Administrative research serves existing institutional goals rather than criticizing them.

Evidence

We consider ourselves essentially a service organization which does not have set goals, but which wishes to help in selecting and achieving them. Therefore, our research program has to be such that our results are adaptable to a variety of actual policies.’ Critical undertones, even well-concealed ones, were entirely absent from the memorandum. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 262

Categorization

• DEFINE: This is Lazarsfeld’s own self-definition of administrative research as a goal-neutral service organization — the founding contrast term against which Adorno’s ‘critical research’ is defined.
• XREF: Connects to later Frankfurt School material on the positivist dispute and the Institute’s ambivalent relationship to empirical social research.