracticedin the leading U.S. companies. There-fore, if the Japanese were to compete with theUnited States, they would have to develop theirown patterns of participative management andworkerparticipation.While participativemanage-ment got little more than lip service in U.S.managementcircles, the Japanese were making

profoundchanges in theirsocial andorganizationalstructuresandpractices.It is only in the last decade or so, shocked byincreasingindustrialcompetition, especially fromJapan, that U.S. managers have opened theirminds to the need to make basic changes inmanagerialeadershipandlaborrelations.They arenow listening to behavioralscientists, as well aslooking around the world for new and differentorganizationalmodels.The results of these changes are most dramaticin the automotive ndustry.The academic iteraturedid not persuadeindustrial eaders of the need tomake basic changes. However, in deciding thenature and extent of needed change, they reachedout to the organizational esearchers.When Charles Walker and Robert Guest weredoing researchfor TheMan on the AssemblyLine(1952), by a happy chance, one of the men theyinterviewedwas Don Ephlin, then a skilledworkerin the Framingham,Massachusetts,plant. TodayEphlin is UAW Vice President for the GeneralMotors Division; with his counterpartin GM,Ephlin provided the leadership for the highlyinnovative organizational design of the Saturnplant, to be built in Tennessee. In the early 1970swhen he andUAW Vice President rvingBluestonewere persuadingFord and GM to work with theunion on employee involvement or quality ofworking life programs, Ephlin frequently citedevidence for the dehumanizing nature of theautomotive assembly line from The Man on theAssemblyLine. He has said that this book providedan essential intellectual foundation for the workre-designand workerparticipation rograms ubse-quentlydeveloped in the industry.It was not international ompetitionthatmovedVolvo, beginningin the early 1970s, towardmajorchanges. Under conditions of full employment,Volvo could not hire or keep enough Swedes toman the assembly lines and became increasinglyindependenton foreign workers. This suggestedtoPresident Pehr Gylenhammer that there wassomethingwrongwith workingconditions, and heasked his Medical Director to look into theproblem. As the doctor later reported (Guest,1985),

I searchedout manysources of information rommedical journals and particularly from thepsychiatric iteraturewithout too much success.But when I came upon your book, it was arevelation. It not only identified the basicproblems,but it pointed the way to solutions.Guest adds, "I am certain that our study wasonly one amongmanyothersources of informationthat influenced Volvo's decision." Nevertheless,in demonstrating ust which aspects of assemblyline work were especially tension producinganddehumanizing, the study provided Volvo withessential evidence to guide one of the most


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ON THE USES OF SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH 557impressive programsof work re-design of modernhistory.Labor and management in the U.S. did notsimply call on organizational researchersto tellthem what to do. They conducted heir own studiesand field trips.

Joint labor and managementteams made visitsto the Japanese auto companies and to Volvo andSaab-Scaniain Sweden to observe and talk withtheircounterparts.To a considerableextent, thesevisits were guided by the prior research ofbehavioralscientists. For example, Michael Mac-coby (1985) had done importantwork in guidingan experimentalproject in HarmonIndustries,anauto partscompany in Bolivar, Tennessee, and heaccompanied he U.S. industry-labortudyteam toSweden to help interpretwhat they learned there.Robert Cole did his doctoral thesis research(Cole, 1980) as a participantobserverin Japaneseauto factories. He has been called upon frequentlyto consult with U.S. companies and unionsregarding he implicationsof the Japaneseexperi-ence. With a Japanesesocial scientist, he has beenco-directorof a comparativestudy of technologyandtechnological changein the U.S. andJapaneseauto industries. This has been jointly financed byU.S. andJapaneseautocompanies,with the activeparticipation f the unions.A majorprogram hat more directlyinvolves thefederal government has been developing in theshippingand shipbuilding ndustries. The intellec-tual origins of this programcan be traced backseveral decades to the seminal contributionsofbehavioralscientists.The pioneering work was done by Eric Trist, aBritishsocial psychologist, who workedat the timein London with the Tavistock Instituteof HumanRelations. (In recentyears he has been workinginU.S. and Canadianuniversities.)Trist was the firstto articulatea new research ramework hatfocusedon what he called socio-technical systems (Trist,1981). His approachwas based upon a simple andyet fundamental dea: that it was fruitless to keeptechnology and human relations in separateintellectual boxes; researchers and practitionershad to learn to think in ways that would enablethemto conceptualizethe interrelations f technol-ogy and organizationalbehavior.Trist's work stimulated many others. In theshipping and shipbuildingindustries, the pioneerwas Norwegiansocial psychologist, the late EinarThorsrud(1977). He became involved at a timewhen the leaders of shipping companies wererecognizing that Norway would lose its strongposition in the maritime industry, through thecompetition of companies elsewhere that paidmuch lower wages, unless Norway made basictechnological ndhumanresource hanges.Thorsrudand his colleagues workedclosely with leaders oflabor and management to devise a researchprogramwhich involved the physical re-designof

