hawthorne studies
The Hawthorne studies, initially undertaken to investigate the relationship between work-place conditions and worker productivity, introduced a wide range of topics to the field of management study. Investigators found no strong relationship between workplace conditions and productivity but reached several conclusions: individual work behavior is driven by a complex set of factors; work groups develop norms which mediate between the needs of the individual and institution; employees should not be considered appendages of machinery; awareness of employee sentiments and participation can reduce resistance to change; the workplace is an interlocking social system, not simply aproduction system; social structure maintained through symbols of prestige and power. These findings opened the door to the study of client-centered therapy, small group behavior, and organization theory and research methodology.The Hawthorne studies represented groundbreaking work in the field of management when they were undertaken in 1924.While the original intention of the studies was to determine the effect of workplace conditions on employee productivity, in line with the Tay-lorist view of management of that day their findings addressed topics far a
Each of these men pioneered breakthroughsin his respective field which opened a door toa new paradigm. (Presents a strong argument against the validityof the Hawthorne findings. (Critical assessment of theHawthorne experiments arguing against theTaylorist trend. The research findings were first reported in Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939), Whitehead (1938) andHomans (1941, 1950). Criticisms of the studies are alsoplagued by a reliance on an inaccurate historyof work conditions, misquotes and interpreta-tion of original data and a general thirst todenigrate the revolutionary work which thesestudies represent. Scientific management improved the safety of the workplace and protected workers from unfair supervision while increasing their productivity. The sense of craftsmanshipand ownership of the task were reduced ascentralized engineering departments brokedown workers' assignments into highly regi-mented, mechanistic tasks paced by theschedule of the machine. Thediscovery that physical work conditions werenot of primary importance to worker produc-tivity forced researchers to shift their focusfrom the individual unit of analysis to othercontextual factors which affect the workenvironment. Itwould have been impossible to design studiesthat carefully controlled for factors which noone considered to have bearing upon produc-tivity. From 1928 to 1930, 21,000 employeeswere interviewed. Most important, these findings should beconsidered in light of the circumstances inwhich they were undertaken. Feedback onperformance was always ample, even prior tocontrol style which was popular at the time. (1933) The Human Problems of an Indus-trial Civilization, New York: Macmillan.
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