Proceedings
of the Tomsk Polytechnic Institute
of the Order of the October Revolution
and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor
named after S. M. Kirov

Vol. 235　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1972

SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF CONFLICT SITUATIONS IN A RESEARCH ORGANIZATION

A. I. SHCHERBAKOV, V. V. KOSOLAPOV

(Presented by the scientific seminar of the Department of Political Economy)

A research worker’s belonging to the sphere of science is his solidarity with a special kind of ethical norms (“scientific ethics”), with the specific interests of his colleagues, and also the maintenance of constant professional contacts in the process of scientific activity. In a certain sense one may speak of a special social world of science, consisting of subsystems of mathematicians, physicists, philosophers, and so on. In turn, these are subdivided into groups in which specialists unite to develop narrowly defined problems. The functional and conventional roles that a person plays in a scientific collective set him apart from other social worlds—the world of artists, builders, athletes, musicians, etc. In the world of science there exist, despite the narrow individuality of its separate representatives, definite patterns of behavior, ways of coordinating actions and making decisions. Naturally, they are in some way “linked” with general human norms of behavior.

In modern society there is a further differentiation of the social world of science, once unified for all scholars, into ever new subsystems. This confronts the science of science with an entire set of urgent questions. S. R. Mikulinskii and M. G. Yaroshevskii note: “The labor of scientists, which in the past was the labor of solitary individuals, essentially similar to handicraft labor, has before our eyes turned into a variety of industrial labor, with its characteristic mass character, the subordination of large collectives to a single goal, and a deep division of functions among the people engaged in it. This has given rise to a whole series of new problems, not ...”

not only structural-organizational and economic, but also social-psychological ones¹. Among such social-psychological problems is the analysis of intra-scientific conflict situations inherent in the scientific milieu under the conditions of the modern scientific and technological revolution.

Discussions and clashes of opinion in science are a common phenomenon. Disagreement, the critical, competitive attitude of various schools and trends, and the mutual criticism of the founders of different scientific collectives are not so rare in the history of science. Still more often, crisis phenomena arise when an existing theory, generally recognized as true, bends under the pressure of new facts. Often the developer of this theory lacks the courage to acknowledge the validity of new conceptions, and he enters into conflict with those who think differently, defending an erroneous position. Conflicts of this kind are a natural form of the development of science. The search for truth is a dialectical path, one that does not exclude individual errors and misconceptions. To achieve a new result, an intense atmosphere of competition is necessary, as is the clash of competing understandings of the solution to the problem posed; “competitive relations” among scientific collectives that have one and the same scientific subject matter but work on the basis of different methodologies and with the use of nonidentical techniques. New information arises in an atmosphere of sharp creative discussions, in the clash of differing opinions.

In science there may arise crises and conflicts generated by socio-political conditions. A typical example of such a situation is the crisis in natural science at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, the features of which were revealed by V. I. Lenin in Materialism and Empirio-criticism. Crises of this kind do not contribute to accelerating the development of science. They are connected with a conflict between scientific cognition, striving toward objective truth, and the ideology dominant in society, which is interested in distorting this truth from narrow-class, party positions. The conflict between the spontaneous-materialist content of science and idealistic views as the basis of an illusory ideology gives rise to crises that hinder the development of scientific cognition. So long as class antagonisms exist in society and there are strata and groups objectively interested in an illusory explanation of reality, crises will also exist in science, generating a conflict situation between the content of scientific knowledge and the dominant ideology.

Finally, under the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution, intra-collective situations not infrequently arise that may be defined as production-related, labor conflicts.

Conflicts based on the defense of scientific views and interests constitute a natural form of the existence of scientific collectives. Crises of science generated by the socio-political situation and by the bourgeois worldview are eliminated with the construction of socialism.

Labor, production conflicts are the result of suboptimal management of a scientific collective. The increase in the number of conflicts in a collective is the most vivid indicator

a mismatch between the formal organization of research and the level of management and the interests and motives of researchers.

