ABSTRACT
The possible misuses of social science in industrial situations are demonstrated by Clark's assertion that all too frequently practitioners have been employed to invent ways of installing predesigned innovations. Sociology is the study of social behaviour, of types of society and the processes of integration and differentiation within societies. A work control system is therefore most usefully understood as a bilateral or multilateral process for the establishment of policies, rules and practices regulating the work activities of the organisation and its members. The sociological enterprise is nothing less than the study of man as a social creature. It seeks to explain the problem of how social order is maintained and why conflict within society arises. Employers were frequently unable to understand neutrality, or the notion of a value-free social science. Both employers and social scientists interviewed commented on the unfavourable image of social science held by industry and in particular the belief that social scientists sought confrontation with authority.
