Managing Science/Management Partnerships: AChallenge of Adaptive Management

As Walters (1997) points out, many of the problems experienced are institutional in nature and relate to how scientists and managers behave, and how the interaction between them is managed. I believe an important root of the problem is divergent operational philosophies and reward systems (Rogers 1997). Scientists have a propensity to seek problems of intellectual difficulty rather than immediate usefulness (Cullen 1990), and managers have a drive to be pragmatic and serve their institutional hierarchy. Although each group needs to adopt these approaches among their peers, they equally need to find common process and purpose when interacting.