another very important topic in management Hawthorne studies:
In 1927, the Western Electric engineers asked Harvard professor Elton Mayo and his associates to join the study as consultants. Thus began a relationship that would last through 1932 and encompass numerous experiments in the redesign of jobs, changes in workday and workweek length, introduction of rest periods, and individual versus group wage plans.
For example, one experiment was designed to evaluate the effect of a group piecework incentive pay system on group productivity. The results indicated that the incentive plan had less effect on a worker's output than did group pressure, acceptance, and the accompanying security. The researchers concluded that social norms or group standards were the key determinants of individual work behavior.
Scholars generally agree that the Hawthorne Studies had a dramatic impact on the direction of management beliefs about the role of human behavior in organizations. Mayo concluded that behavior and sentiments are closely related, that group influences significantly affect individual behavior, that group standards establish individual worker output, and that money is less a factor in determining output than are group standards, group sentiments, and security. These conclusions led to a new emphasis on the human behavior factor in the functioning of organizations and the attainment of their goals.
However, the conclusions from the Hawthorne Studies weren't without criticism. Critics attacked the research procedures, analyses of findings, and the conclusions.From a historical standpoint, however, it's of little importance whether the studies were academically sound or their conclusions justified. What is important is that they stimulated an interest in human behavior in organizations. The Hawthorne Studies played a significant role in changing the dominant view at the time that employees were no different from any other machines that the organization used.
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