The Counterproductive Management of Science in the Second World War

Vannevar Bush and the Office of Scientific Research and Development

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9622151
AutoresLarry Owens (University of Massachusetts Amherst, autor de correspondencia)
Año1994
Volumen68
Número4
Páginas515-576
Fecha de publicación1994-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Business History Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0007-6805 • E-ISSN: 2044-768X
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3117197
OpenAlexW2141717574
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas10
Referencias citadas37

Established to mobilize science during the Second World War, the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) and its director, Vannevar Bush, created new weapons as well as a new relationship between science and government that helped shape Cold War America. Yet much about the partnership that emerged disappointed Bush, especially its uncontrolled expansion and the failure of civilian oversight. The failure, ironically, as this article explains, can be traced to the very approach that allowed Bush to mobilize rapidly during wartime, especially to an “associationalism” and contractual strategy that centralized the management of R&D in Washington while leaving its performance to private contractors. Forged in more conservative decades, the strategy facilitated the rapid exploitation of private-sector resources at the cost of promoting the uncontrolled proliferation of public-private arrangements that undercut Bush's postwar hopes

Cold war · Economics · General partnership · Government (linguistics · Management · Political science · Politics · Private sector · World War II · International Science and Diplomacy · Law · Public Administration · Research, Science, and Academia · Twentieth Century Scientific Developments