Assignment

The Implication of Hawthorne Study in 21st Century

Ashab Anis Joy ID: 2012-1-10-255 Class: MGT Course Code: 101 Sec: 7 Semester: Fall East West University

Bachelor of Business Administration East West University 20th November 2012

Introduction
The Hawthorne Experiments were conducted between 1927 and 1932 at the works of the Western Electric Company in Chicago. Basically the aim of these experiments was to ” attempt to reduce worker dissatisfaction and resist trade union influence by the putting in place of a paternalistic package of social and recreational benefits calculated to sustain workers “loyalty” (Sheldrake 105:1996). Many little assignments were conducted in hope of putting into practice the above theory. Despite the economic progress brought about in party by Scientific Management, critics were calling attention to the severe labour/management conflict, apathy, boredom, and wasted human resources. These concerns lead a number of researchers to examine the discrepancy between how an organisation was supposed to work versus how the workers actually behaved. In addition, factors like World War I, developments in psychology (e.g. Freud) and later the depression, all brought into question some of the basic assumptions of the Scientific Management School. One of the primary critics of the time, Elton Mayo, claimed that this ‘alienation’ stemmed from the breakdown of the social structures caused by industrialisation, the factory system, and its related outcomes such as growing urbanisation. The most famous of these studies were the Hawthorne Studies which showed how work groups provide mutual support and effective resistance to management schemes to increase output. This study found that workers didn’t respond to classical motivational approaches as suggested in the Scientific Management and Taylor approaches, but rather workers were also interested in the rewards and punishments of their own work group. These studies conducted in the 1920’s, started as a straightforward attempt to determine the relationship between work environment and productivity. The results of the research led researches to feel that they were dealing with socio-psychological factors that were not explained by classic theory which stressed the formal organisation and formal leadership. The Hawthorne Studies helped us to see that an organisation is more than a formal arrangement of functions but is also a social system.

The Hawthorne Studies (1927-1932)
The Hawthorne studies were conducted between 1927 and 1932 at Western Electric’s Hawthorne plant near Chicago. (General Electric initially sponsored the research but withdrew its support after the first study was finished.) Several researchers were involved, the best known being Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger, Harvard faculty members and consultants, and William Dickson, chief of Hawthorne`s Employee Relations Research Department. The first major experiment at Hawthorne studied the effects of different levels of lighting on productivity. The researchers systematically manipulated the lighting in the area in which a group of women worked. The group’s productivity was measured and compared with that of another group (the control group) whose lighting was left unchanged. As lighting was increased for the experimental group, productivity went up-but, interestingly, so did the productivity of the control group. Even when lighting was subsequently reduced, the productivity of both groups continued to increase. Not until the lighting had become almost as dim as moonlight did productivity start to decline. This led the researchers to conclude that lighting had no relationship to productivity-and at this point General Electric withdrew its sponsorship of the project! In another major experiment, a piecework incentive system was established for a nine-man group that assembled terminal banks for telephone exchanges. Proponents of scientific management expected each man to work as hard as he could to maximize his personal income. But the Hawthorne researchers found instead that the group as a whole established an acceptable level of output of its members. Individuals who failed to meet this level were dubbed "chiselers," and those who exceeded it by too much were branded "rate busters." A worker who wanted to be accepted by the group could not produce at too high or too low a level. Thus, as a worker approached the accepted level each day, he slowed down to avoid overproducing. After a follow-up interview program with several thousand workers, the Hawthorne researchers concluded that the human element in the workplace was considerably more important than previously believed. The lighting experiment, for example, suggested that productivity might increase simply because workers were singled out for special treatment and thus perhaps felt more valued or more

pressured to perform well. In the incentive system experiment, being accepted as a part of the group evidently meant more to the workers than earning extra money. Several other studies supported the general conclusion that individual and social processes are too important to ignore. Like the work of Taylor, the Hawthorne studies have recently been called into question. Critics cite deficiencies in research methods and offer alternative explanations of the findings. Again, however, these studies were a major factor in the advancement of organizational behaviour and are still among its most frequently cited works.

Objectives
Specifically, Mayo wanted to find out what effect fatigue and monotony had on job productivity and how to control them through such variables as rest breaks, work hours, temperature and humidity. In the process, he stumbled upon a principle of human motivation that would help to revolutionize the theory and practice of management.