Causes for the emergence of conflicts exist in all scientific collectives. Among the objective factors behind the causes of conflict situations may be included the development of rigid regulation of the activity of a scientific worker within the collective. On the one hand, he is required to show independence and initiative in formulating scientific problems; on the other, his activity is constrained by the administration, which is interested in the development of planned topics. At the same time, it is often the case that topics chosen as research topics are applied in character. In order to carry them out well, it is necessary first to conduct fundamental investigations, in which the administration is not always interested. The demand for accelerated development of little-studied questions leads to the necessity of hasty, low-quality research. As a result, scientific workers lose their sense of satisfaction with the results obtained, their interest in the work weakens, and independence fades. The scientist gradually turns into an ordinary employee working according to the administration’s orders. Scientists are especially irritated by the demand to observe strict production discipline, by management’s disregard for the relative freedom of creative labor, by constant reminders about deadlines and norms of working time, etc. At the same time, under the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution and the mass character of the profession of scientist, it is impossible to grant everyone free attendance at work, to abandon the planning of deadlines and labor expenditures for research, or timely reporting. Thus causes are created for conflict between employees and the administration of the research institute.

Among the objective factors that give rise to conflicts is the complicated structure of roles that the scientist is compelled to play in the collective. The conventional role is the position of the scientific worker as an employee of a certain rank; the functional role is his professionally recognized duties as a scientist; the interpersonal role is his position as a member of the collective. If he wants to play the conventional role well, then he must strive to become an administrator in science. As a rule, this leads to the scientist’s loss of the functional role. The American science scholar G. Shepard notes that “for the most part, scientists do not make administrators, or else they cease to be scientists and lose professional authority.” Some scientists pursue an administrative career, others a professional one, but the two are rarely combined in one person. The desire to achieve professional recognition does not contribute to the fulfillment of the conventional role (the scientist strives to publish more, actively participates in the activity of “invisible” collectives, and pays less attention to scrupulous fulfillment of the requirements of the administration of his own research institute); it often leads to a disturbance of interpersonal relations (colleagues may develop envy toward a successful scientist, suspicion that he is using the collective’s materials, etc.). Therefore the scientist finds himself in a tense psychological situation. He is forced intuitively to seek a balance among the three roles he must play in the scientific collective. And this is a difficult task, which, as a rule, ends with the researcher having to sacrifice something: either an administrative career and the improvement of material conditions associated with it—

…or by professional recognition among specialists, or else by good relations with colleagues.

The situation is complicated by the fact that the modern scientific and technological revolution increases professional mobility. In science there is a rapid change of directions, problems, and so forth. As a result, the scientist is compelled more than once to change his narrow specialization, to move from an experimental type of research to a theoretical one, from applied research to fundamental research. The capacity for retraining becomes a property of the scientific profession. In 1968–1969, in Leningrad and Riga, a questionnaire survey was conducted of 1,400 scientific workers in academic institutions (in the natural sciences) and sectoral research institutions (technical sciences)^2). It turned out that more than half of the scientific workers surveyed work in new scientific directions that do not correspond to their university specialization. As a rule, these are young scientists who work a considerable amount of time beyond the standardized working hours on topics that are not officially planned. Only one quarter work on topics that fully correspond to their narrow specialization at the higher educational institution. Some (5.8%) work in an area that does not correspond to their university specialization and is located in an adjacent field of science; that is, in essence they have mastered a second profession.

Immediately after graduating from a higher educational institution, 36.8% of graduates are sent to work that corresponds neither to their general specialization nor to their narrow specialization at the higher educational institution. This testifies to the considerable lag in restructuring university curricula behind the rapid development of science. 61.1% of graduates work in newly emerging directions in science. Thus, the changing of scientific professions, work at the “junctions” of scientific disciplines, is becoming the lot of the overwhelming majority of scientists. As a result, in modern science the scientist represents a professionally “marginal person.” This term was introduced by R. Park to designate those people who are situated on the borders (“junctions”) of two or several social worlds, without being a full-fledged participant in any one of them. In his opinion, marginal people seriously doubt their own personal value; have indefinite ties with friends; readily avoid uncertain situations in which they may be humiliated; are lonely and excessively dreamy; are unduly anxious about the future; are incapable of enjoyment and are convinced that those around them are unjust toward them. Of course, it is not necessary that every scientist possess this set of qualities, but there is no doubt that a large share of them are characteristic of many. A mathematician in sociology, an engineer in biology, a psychologist in the technical sciences, a physicist in physiology, a geneticist in mathematics, and other representatives working at the junctions of interscientific problems are in a marginal status. The number of interdisciplinary studies is increasing rapidly, and, as the history of science shows, the most productive developments are found at the “junctions.” Therefore, evidently, the future of science lies in the increasing complexity of the questions studied and, consequently, in the transfer of ever larger contingents of scientific workers into marginal status. The situation is aggravated by the fact that, despite calls for scientists to work in adjacent, borderline areas, in academic research institutions there exists a persistent tradition of observing

