Conflicting objectives in a research and development organization

This paper is an analysis of some of the conflicts found in one particular type of research and development organization — a large, high-prestige, full-capability, weapons development laboratory maintained by the U. S. Navy. The conflict situations, which are “unanticipated consequences” (or less important consequences) of bureaucratic decisions, are organized in terms of type of conflict as follows: 1) conflicts between “economy” and the achievement of technical objectives; 2) conflicts arising from the incongruence of subsystem objectives; 3) conflicts of the “sacred-cow” variety; 4) conflicts between headquarters objectives and field-activity objectives; 5) conflicts which involve the loyalties of specialized managers and directors of support activities; 6) conflicts which result from the attempt to unify a research “team” while keeping military elements of the team visible and separate; and 7) conflicts between productivity objectives and creativity objectives. Four recommendations are made for reducing the amount of conflict in military laboratories of the future: 1) increase the scope of authority of the individual project manager; 2) redefine the role of the military personnel in field laboratories, de-emphasizing their support and base-maintenance functions and increasing their tactical and strategic input to the laboratories; 3) transfer some of the functions currently performed in the headquarters (bureaus) to the field-activity level; and 4) modify certain elements in the more traditional organizational structure to implement recommendations 1), 2), and 3).