l work environment was only one of many factors, including
managerial style and group context, which influence employee productivity. This pioneering, exploratory research fundamentally altered the field of management research
The initial agenda for the Hawthorne studies
was to investigate the relationship between the illumination intensity on the shop floor of manual work sites and employee productivity. The Hawthorne research is so named because the studies were conducted by Western Electric at the company's Hawthorne Works, a large plant outside Chicago, IL, where at the time literally every phone and switch in the USA was manufactured. There
were six studies, which ran for the duration of several months to several years between the years of 1924 and 1933. The research findings were first reported in Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939), Whitehead (1938) and
Homans (1941, 1950). At the time, Frederick Taylor's scientific management was the currently accepted management doctrine. Taylor's work, although not viewed so in retrospect, was undertaken with the intention of improving conditions for workers by scientifically engineering their
work tasks. Scientific management improved the safety of the workplace and protected workers from unfair supervision while increasing their productivity. The mills of the
late 1800s were often chaotic, unpredictably dangerous places to work, characterized by frequent accidental mutilation and death. The Progressive social movement in US culture embraced this triumph of the engineer as a tri-
umph for a humane, efficient and more just
workplace. Unfortunately, the passions of the
workers were seen as variables that it was nec-
essary to control. The sense of craftsmanship
and ownership of the task were reduced as
centralized engineering departments broke
down workers' assignments into highly regi-
mented, mechanistic tasks paced by the
Within this contex...