the ship and a reduction of social and statusdifferencesbetween the deck and the engine roomcrews and between officers and seamen. Alongwith these physical and social changes came aprogram to reduce sharply the number of menrequiredto man a large merchantship, not onlythroughnew technology, but throughthe breakingdown of traditional craft boundaries and thedevelopmentof multi-skilledseamen and officers.As leaders in shipping and shipbuildingrecog-nized that the U.S. was in danger of beingeliminated from these two important industriesthrough oreigncompetition,the MaritimeAdmin-istrationrespondedto industry'scalls for help byaskingthe National ResearchCouncil to advise onthe developmentof a programof appliedresearch.Out of this assignmentto NRC developed a $4million National ShipbuildingResearchprogram,jointly sponsoredby the Navy and the MaritimeAdministration.The programset up ten panels,composedof laborandmanagementpeople in eachcase, with a researchprofessionalto organizeandguide the activities of each panel. This program scurrentlyspending$400,000 a year to support heHumanResourcesInnovationPanel, whose projectmanager from the outset has been MichaelGaffney. He moved to CornellUniversityin 1984to work with and through Programsfor Employ-ment andWorkplaceSystems (PEWS)of the NewYork State School of Industrial and LaborRelations. Gaffneyreceiveda bachelor'sdegree inmarinescience and a Ph.D. in anthropology,andhe has a pilot's license.Gaffney has been organizingand guiding visitsof joint labor-management eams to shipyardsinJapanand WesternEuropeand has been responsi-ble for writing reports that have been widelycirculatedwithin the industry.The panel's objec-tives are to stimulateand guide action research norganizational hange.An NRC committee,workingwith the MaritimeAdministration,has allocated $500,000 a year tojoint labor-management action research in theshipping ndustry.The program s designedto helpcompanies and unions reduce ship personnel tomeet foreign competition. American PresidentLines, the major U.S. carrier in the Pacific, isworking with Gaffney to develop its own actionresearchprogram n collaborationwith the unions.In suchprojects,it is often impossibleto pointtoa particular idea that was contributed by aparticular social scientist. The social scientistshave not been playing the conventionalrole of theprofessionalexpert who stands aside and submitshis ideas at the same time as he writes researchreports, so as to claim academic ownership. Thesocial scientistshave learned romthe practitionersin managementand labor, just as the practitionerslearnedfrom the social scientists. Furthermore,ntrying to understand and effect organizationalchanges, social scientistshave had to learnenough


