The Role of the Professional in Operations Research and Management Science

The professional in operations research and management science has the thankless task of constructing a bridge between two virtually disjoint activities: science and management. To understand the nature of the problem faced by the professional, we must examine the two principal factors underlying this disjunction of the two activities: the irrelevance of science (from the point of view of management) and the irreverence of management (from the point of view of science).