Custom and Practice
Custom and Practice
复制标题
习惯与实践
DOI：
10.1057/jors.1986.61
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发表时间：
1986
影响因子：
3.6
通讯作者：
J. Rosenhead
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
J. Rosenhead
我今天站在这里是由于一系列事故、错误和误判。不是所有的都是我的。然而，这不是相互指责的场合，我，作为一个人，计划充分利用即将到来的一切。不过，我会尽量不平淡。我相信，没有人认为我当选总统是为了成为一个政治家。其他人可以做得更好。因此，我将尽我所能直截了当，如果有人应该感到激怒，我已经放弃了我的权利，尊重后地址沉默。请随时开始一场争论，幸运的是，它可能会持续至少两年。习惯上，那些当选任何职位的人都要求对他们提出的改革进行授权（尽管这对那些没有对手的当选者来说更难）。当然，我也这样做，尤其是因为我在总统职位上领先于不止一个，而是两个竞争者。然而，当我在当选总统的那一年里反复强调这一点时，令人惊讶的是，许多人都表明自己是超级民主主义者。“分裂选票”，他们喃喃地说，或者“少数人统治”。对此，一个回应可能是指出，根据这一论点，现任总理的权威将受到高度怀疑。然而，经过考虑，我宁愿采取一种不那么暴露的立场，即我的任务无论如何比任何其他人的任务都要好。你会注意到，我已经打破了一个伟大的不成文的规则，这是“保持政治远离运筹学”。(The其他规则是“把政治排除在体育之外”和“不要把宗教带入政治”。我打算在演讲的剩余时间里继续入侵。不是因为我想震惊，而是因为它不能帮助。手术室里已经有了政治关于运筹学的实践和未来，只有有限的几个有价值的陈述可以不涉及政治领域。实际上，在运筹学中谈论、写作和行动，就好像没有政治一样，这本身就是一种明显的政治姿态。这些声明必须作为断言暂时站得住脚。下文将提供理由。这篇演讲的主题是习俗和惯例，涵盖了谁是O.R.我们做什么，我们怎么做（“实践”）。总的来说，这些就是我在竞选发言中提出的问题。由于这必须是我要求授权的基础，在此引述其中的一个关键部分可能会有帮助。因此：“如果当选，我将把这视为一项任务，要求采取行动，为运筹学找到更重要的社会作用。我们需要扩大手术室的范围不确定性下的决策问题不仅仅是商业、军事和政府的问题。我们需要使该协会成为一个论坛，让该专业质疑其假设和方法，这些假设和方法目前将其排除在更大和更混乱的问题之外。这段话暗示了我想在这里讨论的三个主题，即谁是O.R.的“客户”是，我们如何去帮助他们，以及什么样的问题。我将按顺序介绍它们，尽管实际上这三个问题是相互交织的。我还要强调，这里表达的想法是初步的和临时的。任何缺陷我都想归咎于手术室的普遍缺乏和贫穷。讨论这些问题。
I stand here today as a result of a long series of accidents, mistakes and misjudgements. Not all of them have been mine. However, this is not the occasion for recriminations, and I, for one, plan to make the most of what is still to come. Nevertheless, I will try not to be bland. Nobody, I am sure, thinks that I was elected President to be statesperson-like. Other people can do that better. So I will do my best to be forthright and in case anyone should feel provoked, I have waived my right to a respectful post-Address silence. Please feel free to start an argument immediately with luck it could last at least two years. It is customary for those who have been elected to any post to claim a mandate for their proposed changes (though this is harder for those elected unopposed). Naturally I do so too the more so since I came out ahead of not one but two competitors for the post of President. However, when I have rehearsed this claim during my year as President Elect, a surprising number of people have revealed themselves as hyper-democrats. "Split votes", they have murmured, or "minority rule". To which one response might be to point out that on this argument, the current Prime Minister's authority would be highly suspect. On reflection, however, I prefer to take a less exposed position, namely that my mandate is, at any rate, better than anyone else's. You will notice that I have already broken one of the great Unwritten Rules, which is "Keep politics out of operational research". (The other rules are "Keep politics out of sport", and "Don't bring religion into politics".) I intend to continue the trespass during the rest of this Address. Not because I wish to shock, but because it can't be helped. Politics is already there within O.R., and only a limited number of worthwhile statements about the practice and the future of operational research can be made without touching on the political domain. Indeed, to talk, write and act as if there were no politics in operational research is itself a distinctly political posture. These statements must stand for the moment as assertions. The justification will be provided in what follows. The subject of this Address, Custom and Practice, covers the questions of who O.R. works for ('custom'), as well as what we do and how we do it ('practice'). These were, by and large, the issues raised in the statement with which I offered myself for election. Since this must be the basis for my claim to a mandate, it may be helpful to quote a key section of it here. Thus: "If elected, I would regard this as a mandate for initiatives to find a more significant social role for operational research. We need to expand the range of O.R.'s clients it is not only business, military and government who have problems of decision-making under uncertainty. We need to make the Society more of a forum for the profession to question its assumptions and methodology, which currently exclude it from the larger and messier problems". This passage alludes to the three topics I wish to discuss here, namely who O.R.'s 'customers' are, how we go about helping them, and with what sort of problems. I will take them in sequence, though in reality the three issues are intermeshed. I should also stress that the thoughts expressed here are preliminary and provisional. Any defects I intend to blame on the general paucity and poverty of O.R. discussion on these issues.