This proposal discusses the effect of organizational aspect of science (i.e. universities' fields with their all facilities and specialties) on the process of producing science (i.e. research activities). This aspect implies the importance of objective-internal factor of science progress and change versus external-objective factors like economy, politics etc. or external-subjective factors like religion, culture, etc. Thus, science in society is a knowledge system which may be viewed as an object for research and dependent variable from sociological viewpoint inside the science institution like universities and scientific communities or outside like economy, politics and other institutions. The main emphasis is on science as dependent variable and objective-internal factor because science is a kind of knowledge produced by scientists’ action which is in turn affected by the needs, aims and intentions and these are constrained by the scientific environment. This article aims to estimate factors affecting academic staff members' tendency to implement research projects and to analyze the differences between humanities and non-humanities fields. The method was survey and the population included all the academic staff that amounted to 575 members at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran, and the sample size amounted to 168 members who were selected, using stratified (fields), random strategies, from all the fields. Results show that staff members’ conception of research implementing barriers, their cost and benefit expectations, their definition of research in the field, their attitude to the characteristics of research in the field, and the academic activity occasions available for them, significantly predicted staff members tendencies to implement research projects. Also, results indicated that humanities staffs differed in their more tendencies to extra teaching and compilation book than non-humanities, while the latter differed in their more tendencies to implement research projects inside as well as outside the university. The results are analyzed using institutional and interaction perspectives. Non humanities fields are more functionally interrelated to the outside university via academic occasions than humanities and the latter are more engaged in extra teaching inside university. Thus, fewer tendencies of humanities staffs to implement research projects may be viewed as dysfunction of university institution. Also, meaning and attitudes differ in the fields and affect staffs’ research tendencies.

Keywords