The Hawthorne Studies

Australian-born Elton Mayo (1880–1948) is best known for his role in the famous Hawthorne Studies at the Western Electric Company. The Hawthorne Studies were conducted in several stages between 1924 and 1932 at a Western Electric plant in Chicago.

The first stage of the Hawthorne Studies investigated the effects of lighting levels and incentives on employee productivity in the Relay Test Assembly Room, where workers took approximately a minute to put “together a coil, armature, contact springs, and insulators in a fixture and secure the parts by means of four machine screws.” Over the next five years, the experimenters introduced various levels and combinations of lighting, financial incentives, and rest pauses (work breaks) to study the effect on productivity.

Curiously, however, production levels increased whether the experimenters increased or decreased the lighting, paid workers based on individual production or group production, or increased or decreased the number and length of rest pauses. In fact, Mayo and his fellow researchers were surprised that production steadily increased from 2,400 relays per day at the beginning of the study to 3,000 relays per day five years later. The question was: Why?

For years, the “Hawthorne Effect” has been incorrectly defined as increasing productivity by paying more attention to workers. But it is not simply about attention from management. The Hawthorne Effect cannot be understood without giving equal importance to the social units, which became intensely cohesive groups.

For the first time, human factors related to work were found to be more important than the physical conditions or design of the work. The next stage of the Hawthorne Studies was conducted in the Bank Wiring Room, where the group consisted of nine wiremen, three solderers, and two inspectors.

By highlighting the crucial role, positive or negative, that groups, group norms, and group behavior play at work, Mayo strengthened Follett’s point about coordination - make just one change in an organization and others, some expected and some unexpected, will occur. Thanks to Mayo and his colleagues and their work on the Hawthorne Studies, managers better understood the effect that group social interactions, employee satisfaction, and attitudes had on individual and group performance.

The Hawthorne Effect showed that when management paid more attention to workers, productivity increased. But equal importance should be given to the social units, or teams, that were created, which demonstrated that human factors were more important than physical conditions or the work itself.