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558 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWabout engineering, architecturaldesign, and busi-ness administration o integratetheir contributioninto the researchand development process.Social scientists are being called upon withincreasing frequency by state governments to dopolicy research and provide technical assistancedesigned to aid in the revitalization of U.S.industry.For example, New York GovernorMarioCuomo's 1985 budget included an item for aPEWS projectunder the direction of PeterLazes,who has been involved in participatoryactionresearchwith XeroxCorporation nd theAmalgam-ated Clothing and Textile workers (Lazes andCostanza, 1983). The aims of the project weretwofold:on the one hand, PEWSwas committed odeveloping participatory action research withseveralcompaniesandunions, seekingto strengthenthe competitive position of companies throughcooperativeproblem solving in private ndustry,orthrough employee ownership. PEWS was alsoexpectedto advise the governmentregardingwhatthe state could do to stimulate the developmentofmore efficient organizations,ones which also elicita higher degree of commitment from the employ-ees.In Ohio, GovernorRichard Celeste secured anappropriation of $2 million to support andstimulatehedevelopmentfcooperativenion-manage-ment relations. The governor consulted with NeilHerrickand Michael Maccoby and asked Herrickto draft the first position paper on the stateprogram.A committee composed of social scien-tists was formed to help the Department ofDevelopment judge proposals submitted bylabor-management ommittees and universities.Inboththese cases social science is clearly beingused in statepolicy making.

FROMRESEARCHTO ACTION ONEMPLOYEEOWNERSHIPIn 1970, employee ownership was practicallyunknown and non-existentin the United States. Itis now estimated that close to 7,000 companieshave some form of employee ownership,andmorethan 500 companiesexist in which employees ownthe majority or all of the stock (Rosen et al.,1985).This surge of employee ownership has come inpartin responseto federallegislation that providestax advantages to companies that establish Em-ployee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs). Beyondthe initiallegislative goal of simply broadening hebase of capital ownership, the ESOP vehicle hasalso been used for a varietyof other purposes, suchas financing employee buyouts, saving plants thatwere being shut down, transferring wnership romretiringentrepreneurso the employees, fitting intoa general business development strategy, improv-ing company competitiveness by exchanging pay

concessions for employee stock, and defendingagainsthostile takeovers.Along with the growth of various forms ofemployee ownershiphas come a growingacademicandpopular nterest n workercooperatives, a formof ownershipin which control is fully in the handsof workerson the basis of one worker/onevote forthe boardof directors.Up into the 1970s, organizational behaviorresearchersgave little attention to the question ofownership. In fact, ownership was implicitlytreatedas a constantrather hana variable.In the early 1970s, a small group, at firstcenteredaroundCornellUniversity, became inter-ested in this field. This led to the development ofan academic/activistnetworkwhich linked univer-sity people with communityactivists. We focusedparticularly on cases in which workers andmanagerswere struggling o avoid plantshutdownsby buying the plant. In several cases, we haveworked closely with labor and management inparticipatory ctionresearch(Whyte and Boynton,1983).The EconomicDevelopmentAdministrationwasthe principal federal agency that had beenproviding loan money for employee buyouts toavoid plant shutdowns.The EDA had been actingsimply on an ad hoc basis, responding tocommunity crises when nothing else seemed towork. It occurredto us that it would be useful toseek federal legislation to supportand guide suchfurtherefforts.Several of us in this academic/activistnetwork,working particularly with staff members andCongressmen Peter H. Kostmayer(Pennsylvania)and MatthewF. McHugh and Stanley N. Lundine(New York) helped draft the Voluntary JobPreservation and Community Stabilization Act,which was introduced n the House of Representa-tives on March 1, 1978 (Whyte and Blasi, 1980).This initiativesoon came to the attentionof CoreyRosen, a staff member of the Senate SmallBusiness Committee. (Rosen, has a Ph.D. ingovernmentfrom Cornell University, but we hadnot met before.)By the time Congress adjourned n October ofthatyear, one of every six members of the Houseof Representativeshadbecome a cosponsor of thisact, and it was getting increasingly favorableattention n the Senate. The bill did not pass, but itdid lead directly to an important piece oflegislation:The Small Business Employee Owner-ship Act, signed by President Carter in July of1980. The bill was draftedby Corey Rosen. TheAct directedthe Small Business Administration ochange its policy so as to authorize loans toEmployee Stock OwnershipTrusts(ESOTsare theprimary legal instrumentfor conversion to em-ployee ownership)on the same basis as loans thatare grantedto any small business.In the late 1970s, we found a rapidlygrowing