Contributors of the Hawthorne Studies
A number of sociologists and psychologists made major contributions to the study of the neoclassical perspective, which is also known as the human relations school of thought. The main contributors of the Hawthorne Studies are: Elton Mayo, Hugo Munsterberg, Abraham Maslow, Douglas McGregor, Mary Parker Follet.Hugo Munsterberg is the father of ‘Industrial Psychology’. He is a German Psychologist. He established a psychological laboratory at Harvard in 1892 and his pioneering book, Psychology and Industrial Efficiency was translated into English in 1913. Munsterberg suggested that psychologists could make valuable contributions to managers in the areas of employee selection and motivation. Industrial psychology is still a major course of study at many colleges and universities. Another early advocate of the behavioural approach to management was Mary Parker Follet (18681933). Follet worked during the scientific management era, but quickly came to recognize the human element in the workplace. Indeed, her work clearly anticipated the behavioural management perspective and she appeared the need to understand the role of behavioural in organizations. Although Munsterberg and Follet made major contributions to the development of the behavioural approach to management, its primary catalyst was a series of studies conducted near Chicago at Western Electric’s Hawthorne plant between 1927 and 1932 where Harvard Business School professor Elton Mayo examined productivity and work conditions. Elton Mayo and his associates conducted the research originally sponsored by General Electric. The studies grew out of preliminary experiments at the plant from 1924 to 1927 on the effect of light on productivity. Mayo was a faculty member and consultant at Harvard. The first study involved manipulating illumination for one group of workers and comparing their subsequent productivity with the productivity of another group whose illumination was not changed. Productivity continued to increase in both groups even when the lighting for the experimental group was decreased. Not until the lighting was reduced to the level of moonlight, did productivity begin to.

Another experiment establishes a piecework incentive pay plan for a group of nine men assembling terminal banks for telephone exchanges. Mayo and his associates however, found that the group itself informally established an acceptable level of output for its members. Workers who overproduced were branded “rate busters”, and under producers were labelled “chiselers”. To be acceptable by the group workers produced at the accepted level of output, workers slacked off to avoid overproducing. Experiments
The four parts of the Experiments are: Illumination Experiments (1924-27) The Hawthorne experiments began in the year 1924. The first experiment conducted was illuminations studies. The researchers of the company conducted it. They wanted to investigate the relationship between the level of lighting in the workplace and worker productivity. In other words,

