ABSTRACT
The following remarks are based upon observations and impressions derived from: participation in about a hundred contract efforts in social science, largely, but not entirely, as a self-employed consultant; discussion and consideration of the possibility of employment on about a thousand other contracts and studies; and listening to the experiences of, and reading reports by many other applied social scientists. As a matter of long-range practice, enterprises planning to make use of consultants should first have the problem analyzed at the highest relevant policy levels with informed social scientists able to think in policy terms from the standpoint of the enterprise. Much, probably most, social science research—certainly opinion research in crisis situations by government agencies, politicians, etc.—is contracted too late. This is partly because of the tendency to procrastinate, which most people have, but partly because few executives realize that lead time is essential for a social science project.