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ON THE USES OF SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH 559interest in employee ownership among stategovernments.The first law to support nitiatives inthis direction was enacted in Michigan in 1979.Soon afterward,JamesHouck, directorof the unitto administerthe law, arranged to bring a five-person team for a two-day meeting at Cornell toreview what we had been learningaboutemployeeownership (Houck, 1985). Eleven states with 45percentof the U.S. populationnow have some sortof legislation that supports employee ownership,andseveral states are investingsubstantial undstodevelop this field.There is now a substantial body of publishedresearch on employee ownership in the UnitedStates. The most broadly based study, coveringsurveys and interviews in fifty companies, andreviewing general developments, is presented inthe recent book, Employee Ownership n America(Rosen et al., 1985). Following the 1980 elections,Rosen left the Senate staff and established TheNational Center for Employee Ownership, whichcarries on an impressive programof researchandeducation. NCEO conferences regularly bringtogether university researchers, community activ-ists, and people from labor, management, andgovernment.Research has also been linked to action for thedevelopment of worker cooperatives. Ever sinceBeatrice and Sidney Webb announced theirjudgment that worker cooperatives were not aviable form of organization, it has been generallyassumedthatcooperativeswere merely an imprac-tical utopian scheme. The discovery (first byjournalists and then by social scientists) of theMondragon cooperative complex in the Basqueregion of Spain has provided a dramatic andimpressive refutation of this negative judgment(Oakeshott, 1973; Gutierrez-Johnson nd Whyte,1977; Whyte, 1982). Mondragon has had aphenomenalrecord of success in establishingandmaintainingworkercooperatives n good times andbad. Several of its companies are the majorproducersin their line in Spain, and Mondragoncurrently exports 30 percent of its total output.Now we see the emergence of serious projectsdesigned o utilizetheimplications f theMondragonexperience in GreatBritain, Quebec, Latin Amer-ica, and the United States. In the United States theleading non-profit organizationsthat support thedevelopment of employee ownership and workercooperatives have explicitly adopted certain fea-turesof whatthey call the Mondragonmodel. Thisis the case with the Industrial CooperativeAssociation (ICA) (Somerville, Massachusetts),the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Enterprise(PACE), and two organizations n NorthCarolina:theCenterfor CommunitySelf-Help (Durham)andTwin StreamsEducationalCenter(Chapel Hill).In 1985 Cornell and Mondrag6n began aninter-institutional ollaborativeresearchand teach-ing program. In July, anthropologist Davydd

Greenwoodguided a month-longseminarwith 15personnel officials of the 11 workercooperatives(with 6,000 worker members) of the Ularcogroup. Througha study of the evolution of Ulgor,their first and largest cooperative, they analyzedand made explicit some of the basic elements oftheir organizationalculture:the values they hold,their decision making processes, and the criteriathey use in making decisions. In preparing theirextensive projectreport, which is now being usedin Mondragonto continue the self-study process,they evaluatedandcriticized whathad been writtenabout them by Basques and foreigners, includingthe draftof a book KathleenKing Whyte and I arewriting. During 1986 Greenwood and I workedwith the same group to extend the self-study toUlarco, the unique organization that providesmanagementservices, strategicguidance, and theexchange of resources among the 11 membercooperatives.As we help Mondragonpeople to develop theirown capabilities or applied social research,we areenhancingour own ability to drawfromMondragoncertain lessons that might be applied in othercountries.Those of us engaged in suchresearchwould liketo believe thatemployee ownership n some formscan help us to solve problems of industrialdevelopmentand decline, but this does not meanthat we consider ourselves propagandists. It isimportant o learn what works and what does notwork, and under what circumstances. None of uswould wish to guide people into employeeownership in cases in which the enterprise isprobablydoomed to failure. Therefore, we do notsee a conflict between our personalvalues and thequalityof our research.It is also useful to note that we do not getinvolved in traditional ideological arguments.Support n Congress for employee ownershipspansa wide range, fromthe extremerightto moderatesand liberals. President Reagan, himself, is onrecordas saying thatemployee ownership s a goodthing, and the excellent BritishBroadcastingCom-pany documentaryprogram on "The MondragonExperiment" has been played on the videotapetelevision viewing system in the White House andExecutive Office Building.