they wanted to see how the changes in the environment of the workplace affect the workers. For the purpose of experiment, the workers were divided into the group of two teams – control and test teams. The control team was subjected to a constant level of illumination each day i.e. the lighting conditions did not vary at all. On the other hand, the test team was subjected to varying illumination levels. So initially, the team had medium level of illumination, then high level of illumination and then low level of illumination. These levels of illuminations were varied for many days. Few months later, the results were obtained which were very much surprising. The control team had shown an increase in productivity even in the constant lighting conditions. However, what was more astonishing was the increase in productivity in case of test team as well which was subjected to varying level of lighting throughout the experiments. The results in both the cases were baffling for the researchers and they were not able to make out anything of them. Fortunately, instead of just tossing these results in a dustbin, the researchers decided to take the help of academicians and researchers from outside. So Elton Mayo, Fritz Roethlisberger and William Dickson got involved in the experiments. Elton Mayo was a professor of industrial research department at Harvard University. He was consulted when the researchers of Hawthorne plant could not derive any conclusion from the illumination studies. In order to do so, the researchers of the company along with their new team members, began the second experiment. That experiment was relay assembly room experiment. NRC representatives and the engineers involved drew several conclusions. First, illumination was one factor in output but not the most important. More important to the tests was the realization there was not a simple answer to the issue of illumination and worker productivity and that other factors that were not controlled presented a problem with the test results he issue of human factors. In retrospect, researchers from the NRC and the Illuminating Engineering Society (which together formed the Committee on Industrial Lighting) stated they were not surprised by the test results. They even predicted that other factors would affect the results, but their mandate was to isolate other variables, and the Hawthorne studies continued. Relay Assembly Experiments (1927-1929) In order to observe the impact of these other factors, a second set of tests was begun before the completion of the illumination studies on April 25, 1987. The relay-assembly tests were designed to evaluate the effect rest periods and hours of work would have on efficiency. Researchers hoped to answer a series of questions concerning why output declined in the afternoon: Did the operators tire out? Did they need brief rest periods? What was the impact of changes in equipment? What were the effects of a shorter work day? What role did worker attitudes play? Hawthorne engineers led by George Pennock were the primary researchers for the relay-assembly tests, originally intended to take place for only a few months. Six women operators volunteered for the study and two more joined the test group in January 1928. They were administered physical examinations before the studies began and then every six weeks in order to evaluate the effects of changes in working conditions on their health. The women were isolated in a separate room to assure accuracy in measuring output and quality, as temperature, humidity, and other factors were adjusted. The test subjects constituted a piece-work payment group and efforts were made to maintain steady work patterns. The Hawthorne researchers attempted to gain the women's confidence and to build a sense of pride in their participation. A male observer was introduced into the test room to keep accurate records, maintain cordial working conditions, and provide some degree of supervision. The women were employed in assembling relays or electromagnetic switches used in switching telephone calls automatically. The women assembled the more than 35 parts of the relay by hand. The relays were then carefully inspected. The entire process was highly labour intensive and the speed of assembly had an obvious effect on productivity. Initially the women were monitored for productivity, and then they were isolated in a test room. Finally, the workers began to participate in a group payment rate, where extra pay for increased productivity was shared by the group. The other relay assemblers did not share in any bonus pay, but researchers concluded this added incentive was necessary for full cooperation. This single difference has been historically criticized as the one variable having the greatest significance on test results. These initial steps in the relay-assembly studies lasted only three months. In August, rest periods were introduced and other changes followed over the rest of the test period, including shortened work days

and weeks. As the test periods turned from months into years, worker productivity continued to climb, once again providing unexpected results for the Hawthorne team to evaluate. Productivity increased in excess of 30 percent over the first two and-a-half years of the studies and remained steady for the duration of the tests. The physicals indicated improved worker health and absenteeism decreased. By their own testimony, the women expressed increased satisfaction with all aspects of their jobs. Researchers tentatively concluded that performance and efficiency improved because of the rest periods, relief from monotonous working conditions, the wage incentive, and the type of supervision provided in the test environment. After additional study and consideration, the first two factors were rejected and further tests were conducted in an attempt to verify the effects of incentives and working conditions. The results were still not totally conclusive. Finally, researchers realized worker attitudes within the group were influential as was the more personal atmosphere of the test room. They concluded factors such as lighting, hours of work, rest periods, bonus incentives, and supervision affected workers, but the attitudes of the employees experiencing the factors were of greater significance. As a result, the Hawthorne team decided not to pursue similar studies. Almost as significant during the relay assembly tests was the introduction of a team of academics from the Harvard Business School into the experiments. Led by professors Elton Mayo and F. J. Roethlisberger, this new group of researchers would have an enormous impact on the Hawthorne studies and the future of human relations in the workplace. Mayo's contributions became increasingly significant in the experiments during the interviewing stages of the tests. Early results from the illumination tests and the relay-assembly tests led to surveys of worker attitudes, surveys not limited to test participants. From 1928 to 1931, more than 21,000 individuals were interviewed to survey worker morale in an attempt to determine specific features of their jobs workers either liked or disliked. The objective was to identify areas where reasonable improvements might lead to greater job satisfaction and thus increased efficiency and productivity. The initial conclusions were disappointing. Interviewers looked for factors concerning job satisfaction, working conditions, and supervision. What they found was a complex battery of attitudes influenced by outside factors such as conditions at home or within the community, as well as one's social situation at work. Researchers began to conclude that prior life experience had an important influence on worker attitudes, and that manipulation of lighting, pay, supervision, and working conditions could not solely bring about a desired change. The one consistent conclusion was that employees felt more positive about the work environment when an interviewer or listener showed interest. This interviewing technique, the nondirective method, proved useful to later researchers at Hawthorne and eventually led to an employee counselling program, now widely practiced in personnel management circles. Mass Interviewing Programme (1928-1930) The objective of this programme was to make a systematic study of the employees’ attitudes which would reveal the meaning which their “working situation” has for them. The researchers interviewed a large number of workers with regard to their opinions on work, working conditions and supervision. Initially, a direct approach was used whereby interviews asked questions considered important by managers and researchers. The researchers observed that the replies of the workmen were guarded. Therefore, this approach was replaced by an indirect technique, where the interviewer simply listened to what the workmen had to say. The findings confirmed the importance of social factors at work in the total work environment. 21,000 employees were interviewed over a period of three years to find out reasons for increased productivity. It was concluded that productivity could be increased if workers are allowed to talk freely about matters that are important to them. Bank Wiring Observation Room Experiment (1932) This experiment was little different from the previous experiments. First of all the employees were all males. Secondly, they were not divided into two groups. Instead, these 14 males worked as a group in a single room for few months. The group was offered financial incentives in two ways. The workers were to be paid extra on individual's efficiency. On the other hand, the group was also offered

