Lecture The evolution of management thought (6th edition) - Chapter 13: The Hawthorne Studies

The Hawthorne studies, began as an investigation into the relationship between illumination and worker productivity, evolved into a study of the increased output unrelated to lighting. Improved performance was due to incentive payments, style of the supervisor.

THE EVOLUTION OF MANAGEMENT

THOUGHT, 6TH

EDITION

Electronic Resource by:

Regina Greenwood and Julia Teahen

Social Person Era

Part Three

http://www.bigfoto.com/themes/railw

ay

The Hawthorne Studies

Chapter Thirteen

Hawthorne Plant of Western Electric

Subsidiary of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company

Hawthorne Studies

http://www.inficad.com/~ksup/welectric.html

Hawthorne Studies

 “The Social Person” was not invented by these studies, but was brought to a

wider recognition by those who

interpreted the results

 The studies have been widely

publicized, misinterpreted, praised, and criticized over the many years since the event

 The studies continue to generate

articles and presentations

Hawthorne Plant History &

Time Line

 1905: Western Electric moved to Cicero, Illinois

 Founder: Enos Barton

 “The Biggest Little Railway in the World”

 1914: Absorbed operations from New

York & Chicago

 Main manufacturer for Bell Telephone

Hawthorne Plant History &

Time Line

 1924-1933: Hawthorne Studies

 1932-1938: Harvard researchers

continued research

 “Human Element” is critical

 1940: Peak production with 42,000

workers employed

 1958: Western Electric Statistical Quality Control Handbook

The Studies Begin

Illumination Studies: 1927

issue was the effect

After establishing performance baselines in three departments, the researchers varied the level of illumination.

Their conclusion: Illumination appeared to have no influence on input.

Illumination Studies:

1924-1927

Illumination Studies: 1927

made with a control

group and a variable

Illumination Studies: 1927

there were too

many variables and

The studies could have been trashed at this point, but Homer Hibarger one of the researchers from

Hawthorne, and George Pennock, assistant works

manager of Hawthorne, pushed for further study.

The Relay Assembly Test Room: 1933

1927-The Relay Assembly Test Room 1927-1933

The Relay Assembly Test

Room: 1927-1933

 The participants were volunteers, knew the objectives of the study, and were observed for a short period in their

regular department prior to going to a separate room with their observer

 After eight months into the experiment, two of the original participants were

replaced

The Relay Assembly Test Room Left to right: Bea Stedry, Anna Haug,

Wanda Blazejak, Theresa Layman, Geraldine Sirchio, and Mary Volango

The Relay Assembly Test Room: 1933

1927-The Relay Assembly Test Room: 1927-1933

Mary

Volango

Operator

#1

The Relay Assembly Test Room: 1927-1933

Geraldine

Sirchio

Operator

#2

The Relay Assembly Test Room: 1927-1933

Theresa

Layman

Operator

#3

The Relay Assembly Test Room: 1927-1933

The Relay Assembly Test Room: 1927-1933

Anna

Haug

Operator

#5

The Relay Assembly Test Room: 1927-1933

Beatrice

Stedry

Layout

Operator

The Relay Assembly Test

Room: 1927-1933

 A number of changes were introduced

 The incentive payment plan was changed such that the relay assembly group was rewarded on their output rather than on the output of the larger relay assembly department

 Participants were told they could make more money under this arrangement.

 Participants were

allowed to talk to each other during the work day.

E-901 Relay – One Variation

The Relay Assembly Test Room: 1927-1933

 Rest periods were

introduced.

two operators quit

and two new ones

The Relay Assembly Test Room: 1927-1933

studies began, all of

these “privileges,”

except the small

group payment plan,

were removed.

the overall trend was

increased output.

Test Room participants are dressed up for

the first anniversary dinner.

Dr Clair Turner, MIT:

Early Interpretation

 Dr Clair Turner of MIT had an

interpretation of the test results:

 The small group resulted in more esprit

de corps

 Difference in the style of supervision

 “relaxed and friendly” in the test room vs

“he was mean…he died; I didn’t even go

to see him.”

 Theresa Layman speaking of regular room

supervisor Frank Platenka

Dr Clair Turner - Early

Interpretation

 Increased earnings: average wage went from $16 to $28-50 per week while in the Test Room

 The novelty of the experiment

 The attention given to the operators by others at the plant

 “I had no idea there would be so much happening and so many people watching us.”

 Theresa Layman Zajac, Relay Assembly Test Room Operator, 1976 - www.library.hbs.edu/ hc/hawthorne/06.html

Second Relay Group

 A second relay group was formed by Turner

in an effort to test the pay for performance effects Average earnings per week had

increased significantly.

 The second relay group was formed and

taken from the large group payment plan to the small group one Initially, output went

up and then leveled off The study only

lasted nine weeks The group was then

returned to the original payment plan,

output dropped That was the end of the

second group.

Mica Splitting Tests: 1928-1930

Mica Splitting Tests:

1928-1930

 Mica splitters had always been on

individual pay incentives and this group was studies for 14 months

 In this group, average hourly output

went up during this period

 Turner concluded that pay incentives were one factor, but not the only one, although it was of “appreciable

importance.”

Mica Splitting Tests: 1928-1930

The Interviewing Program: 1929-1930

started asking the

The Interviewing Program:

1929-1930

 With the nondirective approach the length of the interviews and the

information gathered increased

 There appeared to be a cathartic effect After a worker complained, follow-up interviews revealed that the complaint was gone The workers felt better even though no change in conditions had

occurred.