AGRICULTURALRESEARCHANDDEVELOPMENTFORTHIRDWORLDNATIONSIn the 1970s, a numberof social scientists came tothe realization hatthe "green revolution"was notsolving the problems of most small farmers indeveloping nations. New high-yielding rice andwheat varieties, especially, had made enormouscontributionso worldfood production,but, except


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560 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWwhere they had access to irrigation, small farmershzA gained little from these scientific advances.Several social scientists became awarethatsomeof our colleagues in plant, animal, and soilsciences had come to the same generalconclusion.Through the Rural Development Committee ofCornell's Center for InternationalStudies, weformed an interdisciplinaryworking group whichconducted five years of discussion meetings insearch of answers that would be more likely tobring small farmers the benefits of advances inscience and technology.As we began to see the main outlines of a newstrategy, the working groupbecame committed towriting a book that would re-interpretpast effortsin agricultural research and development andpresent this new strategy throughcase examplesdrawn from the innovative work of pioneeringsocial and biological scientistsin Asia, Africa, andLatin America. The authorswere two economists,two political scientists, three sociologists, a plantscientist, an animal scientist, a soil scientist, andtwo agricultural ngineers.As various reviewers have noted, Higher-YieldingHuman Systems for Agriculture (Whyteand Boynton, eds, 1983), is not based on aconference report in which specialists in thevariousdisciplines resent ndependentnduncoordin-ated interpretationsof problems and prospects.Because we had been working together, discuss-ing, and criticizingour various approachesover aperiod of years, we were able to integrate n thisbook the knowledge gained from various disci-plines in ways useful to students and policymakers, whatever their disciplinarybackgrounds.Focusing on the innovative work of a smallnumber of biological and social researchers,extension agents, and government administrators,we showed how small farmers were makingprogressas active participants in a new researchand development strategy. That is, we observedthe professionalsmove beyond the optimum andartificialconditions of the conventionalexperimentstationto work with small farmers,and carryoutexperiments n theirown fields. We saw research-ers go beyondthe conventional ormof single-cropspecialization n orderto studythe combinationsofcrops and animals that made up the farming sys-tems the small farmerswere practicing. We sawextension agents and researchers going beyondrelationshipswith individualsto work increasinglywith groups and organizationsof small farmers.Above all, we saw the professionals earningfromthe small farmers,at the sametime thatthe farmerswere learningfrom the professionals. And finallywe saw government administrators truggling tore-orient their bureaucracies o make them moreresponsive to the initiatives of the small farmersand more able to utilize the intellectual contribu-tions of those farmers.It is important o note that the conclusionswere

not based simply upon critiques of past programsand practices. In addition to providing suchcritiques,every point is illustratedby examples ofadvancesmade by creativeresearchers,extension-ists, and agency officials.This book presentsfew ideas thatarecompletelyoriginal. In some cases, we report on the basis ofour own field research, but in most cases theargument s basedon projectreportsandinterviewswith a small number of agricultural cientists andpractitionerswho are putting into practice a newstrategy of agricultural esearch and development.It is important o point out that these cases do notsimply represent diverse and incompatible ap-proachesto the researchanddevelopmentprocess.There are, of course, differences in detail fromproject to project,but the book identifiescommonelements of a promising pattern that is emergingaround the world. At this early stage, we cannotprove scientifically that the new strategy worksbetter thanthose of the past. However, the resultsso far have been promising enough to moveagriculturalofficials increasinglytoward the newstrategy.The growing involvement of social scientists inagricultural esearch and developmentis reflectedin the internationalagriculturalresearch centersaround the world. When IRRI (the InternationalRice Research Institute in the Phillipines) andCIMMYT (the International Maize and WheatImprovement Center in Mexico-the acronymrepresents ts title in Spanish) were establishedinthe 1960s, their programs were confined toresearchersn plant sciences. Economistswere thefirst social scientists to breakinto this networkofexpandingresearchcenters, although in the earlyyears administrators xpected them simply to docost-benefit analyses of new plant varieties incomparisonwith those traditionallygrown, or toprove that agricultural esearchyielded far greatermaterial benefits than its cost. As economistsbecame more involved in particular ield projects,some came to recognize the importance ofunderstandinghe cultureandorganizational ife ofthe farmingcommunity.This opened the door forsocial anthropologistsand sociologists. This trendhas gone farthestin CIP (the InternationalPotatoCenterin Peru) where economist Douglas Hortonworked first as head of the very small EconomicsUnit. As he brought in anthropologists andsociologists to link CIP's plant sciences researchwith a broadrange of the social sciences, CenterDirectorRichardSawyer agreedto a name changeso that CIP now has a Social Sciences Unit. Thesocial scientists at CIP are not simply appendageswith uncertian relations with the main lines ofresearch and development. They have come to beintimately involved with plant scientists in fieldprojects and in the development of researchpolicies.


