Community Operational Research: Purposes, Theory and Practice

Abstract

The usual impression of operational research (OR) held by social scientists is of a discipline which seeks to use quantitative techniques to solve tactical problems in pursuit of goals specified by management in large organisations. This view of OR, and especially as it is not a wholly unfair characterisation of much contemporary practice, should make us pause in considering the prospects for ‘community OR’. For OR of this type (let us call it ‘impoverished OR’) would appear, for many reasons, to be unsuit-able for the different context of community and co-operative unsuit-able. It is as well to be aware, therefore, that OR began not as a mathematical but as an interdisciplinary science, and that the creation of interdisciplinary teams was seen as one of the most important elements of OR practice in the early textbooks (Churchman et al, 1957; Ackoff and Sasieni, 1968). We should also note that these same textbooks emphasise that OR is a ‘systems’ approach, aiming to be relevant to strategic as well as tactical problems, and appreciate that many of the pioneers of OR were socialist scientists who believed that OR should be used for public rather than sectional interests, and that only under socialism could science realise its full potential for increasing human well-being (Rosenhead, 1987).