 “Fact” and “sentiment” had to be

separated.

 Two levels of complaints:

 Manifest – what the employee said

 Latent – the psychological content of the

complaint

The Interviewing Program:

performance – according to Mayo) could be reduced if supervisors were concerned and listened to their employees

Elton Mayo

Bank Wiring Test Room

1931 - 1932

Group Behavior

Group Behavior: Bank Wiring Test Room (1931-1932)

 Concerned observation, but not

intervention, with male workers

assembling switches for central office switchboards

 Restriction with output was a

surprising finding to Turner and

W Lloyd Warner even though

restriction of output had been

described by others

Group Behavior: Bank Wiring Test Room (1931-1932)

 Workers had established an output norm that was lower than management’s

standard or the “bogey.”

 In the informal organization, there were two cliques, each having norms about appropriate in-group behavior, such as the practice of “binging.”

Group Behavior: Bank Wiring Test Room (1931-1932)

 Researchers found that work groups:

 Deliberately restricted output

 Smoothed out production

 Developed intragroup disciplinary

methods

 Some workers were isolates, not in a

clique, because of various factors

Group Behavior: Bank Wiring Test Room (1931-1932)

 Rules for clique membership:

fast (“Rate buster”)

slowly (“Rate chiseler”)

on a member of your group.

officious or be socially distant.

Group Behavior: Bank Wiring Test Room (1931-1932)

 Factory as a social organization; work

groups served to protect the workers within their group, and to protect the group from outsiders

 The workers:

 Viewed technologists and managers as following a “logic of efficiency” which

interfered with group activities.

 Were apprehensive of authority and

followed a “logic of sentiments” which

reflected their feelings and attitudes

toward outsiders.

“The Hawthorne Effect”

human relations folklore for years

 Allegedly, the findings were biased

because the experimenters became

personally involved in the social-work situation

 Theresa Layman, one of the

participants, rebutted this; so did Don Chipman, one of the observer

experimenters

 The Hawthorne Effect is widely

referenced, but is a dubious explanation

of the Hawthorne results

Human Relations

 “Pessimistic reveries” were one type of blockage which arose out of personal, social, and industrial problems and

became manifest in apprehension of authority, restriction of output, etc

 Anomie, borrowed by Mayo from Emile Durkheim to describe the break-up of traditional society, leaving people

without norms

Harvard Business School

The Continuing Story

The Hawthorne Plant after the Studies

Greenwood & Bolton Study

 Greenwood & Bolton visited some Relay Assembly Test Participants in 1981

 Resulted in the article: “Hawthorne a

Half Century Later: Relay Assembly

Participants Remember,” Greenwood, R G., Bolton, A.E., and Greenwood, R A Journal of Management, New York; Fall 1983/Winter 1984; Vol 9, Iss 2; pg 217,

15 pgs

Left to right: Theresa Layman, Al Bolton, Wanda Blazejak, Don Chipman, and Ron Greenwood

Greenwood & Bolton Study

Greenwood & Bolton Study

Theresa Layman and Al Bolton

Greenwood & Bolton Study

Theresa Layman – Operator #3

Anna Haug – Operator #5

Mary Volango – Operator

#1

Wanda Blazejak – Operator #4

Don Chipman & Theresa Layman

Chipman & Layman – 1960 or 

Don Chipman &

Operators

What Happened to AT&T’s Bell System and Western Electric?

 November 20, 1974: Antitrust suit

charging monopolization and conspiracy

to monopolize

 1984: AT&T was ordered to divest its

Bell System and Western Electric

divisions

 Lucent Technologies

 Bell Laboratories

Current Use of Hawthorne Works

 1983: Hawthorne Works converted into retail space:

 Hawthorne Works Plaza

 Super K-Mart

 Dominick’s Grocery Store

 The tower and a portion of the plant

remains

Hawthorne Buildings – June 1999

Hawthorne Buildings – June 1999

Current Use of Hawthorne Works

 Hawthorne Industrial Park

 Cyprus Copper Rod

 Schillinger Salt

 Logistix

 OmniTRAX Logistics’ Chicago Distribution Center

 In the view of Elton Mayo and

strengthening by social and human skills from the leader

 Influenced by Chester Barnard, Mayo

concluded that authority had to be based

on social skills in securing cooperation.

 Management needed to focus more on

building group integrity and solidarity.

 First line supervisors were particularly

important in good worker-manager

relations.

 Motivation in the human relations literature evolved and became more Mayo and

Roethlisberger’s advocacy rather than based on what happened at the Hawthorne Plant.

Fritz J Roethlisberger

 Early reports, such as Clair Turner’s

report and Mark Putnam’s statement to Business Week, placed money as

important

 The test room participants stated they liked the fact they were able to make more money

 As time passed, the

Mayo-Roethlisberger theme shifted:

 Roethlisberger’s memo that Mayo would

be happy because of some evidence that physiological, not economic, factors were related to output.

 More emphasis in later writings is placed

on social belonging needs, being accepted

by the group.

 A later quote regarding discarding

“economic man.”

Can the theories of motivation discussed here be combined and applied to contemporary motivation strategies? What motivates people today?

What motivates the “social person?”

http://www.bigfoto.com/themes/railw

ay

 The Hawthorne Studies, began as an

investigation into the relationship

between illumination and worker

productivity, evolved into a study of the increased output unrelated to lighting

 Improved performance was due to

 Incentive payments

 Style of the supervisor.

 The human relations-oriented supervisor could satisfy the social needs of humans and the economic needs of the

organization