1.0 Introduction
In the early twentieth century, Elton Mayo, a famous professor of industrial management from Harvard, carried out studies at the Western Electric company’s Hawthorne works, As Jiao(2009) said “with the attempt to find the factors affecting workers’ productivity, the studies included a series of behavior experiments” which was then called as “Hawthorne Experiments”. Regardless of some controversies, conclusions from the studies not only help Mayo extended his own theory in management, but also give loads of enlightenment to other fields (such as educations、sociology 、organizational behavior, etc.)
This essay will show the key findings of Hawthorne studies as well as its repercussions in many fields. In the first section, operations and conclusions of each experiment will be simply introduced. Secondly, a series of new ideas originated from these findings by Mayo will be elaborated and also its applications in practice. The final part is to show some criticism on both Mayo’s research method and his theory.
2.1 Experiment One ---------Illumination studies
During 1924 to 1927, Mayo’s group tested a department’s productivity under all levels of illumination in order to discover the effects of light on efficiency. However, they ended in failure for there were almost always increasing output during the process. (But, latter it was considered as an evidence of Hawthorne Effect)
2.2 Experiment Two ------- Relay Assembly Test Room Experiment The second experiment concentrated on the relationship between workers’ welfare and productivity. In this test, five women were picked up and the study group compared their output under different working conditions (such as changing in rest period、working hours、wages, etc.) Finally, they reach the conclusion that workers would try to perform better if they feel valued, which was also an explanation to result from the experiment one.
2.3 Experiment Three ------- Mass Interview Program After getting the findings from the formers, Mayo and his group overtook interviews among 21,000 individuals in the company. By asking them questions like attitude to supervisors 、criticism on management style …, Mayo tried to gather more information that might affect their efficiency. However, deviating from their initial purpose, they find that “it became clear that if a channel for free expression were to be provided, the interview must be a listening rather than a questioning process” (Harvard Business School 1932). At last, it was obvious after getting the frustration and dissatisfaction off their chest, workers became more active in the workshop.
2.4 Experiment Four ------ Bank Wiring Test Room Experiment:
Beginning at November 1931, the study which included 14 males in the test room was hoped to prove that the incentive of high-pay can directly raise productivity. However, the constant middle output reveal an interesting phenomena ——the form of informal group, in which the workers slow down their rate of production to keep the profit of whole group.
3.0 Mayo’s research achievement in the studies.
After the long period experiments, Mayo did some analysis of the results and put forward a series of new ideas in his book 《Social Problems of an Industrial Civilization 》which was believed as the studies’ main achievement.
3.1 Social man
Before Mayo’s study, it was common to regard workers as ‘homooeconomicus’, which was put forward by Adam Smith in his book “The Wealth of Nations”(1776), meaning that people were solely motivated by money. However, Mayo (1945) argued that workplaces are social environments and within them, economic factor was put in the second place, and social status and interaction、sense of belonging, etc. play an important in productivity. In other words, workers are “social man “ instead of simply homooeconomicus. Moreover, he even concluded that all aspects of that industrial environment carried social value.
3.2 Informal group
From the last experiment, it was showed that apart from “official group” regulated by the company, there are always some “informal groups” among workers. This kind of group is formed because of the members’ identical social emotions which mean it has bigger influence than the official one. Just as Mayo(1945) said in his thesis “Man’s desire to be continuously associated in work with his fellows is a strong, if not the strongest, human characteristic. Any disregard of it by management or any ill-advised attempt to defeat this human impulse leads instantly to some form of defeat for management itself”
3.3 Neo-leader
Represented by Taylor’s scientific management theory, traditional concepts limited leaders or supervisors to makers and carriers of regulations. However, a neo-leader idea was put forward by Mayo, a leader who was good at interpersonal relationship. The neo-leader can understand workers’ logical and illogical behavior, listen to their complaint and suggestion, and get to know their feelings. Therefore, the managers can balance the economic needs in official group and social needs in informal group and then let all the workers collaborate together to make their maximum contribution to the company.
3.4 Hawthorne Effect
Hawthorne Effect which was hidden behind experiment one and three, as Mayo (1933) argued that the reason why there was a break improvement was that the participants felt valued and they thought it was a special appraisal for them. Now it almost has a common definition, just as McCarney pointed that ： “The Hawthorne effect is a form of reactivity whereby subjects improve or modify an aspect of their behavior being experimentally measured simply in response to the fact that they know they are being studied, not in response to any particular experimental manipulation.” (2007, p131)
After the Hawthorne effect was put forward, it was now used not only in the management to improve productivity, but also applied in the fields of journalism、education、service industrial and so on.