^2) S. A. Kugel. “Professional Mobility in Science and Tendencies of Its Change under the Conditions of the Scientific and Technological Revolution.” Voprosy filosofii, 1969, No. 11, pp. 109–116.

the boundaries of different areas of specialization. In any case, specialists in the science of science, informatics, scientific communism, bionics, and many other “adjacent” sciences find it harder to achieve professional recognition than do simply economists, engineers, philosophers, or biologists, whose research topics do not raise doubts as to their belonging to a strictly defined branch of science.

The subjective factors in the emergence of intra-scientific conflicts should include those connected with a disruption of the microclimate, an unsuccessful choice of leader, and encroachments on the dignity of the scientist as a person and as a member of the collective. The more educated and cultured a person is, the more painfully, in most cases, he reacts to any encroachment on his honor and dignity.

Hence a conflict situation is the totality of such actions and statements by persons working in the same research organization (or in a superior organization) that raise before researchers the question of the advisability or possibility of remaining further in the collective, cast doubt on the quality, quantity, or usefulness of their work, or in some other way cause them offense. Conflict situations may be divided into two groups: verbal, when a clash of interests or opinions is limited to oral statements, and labor-related, when the conflict situation is considered in public organizations, labor-dispute commissions, judicial bodies, or superior organizations to which the given collective is subordinate. In the first case it often happens that one of the participants in the conflict leaves the collective “of his own accord,” but the conflict situation itself, its causes, and the ways of resolving it are not reflected in documents. In the second case the conflict is considered in the bodies of public organizations—party, Komsomol, and trade-union, both primary and higher-level—or else in judicial or disciplinary procedure (in labor-dispute commissions, in courts, or through the chain of subordination).

The causes of conflict situations for workers, employees, and engineering-technical personnel of research organizations and for scientific staff may be studied on the basis of the practice materials of labor-dispute commissions and judicial bodies. As for the managerial personnel of research organizations, for whom a different procedure has been established for resolving disputes concerning the imposition of penalties and dismissals (through the chain of subordination), the corresponding materials cannot be found in judicial practice. Therefore, with regard to managers of research organizations, one has to resort to the questionnaire method of studying the question.

Special requirements are imposed on the compilation of questionnaires:

1) questions and data that can be obtained from official and science-studies sources should not be included in the questionnaire;

2) questions should be posed clearly, competently, and with sufficient sharpness, concern quite specific phenomena and processes, and provide, at the same time, for quite definite answers;

3) one must not become carried away with answers of the type “systematically,” “periodically,” “rarely,” especially if they are not made more specific by other questions;

4) the questions in the questionnaire and the possible answers to them must be well known to every scientist. For complex questions it is necessary to give guiding question-answers;

5) questions should be arranged in the survey sheet according to the degree of ...

difficulty: at the beginning—those requiring considerable reflection, then simpler ones, and at the end—information about the respondent himself. It is recommended that the last question in the questionnaire be reserved for comments and suggestions, leaving no less than ¼ of a page for it.

If systematized and supplemented by other methods (analysis of various kinds of data on the activity of institutes, interviews with scientists and other sociometric tests, the conduct of an organizational-scientific experiment), this source of information becomes sufficiently objective and quite suitable for analyzing the causes of conflict situations. It is recommended that a drafted questionnaire be “tested” several times among scientists of different specialties, ages, positions, etc. This will make it possible to reject inadequate, poorly functioning items in the questionnaire and improve it.

