Increasingly active and rigorous research into psychopathology and human behavior has been accompanied by an increasing number of inpatient units specifically intended for research. Relatively little attention has been given to the impact of a research orientation on what has already been found to be a complex social system in which organization phenomena may have major effects upon goal achievement. This report 1) outlines one way of viewing the research inpatient unit using a typology of complex organizations; 2) suggests a series of questions which can serve as probes into the social structure of an existing or planned unit; and 3) offers some relatively untried techniques of unit management intended to minimize problems consequent to doing research. Generally, it is argued that the primary goals of a social system—in this case research productivity—should be central to the structure of all parts of the system, not superimposed upon the usual goals of psychiatric hospital care. Physical layout, patient and staff role expectations, and clinical administration all can be structured so that research and treatment activities are identical or syntonic.
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Almond et al. (1969) studied this question.