OMEGA Int J. of Mgmt Sci.. Vol. 18. No. 2, pp. 215-216. 1990 0305-0483 90 53.00 ÷ 0.00 Printed in Great Britain. All r~ghts reserved Copyright C 1990 Pergamon Press ptc

An Eighth Face of Research

INTRODUCTION

IN 1974, Eilon discussed seven faces of research in an editorial [I] which has often been cited in the litera- ture, most recently by Agrell [2] in a paper presented at the IFORS conference on OR and the Social Sciences. Agrell sees Eilon as treating the many types of researcher more elaborately than Hildebrandt or Ulrich, even though all three seem to be considering t h e same three dimensions. In this context, he men- tions a further face of research, missed by Eilon.

Agrell's treatment relies in part on some unpub- lished notes of mine (his reference Bowen, 1984) first written in 1975, mislaid but found again and modified in 1984. I had then intended to offer these notes for publication, but I procrastinated; I passed a copy to Agrell when I became aware of his interest in such taxonomies and suggested that he borrowed any ideas useful to him. Belatedly, I now put these notes on record as amplifications of Agrell's commentary.

Seeking a taxonomy

Seven is an awkward number, even a mystical one. Eight may be more interesting, especially when ex- pressed as 2 x 2 x 2.

Consider the following characteristics.

A: A desire to make statements about the ade- quacy of 'the system' (as it is 'theoretically' for some assumed purpose).

B: A desire to make statements about t h e

adequacy of behaviour that controls the system (the same theoretical system, for the same purpose).

C: A desire to make statements about the adequacy of the beliefs of a 'decision-maker' as to what the system is and can do (doubting the 'theory' and the basis for particular decisions).

A, B and C are assumed to be separate and indepen- dent, and ideally much more discussion would be needed to ensure that they were so. Essentially, in A, the system (even the people in it) are regarded mechanistically. In B, those that control the system are seen not to be behaving as they would wish to for the purposes they have in mind. In C, the perception

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goes further and questions whether the basis for decision, the understanding of the system and the philosophy that guides its ultimate performance, is satisfactory.

For the purposes of the following, let us regard A, B and C to be independent orthogonal variables with values between

1 = strong desire; and

- 1 = desire not to.

We take 0 to denote indifference; although only the eight extremities of the state space of desire will be labelled specifically, any point in the space represents a point of view.

The types of researcher (primarily operational re- searchers) which are listed below are given Eilon's names, although they only roughly correspond to Eilon's definitions. There is a weakness in Eilon's classification because each character is looked at in different environments and over differently chosen sections of the sort of 3-D space as defined above plus extra dimensional extensions of it. I do not pretend that I have overcome this difficulty, although I have, through definitions of dimensions, gone some way towards a more rigorous classification.

(--1, --1, - - l ) The perfect CHRONICLER has no aim other than to describe what is: he passes no judgements (in his role as Chronicler).

(1, -1 , - l ) The perfect PUZZLE SOLVER has only A. He accepts the 'theoretical' problem as stated by the decision-maker.

( - 1 , --1, 1)

( l , - - l , l )

The perfect CLASSIFIER has only C. He tries to organise the information, and to influence ideas, as to what the system is and can, or will, do under certain impulses.

The perfect DIALECTICIAN has A and C. He doubts data about the adequacy of the system because these are coloured by the

216 Memoranda

( l , l, - l)

( - 1 , I, i)

( l , 1, 1)

decision-maker's beliefs. The de- cision-maker will have to change the system, or his beliefs, or, most probably, both if he is to meet the Dialectician's argument.

The perfect EMPIRICIST has A and B. He will observe the effect of changes to the system and of changes in the decision-maker's behaviour, and will suggest, im- plicitly, improvements to both.

The perfect ICONOCLAST has B and C. He will challenge beliefs and behaviour, accepting, for the time being, that the system is as it is (or as it is proposed).

The perfect CHANGE-AGENT has A, B and C. He will look at the whole and make appropriate com- ments. He is the Ackoffian OR man, seeking to redesign the future.

Comment

I am quite clear that my three dimensions are not enough. For example, there are bad Change-Agents who go well beyond making statements (outside the above classification) and try to usurp the decision- making; there are bad Chroniclers who, without adequate expertise, try to interpret their observations (one sees this in journalistic reporting all too often!); and there are bad Empiricists who make rash as- sumptions as to why decisions have been made. It would clearly be instructive to seek further dimen- sions provided that very great care was taken with independence. But as with all taxonomies few will be close to the "pure" types described here: further, many individuals will change from one type to an- other for a host of reasons.

As a final thought, consider (0, 0, 0), the rather ineffective Commentator who sees both sides of everything without trying very hard to evaluate anything. He will try to be everybody's friend, and end up universally ignored. The other 8, the extreme types, have their place: none of them will be ignored.

These provide the first seven faces. What is the eighth? It is the perfect X, who has only B. He is solely

concerned with whether behaviour (decision) is matched to what the system shouM do. He will judge 'goodness' and 'badness' of observed behaviours in this light only. I see X as an extreme decision-theorist, who is not much interested in why people behave as they do or whether they can be expected to change. He believes in rational man, working to his, X's, prescriptive rationality. In Gilbertian style, I might say

The man who makes your mind up, the decision- theorist; I've got him on the list, I've got him on the list.

Such caricatures do (almost) exist.

REFERENCES

1. Eilon S (1974) Seven faces of research. Omega 2(1), 1-9. 2. Agrell P (1989) Social sciences for OR--an overview. In

Operational Research and the Social Sciences (Edited by Jackson MC, Keys P and Cropper SA). Plenum, NY.

K e n B o w e n

(October 1989)

Department of Mathematics Royal Holloway and Bedford New College Egham Hill, Egham Surrey TW20 OEX, UK