It is better to begin the survey itself by having the researcher and trusted organizers of the survey, in a brief and direct conversation or address before the employees of the institute (laboratory, department), acquaint them with the aims, tasks, and methodology of the survey and with the ways of answering the questions. As a rule, no more than 1–2 days should be allowed for filling out the questionnaire; better still, distribute them in the morning and collect them at the end of the working day, or distribute them in the evening and collect them in the morning. If the time period is stretched out, the urgency of the question is lost and the percentage of returned questionnaires is significantly reduced. In order to ensure the maximum objectivity and authority of the survey, its complete anonymity must be guaranteed at all stages of its conduct.

Before drawing up the questionnaire, the researcher must have a very clear idea of the purpose of the survey, think through the theoretical program very carefully, and develop the main working hypotheses. On this basis, the questions are formulated and grouped; for example, one group of questions may encompass a set of presumed causes of conflict connected with the absence of conditions for improving the qualifications of scientific personnel and for their utilization, another—with the structure of scientific institutions and management style. In addition, the questionnaire must be strictly purposive and optimally balanced in the number of questions posed in it. Such a questionnaire “works” much more productively than a multi-problem, multi-plan questionnaire with an excessively large number of questions.

In September 1964 such a study was conducted using as examples a number of scientific institutions in the city of Novosibirsk: the Institute of Mining of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the Siberian Institute of Power Engineering of the former State Committee of the USSR for Power Engineering, and the Siberian Branch of the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Agricultural Economics of the USSR³). The persons who answered the questions posed in the questionnaire were, as a rule, acquainted with the activity of several research institutes. Therefore the data analyzed below on the causes of the emergence and the ways of resolving 155 conflict situations cannot be attributed only to those institutes in which the participants in the study were working at that moment.

What most often is the cause of the emergence of conflict situations, in the opinion of those surveyed? The data indicate this with exhaustive completeness: first, unwillingness or inability

³) I. V. Chernov, A. I. Shcherbakov. Sociological Questions of the Organization of Scientific Labor. In: Organization and Effectiveness of Scientific Research. 2nd edition. Novosibirsk, 1967, “Nauka,” pp. 132–137.

observe the rules of conduct in a collective and, second, the inability to direct scientific workers (to direct, precisely, and not to “command,” which is generally unacceptable for workers engaged in intellectual labor).

A more detailed study of the survey data makes it possible to draw the following conclusions. In the majority of cases (87%), the cause of the conflict was, as we have already said, the inability (more precisely, unwillingness) to observe the rules of conduct in a collective. And the foremost place here is occupied by manifestations of disrespect toward one’s comrades—defamatory and tactless remarks about colleagues in one’s own collective (11.1% of all conflicts). Next come conflicts due to dishonest acts (4.7%), manifestations of personal dislike or envy (3.5%), and so on. Thus, one quarter of all conflicts are caused by immoral acts, which are sometimes committed quite consciously. Results of this kind from studying the state of the psychological climate in a collective open up certain possibilities for public organizations in the area of educational work, especially among individual members of the collective who initiate troubles, quarrels, and the like.

A substantial part of conflicts is caused by various misunderstandings: an incorrect or imprecise conception of one’s own duties and rights as well as those of others (10.5%), an unclear delimitation of each person’s share of participation in carrying out joint work (the same amount), negligence or mistakes in work (8.8%), and so forth. The cause of the emergence of these conflict situations is insufficient attentiveness and sensitivity toward one’s comrades, haste in statements and in making decisions, and manifestations of lack of discipline. And only 13% of conflict situations arose because of the inability of managers to organize the work of the collectives subordinate to them. At the same time, it should be remembered that in scientific collectives the authority of managers is based not on attributes of power that permit them to “command,” but on knowledge and talent.

Can these collectives do without conflicts? The opinions of the study participants on this question were divided: the majority—59.4%—believe that it is impossible to do without them; the rest are convinced that the main part of conflicts can be prevented by creating in advance the conditions for eliminating the causes that give rise to them. The principal cause of the emergence of conflict situations is disrespect for the views, interests, and dignity of other people.

What, then, in our opinion, are the main ways and means of preventing conflict situations?

First of all, it is necessary to discuss broadly, in primary scientific collectives, the specific causes and consequences (actual and possible) of conflict situations. Particular attention should be paid here to the harm they inflict on society by slowing the process of transforming labor into the foremost vital need, by diverting workers for a long time from their work. An institution may suffer significant and irreparable damage as a result of the departure of an employee together with his experience, ideas, thoughts, and projects.