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ON THE USES OF SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH 561CONCLUSIONSThis is not intendedto be an argumentagainst thesocial and economic benefits that can come from"basic" or "pure" research. In fact, I havedescribedone case of basic research(the assemblyline studies of the 1950s) which yielded importantpracticalbenefits many decades later. WhatI wishto stress is that there are ways to design researchthat both advance science and yield reasonablyforeseeable practicalbenefits.It is strikingthat social researchersare reachingthe same generalconclusions in fields so divergentas industryin highly industrializedcountries andagriculture n developing nations. In conventionalorganizations in both fields we find the sametendency of those in power to grossly underesti-mate the intellectual contribution that could bemade by the powerless if the social systems wererestructured so as to facilitate and utilize thatcontribution. While the conventional view ofworkers or peasants may arise out of thesocial-class positionof the powerful, thatview hasbeen strongly reinforced by studentsof engineer-ing, business administration, and the socialsciences. For industry,the prophetwas FrederickW. Taylor (191 1; see also Copley, 1923), thefather of what came to be known as scientificmanagement, but which is more accurately de-scribed as "technocraticmanagement."In agricul-ture, we have been similarly misled by socialresearchers who defined the problem of ruralpoverty in terms of "resistanceto change." Whatwe now call "the myth of the passive peasant"gave rise to innumerable tudies that attempted odeterminehow the experts could overcome "resis-tance to change" and make the small farmersdowhat was good for them.This generalconclusionpoints to a primesourceof the problemsof low productivity,but it does nottell us how to solve them. It is only a first step torecognize that the intellectual resources andemotional commitments of workers and smallfarmerswill only pay off in increasedproductivityand humansatisfaction f they themselves activelyparticipate n the decision-making process. Parti-cipation comes in various forms, and differentparticipatory ystemsarerequired n differentworksituations. We need to go far beyond saying thatparticipation s a good thing. Social researchersand practitioners n industryand agricultureneedto study and work together to develop newparticipatorysystems. It is that process that isgaining strength among increasing numbers ofpractitioners nd professors..Whether ocial scientistscancontribute o policymaking depends in part upon whether the policymakers are facing problems in which they thinkwe can be of some assistance. If the leadingpractitionersare enjoying great success and havewon high prestige in their organizations and in