incentive as a whole if it showed increase in productivity. It was expected that the output would increase. These results were yet again baffling. Therefore, the researchers decided to interview the group members and get them fill up various questionnaires. Based on the analysis of the interviews and the questionnaires, the researchers reached to certain important conclusions. They were as follows – 1. An informal group had formed within that test group. This group had its own unwritten rules through which is controlled by its various members. This is called informal group. 2. The group had established their own standard of output, which was different from that of management. Therefore, if management thought that at the end of the day, the group should produce three equipments, latter thought that 2 were enough. This is an established group. 3. The group used tools of social ostracism (isolation) and ridicule to control those members, which were capable of producing more. Such workers either were subjected to social isolation or were mocked at for being management's puppet or slave. This is an anonymous group. The researchers concluded that effect of such informal groups in the workplace was more profound on the employees than any financial incentive. This was the second important implication of the Hawthorne studies. When the results of these experiments were revealed, various industrial organizations realized that they needed to know their employees in a better way. Financial incentives alone will not motivate employees to work more. This realization led to human relations movement where managers began to understand their employees through various ways. It also led to the emergence of behavioural school of management where the people from social science background like sociology, anthropology etc. were included in the organization and emphasis was given on managing employees effectively through knowledge of these subjects. The final stage of the studies was the bank-wiring tests, which began in November 1931. The foreman of the bank-wiring department resisted the intrusion of observers into his work space and a bankwiring test room was set up. The test room housed nine wirers, three soldiers, and two inspectors. All were male between the ages of 20 and 25. Their job was to wire conductor banks, a repetitive and monotonous task. The banks were one of the major components of automatic telephone exchange. Between 3,000 and 6,000 terminals had to be wired for a set of banks. The work was tiring and required the workers to stand for long periods of time. Pay incentives and productivity measures were removed, but a researcher was placed into the test room as an observer and the workers were interviewed. The purpose of the bank-wiring tests was to observe and study social relationships and social structures within a group, issues raised by two other significant members of the research team, W. Lloyd Warner and William J. Dickson. Warner was on Mayo's Harvard team, trained as an anthropologist and primarily interested in Hawthorne from an entirely different perspective, that of an observer of the social behaviour of a group. Dickson was a Hawthorne employee, with an even keener interest in the tests than the Harvard team; he remained with the company until retiring in 1969. Their contributions were to adapt social anthropology research methods to industrial conditions. Dickson conducted the interview phase of the tests. Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the bank-wiring tests was that the workers combined to slow down production clear indication of the need for analysis of the social relationships of workers. Research showed the most admired worker among the group was the one who demonstrated the greatest resentment of authority by slowing down production the most. The bank-wiring tests were shut down in the spring of 1932 in reaction to layoffs brought on by the deepening depression. Layoffs were gradual, but by May the bank-wiring tests were concluded. These tests were intended to study the group as a functioning unit and observe its behaviour. The study findings confirmed the complexity of group relations and stressed the expectations of the group over an individual's preference. The conclusion was to tie the importance of what workers felt about one another to worker motivation. Industrial plants were a complex social system with significant informal organizations that played a vital role in motivating workers. Employees had physical as well as social needs, and the company gradually developed a program of human relations including employee counselling and improved supervision with an emphasis on the individual workers. The

results were a reinterpretation of industrial group behaviour and the introduction of what has become human relations.