A special role in preventing conflict situations should be played by the heads of scientific institutions. If a manager is not capable of strengthening cohesion and friendship among the members of a collective, he cannot be a manager. Principledness,

restraint and high moral qualities of the head of the collective will only help the development of relationships within the collective that are worthy of a human being. Psychologists maintain that a good or bad mood is the cause of fluctuations in the level of labor productivity of about 70%, and without the aforementioned qualities in a manager there will never be a good mood in the collective.

A situation is especially intolerable when, as is indicated in one of the questionnaires received, “conditions are created that allow several employees to work for one employee who is in no way more capable than those who work for him.”

In accordance with the Charter of the Trade Unions of the USSR, trade-union committees have been granted the right to express their considerations regarding candidates nominated for managerial positions. Meanwhile, trade-union committees in institutions and enterprises have not yet become accustomed to using this right. At present, at enterprises and construction sites, a procedure is becoming increasingly widespread whereby a brigade leader is appointed only with the consent of the members of the brigade. The same consent is also required when assigning new workers to a brigade.

It would be advisable to introduce such a procedure for all managerial employees as well. In this case the collective must be confident that its opinion will necessarily be taken into account by higher management in the final decision on the appointment of a new employee; otherwise an abnormal situation may arise that will disorganize all work for a long time.

At present, the results of competition commissions on the question of hiring new employees are, as a rule, not communicated to the collective. Meanwhile, in individual cases the recommendations of these commissions should be considered at general meetings of departments and laboratories, or of the entire collective (depending on the vacant position), and then such discussion would bring real benefit in the form of shared responsibility for the new employee accepted into the collective, and would show the latter that the collective is not indifferent to his arrival.

All this together would create more substantial guarantees than exist now for the correct selection of managerial personnel from among capable, honest, conscientious employees devoted to creative work. Unfortunately, one must inevitably agree with the statement of the author of one of the questionnaires that “mediocrities and schemers are often tolerated in certain collectives.”

Public organizations have a great role to play in creating and strengthening a healthy moral atmosphere in the collective. A typical approach to identifying the essence of an emerging conflict and, if necessary, a broad discussion of the disputed questions over which it arises; concrete propaganda of the rules of socialist communal life and behavior in the collective; public condemnation of the initiators of a conflict regardless of their official position—all this makes it possible to reduce conflicts to a minimum or even to avoid them altogether.

Through all their work, public organizations must cultivate among members of the collective an honest attitude toward their duties, a clear and precise understanding of the purpose and methods of the work, seek ways of fairly delimiting responsibilities and making use of results obtained or expected, and create conditions for the growth of qualifications. And then, as one of the participants writes,

...of the respondents in his questionnaire: “It is possible to come to an amicable agreement on any issue. Be a decent person yourself and respect others.”

By what means, then, were the conflict situations analyzed in the course of the study described above resolved?

One quarter of them were resolved by the participants in the conflict returning to the normal channel of ordinary relations without any official consideration, or by concessions on the part of one side, apologies, etc. Just as many had to be settled by the administration: reconciling the disputants, imposing disciplinary penalties on some, and even dismissing people from their jobs. In public organizations, 16.1% of conflicts were considered (almost all of them in Party bodies). Almost 17% of conflicts ended with one of their participants leaving the collective, in most cases “of his own accord.”

It should be noted that trade-union and Komsomol organizations often take only a very insignificant part in resolving conflicts. Comradely courts are not mentioned by anyone at all, as is confirmed by the analysis of more than one and a half hundred conflicts. Only two conflicts were considered by labor-dispute commissions and people’s courts.

For a scientific collective, on the basis of data from a concrete sociological study, it is possible to construct a probabilistic model of a conflict situation. Such a model makes it possible to anticipate conflicts and to take measures (with the aim of preventing these conflicts) to optimize the placement of scientific personnel and to carry out an organizational “restructuring” of the collective’s activity.

Modeling a conflict situation makes it possible to manage a collective effectively by foreseeing the most probable course of events within it.

1. S. R. Mikulinsky, M. G. Yaroshevsky. Psychology of scientific creativity and science studies. In: Scientific Creativity; Moscow, “Nauka,” 1969, p. 6. ↩