society, they arenot inclinedto open theireyes andears to let social scientistspoint out those problemsthat theircurrentmethodsare not solving. In otherwords, ourfailuresto influencepolicy makersmaynot be due simply to the irrelevanceof ourresearchor to our inability to communicate with practi-tioners-though these deficiencies are certainlypresentin some cases.When the U.S. in the post-WorldWar II yearswas known as "the great arsenalof democracy,"why should industrial eaders listen to discordantnotes from academia?In fact, as recentlyas 1968,Jacques Servan-Schreiberpublished a best-seller,TheAmericanChallenge, which arguedthat U.S.managementmethodswere so superior o those ofEurope that U.S. companies were going to takeover the economy of Europe. It was only as U.S.companies began to lose their markets to foreigncompetitionthat the leaders of industryand laborbegan opening their minds to what we mightcontribute.In Sweden the problem was not internationalcompetition but full employment, that made itdifficult for Volvo to man its assembly lines. Itwas the bind in the workplaceitself that precipi-tated organizational ethinking.In the earlyyearsof the "greenrevolution," theplant scientists in charge of the internationalresearchcenterscould well believe thatthe world'sproblems of food production and rural welfarewere being solved by the introductionof newhigh-yielding plant varieties. It was only as itbecame apparento some plantscientiststhatsmallfarmers in general were receiving few of thebenefitsof the "greenrevolution"thatthe doorsofthe centers began to open to social scientists-economists first and then, after some lag, anthro-pologists and sociologists.Progress n appliedsocial researchoften requireseitherinterdisciplinary ollaborationor at least thecommitment of the researcherto search for anddeal with ideas and informationbeyond his/herparticularspecialty. Nor should interdisciplinaryworkbe confined within the variousdisciplinesofthe social sciences. The sociologist does not haveto become an engineer or a financial specialist todo useful work in industry,but he or she needs tounderstandwhat these professionalsaredoing andhow they think about their work and their organ-ization. Similarly, the sociologist does not have tomasterthe.plant sciences or agricultural ngineer-ing to do useful work in agriculture,but he or sheneeds to understandwhat these professionals aredoing and what they think about their work andtheir organization. notherwords, interdisciplinarythinkingmust cover a broaderrangeof specializedknowledgethan has been customary n the past.Conditionsfor developing more fruitfulappliedsocial researchare now more favorablethan theyhaveever been. Both in industryandin agriculturaldevelopment, more practitioners han ever before


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562 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWare open to our ideas and information. However,that still leaves the question of how we can bestutilize these expanding opportunities.In the past,there has been a widespreadtendencyto visualizeappliedsocial research n elitist terms: we tried toget practitionersto recognize that our researchequips us to tell them what to do. I call this the"professionalexpert model" (Whyte, 1984, Chap-ter 10). This model is perfectly appropriatewhenwe are called upon to discover and present he factsregardingsome social and economic problem, butit is not a workable model when we are studyingorganizational hange processes. In "participatoryaction research" (Whyte, 1984, chapter 10),illustratedby some of the cases described earlier,we work collaborativelywith the practitionersandlearn from them, as we study their organizationand try to help them solve its problems.I have illustratedmy argumentprimarily hroughresearch, based on the assumption that it ispossible to develop projects that serve the interestsof the various parties involved, rather than tosimply help one party to exploit the other. Doesthis assume that all problems of society can besolved by applied social research, without majorchanges in the macro-economicand social struc-ture of society? Not at all. In principle, I am notopposedto such majorchanges-including revolu-tions-but I can only imagine how changes of sodrastica naturemaycome about.Meanwhile,I findit useful scientificallyandpractically o studywhatcan be done hereandnow under he existing socialand economic conditions.Our experience suggests a further point onresearchstrategy. Most social science research isfocusedon whatI call "standard ituations"(thosevery common in the field of study). The peopleconcerneddiagnosetheirproblems n standardwaysand arrive at standardpolicies and programs thatmay do little to solve those problems.This style ofresearchgives us the illusion of scientific virtuebecause, whateverourconclusions, they will applyto a large number of cases. The drawback s thatthis style leaves out of focus cases in whichcreativeindividuals have defined the problems in non-standardways and have devised social inventionsthat appear to be solving the problemsbetter thanthe standardnon-solutions(see Whyte, 1982).It may be useful here to use an evolutionaryanalogy (Greenwood, 1984). The survival andsuccess of an organizationdependsin parton howthe variationin its structuresand social processesthroughtime fits with the variationin its externalenvironment.Inan era when social, economic, andpolitical conditions are undergoing rapid anddrastic changes, it is especially likely thatorganizations hat share the most common patternsof structureand social processes will drift out ofadjustment o the environment. In that situation,continued focus on "standard"organizationswillyield voluminousdata on problemsand little data

