About this issue

This issue contains a wide variety of subjects related to management of Research, Development, and Engineering (RD&E), in contrast to the special issues recently published and in process (project selection, innovation, technology transfer, policy formation in science and technology). Three of the papers in this issue (Keller and Holland, Badawy, and Harrison) deal with organizational, personnel, and human relations aspects of RD&E. The Keller and Holland paper covers a subject crucial to RD&E — those special roles and behaviors of RD&E personnel that provide for and influence the flow of ideas and technical information into and within the organization. Much work needs to be done on this broad subject, and a large number of researchers are involved in it, including several members of our Program of Research on the Management of Research and Development at Northwestern University. The results of some of these studies will be reported in some of the planned special issues. Closely related to this subject is the issue reported by Badawy on differences in values and perceptions between scientists and engineers, who often populate different (hopefully cooperative) groups along the RD&E continuum. Harrison carries some of these ideas into the comparison between scientists and university professors.