Managing Research, Development, and Innovation: Managing the Unmanageable, Third Edition

3.4. RESEARCHER'S RELATIONSHIP WITH MANAGEMENT AND PEERS

Many researchers have a rather negative view of managers or directors of research organizations. As an example, at the Institute for Advanced Study, the famous physicist Oswald Veblen suggested that the Institute did not need a director. Instead, he proposed that the institute should have a rector, who would not have any power or authority to hatch forward-looking plans or schemes or develop any new institutional policy (Regis, 1987, p. 128). Some scientists at the institute joked that a good director should be "a little stupid" so that he would not come up with new ideas that might change the status quo of the institution. When Oppenheimer was being considered for the position of the ...