on solutions. Shifting our focus from centraltendencies will turn our attention to some caseswhose variation from the common pattern isleading to extinction. We will also identify othercases in which individuals have created socialinventions that build organizationsbetter adaptedto solving the problems of today and tomorrow.Although there is no natural law that deniessociologists the right to make social inventions,fortunately he human race does not depend on usfor its social inventions. Humanseverywhere arecreativeboth socially and in other fields. Appliedsociologists can monitor heorganizational hangesin progress, select for study those variations from"standard"that appearmost promising, describethemsystematically,anddevelop theoretical rame-works that help others to understand the mainfeatures of the emerging new organizationalmodels. I have illustratedthis process with casesfrom both industryand agriculture.Finally, let me repeat that I have attemptedtoreview only a limited set of cases in which socialscientists have contributedto action and policymaking. I have confined myself to the fields inwhich I can testify from personal experience andfrom study of the work of my colleagues. If theactual and potential practicalcontributionsof thesocial sciences are to be recognizedin governmentand among the general public, we need to bringinto public and academic discourse the ideas andexperiencesof manyothersocial researchers. aimthis paperat an academicaudience in the hope ofstimulatingmy colleagues to broaden and deepenthis discourse.

REFERENCESCole, Robert. 1980. Work,Mobility and Participation.Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress.Copley, Frank Barkley. 1923. Frederick W. Taylor.Father of Scientific Management. New York: HarperBros.Greenwood, Davydd. 1984. The Taming of Evolution.Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversityPress.Guest, Robert H. 1985. "IndustrialSociology: SomePersonalReflections." Paperpresented at the AnnualMeeting, AmericanSociological Association(August),Washington,D.C.Gutierrez-Johnson,Ana Whyte and William F. Whyte.1977. "The Mondrag6nSystem of WorkerProductionCooperatives."Industrialand Labor Relations Review31:18-30.Houck, James. 1985. "Employee Ownershipin Michi-gan: The EmergingRole of the State." ILR Report.EmployeeOwnership23:2 (Spring).Lazes, Peter and Tony Costanza. 1983. "CuttingCostsWithoutLayoffs ThroughUnion-ManagementCollab-oration." National ProductivityRevie4w:362-70.Maccoby, Michael. 1985. "The Problem of Work:Technology, Competition, Employment, Meaning."Paper presented at the Annual Meeting, AmericanSociological Association (August), Washington,D.C.


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ON THE USES OF SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH 563Oakeshott,Robert. 1973. "Mondrag6n:Spain's Oasis ofDemocracy." Observer (London) Color Supplement,January 1. Reprinted,pp. 290-96 in Self-Mangement:Economic Liberation of Man, edited by JaroslavVanek. Baltimore:PenguinBooks, Ltd., 1975.Rosen, Corey, KatherineKlein, andKarenYoung. 1985.Employee Ownership in America. Lexington, MA:Heath.Servan-Schreiber,Jacques. 1968. The American Chal-lenge. New York: Harper& Row.Taylor, FrederickW. 1911. The Principles of ScientificManagement.New York:MacMillan.Thorsrud,Einar. 1977. "Democracy at Work: Norwe-gian Experiences with Nonburaucratic Forms ofOrganization."AppliedBehavioralScience 13:410-21.Trist, Eric. 1981. The Evolution of Socio-Technical

Systems: A Conceptual Framework and an ActionProgram. Toronto:OntarioMinistryof Labor.Walker,CharlesandRobertH. Guest. 1952. TheManonthe AssemblyLine. Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniver-sity Press.Whyte, William Foote. 1982. "Social Inventions forSolving Human Problems." American SociologicalReview47:1-13.. 1984. Learning rom the Field. Beverly Hills,CA: Sage Publications.Whyte, William Foote and Joseph Blasi. 1980. "FromResearch to Legislation on Employee Ownership."Economicand IndustrialDemocracy3:395-415.Whyte, WilliamFoote andDamonBoynton(eds.) 1983.Higher-Yielding Human Systems for Agriculture.Ithaca,NY: CornellUniversityPress.

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