4.1 Positive aspects of its research method
During his studies, Mayo and his group has four parts of experiments as I mentioned before, including interview and laboratory tests. He combined both qualitative and quantitative research (the former help to analyze the reasons of some phenomenon or problems in management while the latter can offer specific data to help leader make decision and predict some results of the policy). And the laboratory test, as Wang (2013) reported that by changing a variable and maintain others constant, laboratory experiments help to understand the impact of a single factor in complicated social phenomenon. Secondly, through the large interview and observation projects, researchers got a lot of quantitative information about interpersonal relationship and social behavior. What’s more, during the process of interview, Mayo tactically changed his objects and directions, i.e. his “yes” or “no” questions became open questionnaires and unstructured interview. Meantime, Hawthorne experiment first induced that the social psychology and group dynamics are factors affecting productivity, and in the subsequent series experiments he deducted and confirmed it.
4.2 Negative aspects of its research method
The research ignore the essence of study object —— the people who has their own emotions and ideas. There were so many unknown variables just as the Hawthorne Effect in experiments which influenced the results. Secondly, deficient and less rigorous controls in the studies, i.e. Mayo’s group let some of the participants (workers) know their studies’ objective and he didn’t simulate the actual work condition completely , these all together would cause inaccurate conclusions. So his studies’ findings also got some controversy, as Richard criticized: “A psychology professor at the University of Michigan, Dr. Richard Nisbet , calls the Hawthorne effect 'a glorified anecdote.' 'Once you've got the anecdote,' he said, 'you can throw away the data.'” (cited in Kolata 1998)
4.3 Positive aspects of Mayo’s findings
At that time, owners of factories idolized the scientific management theory initiated by Henry Fayol and Frederick Winslow Taylor. Therefore, they emphasized the discipline and regulation in the management, neglecting the emotions and social needs of them. During that period, workers were regarded as “live machine” and arranged in fixed、boring、simple and repeated work. On the other hand, Mayo’s new conceptions like “social man” and “informal group” greatly arose managers’ awareness of psychological needs, thus caused some changes to the current mechanism. In other words, labors’ working condition was improved both mentally and physically.
And Mayo also entered new areas of management —— Human Relations Management, which encouraged lots of scholars and professors to explore in this fields. Secondly, his findings also became the footstone of modern organizational behavior theory.
4.4 Negative aspects of Mayo’s findings
Although through Hawthorne Experiments, Mayo did prove some new ideas behind these results, on the other hand, his findings are not so flawless. In his book 《Social Problems of an Industrial Civilization》, it was obvious that too much emphasis was put on informal group and people’s emotion so that he ignore that in most cases, workers do focus on their wages and official groups. And Mayo also was criticized because of his excessive denial of “economic man”, which he believed that most workers were not motivated by money or material rewarding.
Also, a famous sociologist Daniel Bell(1947) depreciated Mayo as"adjusting men to machines," instead of enchancing human capacity or freedom. More recently, Hoopes (2003) said Mayo for "substituting therapy for democracy."
5.0 Conclusion
In conclusion, despite of some criticism of its incomplete methodology and glorified findings, Hawthorne Experiments do make a bold breakthrough and challenge the early traditional scientific management theory. Moreover, it was the first time that the focus of management research diverted from physical factors to human factors. And Mayo’s findings about “social man” “informal group” and “neo-leader” not only made the correction and supplement of classical management theory, but also opened a new door in management and laid the foundation for the development of modern behavior theory. Since then, there are many managers put his theory into practical use to help to manage staff better and improve productivity. reference Mayo, E 1932, Hawthorne Studies Research Report, Hawthorne Studies Collection, Cambridge.
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Kolata, G 1998, ‘Scientific Myths That Are Too Good to Die’, New York Times, 6 December, pp3.
Gillespie,R 1952,Manufacturing Knowledge, A History of the Hawthorne Experiments, Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, New York.
Jiao,S 2009,’Hawthorne Experiment and Human Relationship Theory’, Management And Practice, No.12,pp.107.