Results
Implication of Hawthorne study The Hawthorne studies were conducted in four independent stages he illumination tests, the relayassembly tests, the bank-wiring tests, mass Interview Programme and. Although each was a separate experiment the second and third each developed out of the preceding series of tests. Neither Hawthorne officials nor NRC researchers anticipated the duration of the studies, yet the conclusions of each set of tests and the Hawthorne experiments as a whole are the legacy of the studies and what sets them apart as a significant part of the history of industrial behaviour and human relations. The tests challenged prior assumptions about worker behaviour. Workers were not motivated solely by pay. The importance of individual worker attitudes on behaviour had to be understood. Further, the role of the supervisor in determining productivity and morale was more clearly defined. Group work and behaviour were essential to organizational objectives and tied directly to efficiency and, thus, to corporate success. The most disturbing conclusion emphasized how little the researchers could determine about informal group behaviour and its role in industrial settings. Finally, the Hawthorne studies proved beyond certainty that there was a great deal more to be learned about human interactions in the workplace, and academic and industrial study has continued in an effort to understand these complex relationships. The Overall implications of Hawthorne studies are listed below: 1. A business organization is basically a social system. It is not just a techno-economic system. 2. The employer can be motivated by psychological and social wants because his behaviour is also influenced by feelings, emotions and attitudes. Thus economic incentives are not the only method to motivate people. 3. Management must learn to develop co-operative attitudes and not rely merely on command. 4. Participation becomes an important instrument in human relations movement. In order to achieve participation, effective two-way communication network is essential. 5. Productivity is linked with employee satisfaction in any business organization. Therefore management must take greater interest in employee satisfaction. 6. Group psychology plays an important role in any business organization. We must therefore rely more on informal group effort. 7. The neo-classical theory emphasizes that man is a living machine and he is far more important than the inanimate machine. Hence, the key to higher productivity lies in employee morale. High morale results in higher output.

Conclusion
The Hawthorne studies have been described as the most important social science experiment ever conducted in an industrial setting, yet the studies were not without their critics. Several criticisms, including those of sociologist Daniel Bell, focused on the exclusion of unionized workers in the studies. Sociologists and economists were the most commanding critics, defending their disciplinary turf more than offering serious criticisms. For his part, Mayo called into question research findings of both economists and psychologists. More serious questions were raised by social scientists who termed the studies bad science due to Mayo's conservative views. Others expressed serious concerns about undue pressure from corporate interests and called Mayo and his colleagues "servants of power." Despite these critical views, the flow of writings on the Hawthorne studies attests to their lasting influence and the fascination the tests have held for researchers. The studies had the impact of defining clearly the human relations school. Another contribution was an emphasis on the practice of personnel counselling. Industrial sociology owes its life as a discipline to the studies done at the Hawthorne site. Thus it can be concluded that, the Hawthorne Studies has been well established in the empirical literature beyond the original studies. The concerned output was human effort and the results can be expected to be similar. The experiments stand as a caution about simple experiments which view

human participants as if they were only material systems. There is less certainty about the nature of the surprise factor, other than it certainly depended on the attributes of the participants; like their knowledge, beliefs etc.

References
Carey A. (1967), "The Hawthorne Studies: A Radical Criticism", American Sociological Review, Vol.32, No.3, Jun. 1967, p.403-416. Franke, R. H. & Kaul, J. D. (1978). The Hawthorne experiments: First statistical interpretation. American Sociological Review, 1978, 43, 623-64. Mayo, Elton. (1933), The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization. New York: Macmillan. Whitehead, T. N. (1938) The Industrial Worker: A Statistical Study of Human Relations in a Group of Manual Workers. London: Oxford University Press. Web Sites http://www.enotes.com/hawthorne-experiments-reference/hawthorne-experiments [18 November 2012] [11:07pm] http://www.nwlink.com%2F~donclark%2Fhrd%2Fhistory%2Fhawthorne.html&h=IAQE32Bzo [18 November 2012] [11:35pm] http://www.mbaknol.com%2Fmanagement-principles%2Felton-mayos-hawthorne-experiment-andits-contributions-to-management%2F&h=IAQE32Bzo [18 November 2012] [12:00 am]