Management essay - Hawthorn studies
Topic: “The Hawthorne studies are said to have been an important milestone in management thinking. Discuss this idea with reference to the thoughts on management both before and after the Hawthorne studies took place”
The Hawthorne studies of the late 1920s and early 1930s have had wide-ranging influence in industrial sociology and provide the base for the subfields of human relations, organisations development and organisational design (Roethlisberger and Dickson 1939; Whitehead 1938; Homans 1951). It creates people a new realisation about why the variation of efficiency changes, and repudiates the incorrect concepts which existed before. The Hawthorne studies clearly showed that the increase of productivity is largely depends on the workers’ attitude and the internal relationship in an enterprise, the working environment and the wages are not the key factor to increase productivity. So satisfy the workers from both material and spiritual needs are the prerequisite to improve their productivity. This is an important milestone in management thinking, it creates inspiration for the after coming enterprises and managing systems, and provides the correct viewpoint for management.
Before the Hawthorne studies came out, Frederick W. Taylor had created a way to getting a higher level of productivity. He set up a pig-iron experiment, which he put the right person on the job with the correct tools and equipment, make the worker follow his instruction exactly, and encouraged the worker with an economic incentive of a significant higher daily wage (Robbins et al., 2009, p.44-45). He had done that experiment successfully, so that he became known as the “father” of scientific management. That idea went to a lot of countries and had been used in company management. But does this idea fit any work in any time? Obviously not. Of course the increase of salary is very attractive, but money cannot stimulate productivity to increase in all situations. The same experiment was
The Hawthorne studies of the late 1920s and early 1930s have had wide-ranging influence in industrial sociology and provide the base for the subfields of human relations, organisations development and organisational design (Roethlisberger and Dickson 1939; Whitehead 1938; Homans 1951). It creates people a new realisation about why the variation of efficiency changes, and repudiates the incorrect concepts which existed before. The Hawthorne studies clearly showed that the increase of productivity is largely depends on the workers’ attitude and the internal relationship in an enterprise, the working environment and the wages are not the key factor to increase productivity. So satisfy the workers from both material and spiritual needs are the prerequisite to improve their productivity. This is an important milestone in management thinking, it creates inspiration for the after coming enterprises and managing systems, and provides the correct viewpoint for management.
Before the Hawthorne studies came out, Frederick W. Taylor had created a way to getting a higher level of productivity. He set up a pig-iron experiment, which he put the right person on the job with the correct tools and equipment, make the worker follow his instruction exactly, and encouraged the worker with an economic incentive of a significant higher daily wage (Robbins et al., 2009, p.44-45). He had done that experiment successfully, so that he became known as the “father” of scientific management. That idea went to a lot of countries and had been used in company management. But does this idea fit any work in any time? Obviously not. Of course the increase of salary is very attractive, but money cannot stimulate productivity to increase in all situations. The same experiment was