HI6005 Management and Organisations: Hawthorne Studies Analysis

This report analyzes the Hawthorne Studies, a series of influential research projects conducted at the Hawthorne Works factory. The study, led by Elton Mayo, investigated the effects of various factors on worker productivity, including lighting, rest periods, and social dynamics. The report delves into the Illumination Studies, the Relay Room Experiments, and the Bank Wiring Experiments, highlighting key findings such as the Hawthorne effect, which revealed that worker behavior is influenced by observation. The study found that social and psychological factors played a crucial role in determining worker output and satisfaction. The report concludes that the Hawthorne Studies transformed management practices by emphasizing the importance of employee relationships and the social environment within the workplace, moving beyond purely economic incentives to understand the complexities of human behavior in organizations.

MANAGEMENT AND ORGANISATIONS
IN A GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
Name of Student
Name of University
Author’s Note:

INTRODUCTION
 The Hawthorne Studies were a series of
research studies conducted to determine the
changes in the behavior of individuals in
responding to environmental changes
 The objective was to systematically divide
tasks into smaller fragments, and determine
the most efficient work procedure for workers
 The name was coined after the Hawthorne
Works, where the primary research on
lighting studies was conducted, by Henry A.
Landsberger

 The Hawthorne experiments
were led by Elton Mayo,
professor of Harvard Business
School, along with associates
William J. Dickson and F. J.
Roethlisberger.
 The ideas and conclusions drawn by these
studies about the physical and social
dynamics of workers have drawn a lot of
reactions, interpretations and criticism.

THE ILLUMINATION STUDIES
 The Illunimation Studies were the set of earlier
tests of the Hawthorne Studies conducted on
factory workers between 1924 and 1932 by
Western Electric at their Hawthorne Works factory
 a series of studies of test groups and control
groups, in which the levels of illumination, that is,
the overall brightness of the work station were
changed, while other conditions were constant
 The changes in the amount of light available to
workers while working affected their productivity
levels.

 purpose behind conducting these
experiments was to examine and
understand the relation between worker
productivity and workplace light conditions
 Careful analysis of the workers’ responses
showed that productivity improved with
changes, and fell after the end of the study
 This revealed individual behaviors were
affected by the conduction of study itself,
rather than the effects of the factors

 Failure of researchers to
find a linear and positive
relationship between
illumination and efficiency
of the workers of the
factory led to concluding
that the results were faulty
due to the absence of a
direct and simple cause
and effect relationship
The most significant inference drawn from
this set of experiments was the behavioral
aberration of workers when being studied.
This behavioral effect came to be known as
the Observer Effect or the Hawthorn Effect

THE RELAY ROOM EXPERIMENTS
 The relay-assembly tests were designed to
study the effect of other practical factors,
in order to evaluate what effect the hours
of work and periods of rest would have on
productive efficiency
 Initially six female operators participated in
the study. Later, two more othersas the
control group
 To assure accuracy in quality of output
results the women worked separately in a
room, where physical factors were adjusted

 The women were assigned to assemble
electromagnetic switches, or relays
 The output was gauged manually by
counting the finished relays the workers
were able to submit
 The relays were dropped down a chute and
counting had begun secretly, a fortnight
before isolating the women
 Stimuli such as incentives, breaks and
reduced work hours were introduced
 Resulted in a climb of production of over 30% in
the first two and a half years of the study

• The women gave
positive feedbacks
which expressed an
increase in their job
satisfaction.
The feedbacks along with the results
obtained from moths of experimenting
led the researchers to conclude that the
improvement in performance was a result
of the incentives, the nature of the test
supervisions, and the rest periods

THE BANK WIRING EXPERIMENTS
 The third segment of the Hawthorne studies
comprised of the bank wiring experiments that
began in November 1931
 Among the fourteen men in the test room, two
were the inspectors of the experiment, while
there were nine wirers and three solderers.
 The basic task assigned to the workers was to
wire conductor banks, which required wiring
three thousand to six thousand terminals for a
set of conductor banks
 The primary objective of the bank wiring
experiments was to analyse and study the social
relationships between the workers

 After around three weeks they started
interacting and resumed regular behavior
amongst each other
 The wages of the workers were paid on an
hourly basis depending on the average
output. Bonuses were introduced in the later
stages of the experiment
 A closer look into the behavioral patterns of
the men exposed the formation of certain
informal groups
 This was probably the most significant finding
of the bank wiring study

 The influence of the group affected the behavior
of the members as well as other workers which
resulted in the overall slowdown of work
production
 It showed that workers responded to the force of
their peer groups in comparison to the force
exerted by the management
 reasons by workers behind this behavior, included
fear of decrease in the base payment rate and
fear of unemployment of slow and inefficient
workers

CONCLUSION
 Behavioral characteristics of workers were not
merely affected by simple physical and
psychological factors like light or financial
incentives. It was a result of complex interrelated
factors that involved the presence of inspectors,
worker’s attitudes and peer pressure
 Probably the most important takeaway from the
Hawthorne studies is the Hawthorne effect, where
participants of an experiment change their due
course of natural reaction due to the presence of
an external observer
 Mayo clarified that it should not be seen as
an experimenter effect but rather as a
management effect

REFERENCES
 Bendix, R. and Fisher, L.H., 2017. The Perspectives of Elton Mayo.
In The Anthropology of Organisations (pp. 11-18). Routledge.
 Franke, R.H. and Kaul, J.D., 1978. The Hawthorne experiments: First
statistical interpretation. American sociological review, pp.623-643.
 Gillespie, Richard. Manufacturing Knowledge: A History of the
Hawthorne Experiments. New York: Cambridge University Press,
1991
 Oswald, D., Sherratt, F.R.E.D. and Smith, S.I.M.O.N., 2014. Handling
the Hawthorne effect: The challenges surrounding a participant
observer. Review of social studies, 1(1), pp.53-73
 Sedgwick, P. and Greenwood, N., 2015. Understanding the
Hawthorne effect. Bmj, 351, p.h4672
 Wren, Daniel A. "Industrial Sociology: A Revised View of Its
Antecedents." Journal of the History of the Behavioral
Sciences (1985): 310-20

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