Ballantyne, P.F. (2000) Hawthorne Research. Reader's
Guide to the Social Sciences. London: Fitzroy Dearborn.
Hawthorne Research
From 1924[-]32, an innovative series of research studies was funded by the
Western Electric Company at its Hawthorne plant in Chicago, then a manufacturing
division of AT&T. The plant was one of the oldest in operation and employed
approximately 25,000 of Western Electric's 45,000 workers. The research
proceeded through five phases: (1) The initial Illumination studies (1924[-]27)
were aimed at evaluating the effect of lighting conditions on productivity; (2) the
Relay-assembly Room studies (August 1928[-]March 1929) assessed the effects of
pay incentives, rest periods, and active job input on the productivity of five selected
woman workers; (3) the Mica-Splitting Test group (October 1928[-]September
1930) in which a group of piece-workers were used to corroborate the relative
importance of work-group dynamics vs. pay incentives; (4) the Bank Wiring
Observation group (November 1931[-]May 1932) a covert observational design in
which the dynamics of control in a work-group of 14 male employees on the regular
factory floor were observed; and (5) the plantwide Interviewing program
(September 1928[-]early 1931) essentially an attempt by the company to
categorize concerns, mitigate grievances, and manipulate employee morale
according to the principles of social control learned in the previous phases). The
latter two phases were interrupted by the detrimental effects of the Great
Depression on company production orders, but the interviewing phase was later
reinstated as a "Personnel Counseling" program, and was even expanded
throughout the Western Electric company system between 1936[-]1955.
The Hawthorne effect, defined as the tendency under conditions of observation for
worker productivity to steadily increase, was discovered during the earliest
"scientific management" phases of the research. It was suggested that when
human work relations (ie., supervision and worker camaraderie) were appropriate,
adverse physical conditions had little negative effect upon worker productivity. If
the company could only learn more about the human relations aspects of the
workplace, they might soon be able to utilize them to increase overall plant
production. The latter phases of research, therefore, become more
sociopsychological in design.
MAY0 was the most prominent early popularizer of these studies. His previous
industrial psychology work included reducing turnover in a Philadelphia area textile
mill by establishing a system of rest periods for workers but he now stressed a
social relations interpretation of the ongoing Hawthorne research. This portrayal
had the eventual disciplinary effect of extending the purview of industrial testing
beyond the previous individualized placement of workers toward the wider realm of
manipulation of work-place relationships. Mayo’s account is altogether more
programmatic than the guarded comments of WHITEHEAD or of ROETHLISBERGER
and DICKSON in their official company research report (where more of the messy
empirical details of the early phases of research were presented). All three sources,
however, intentionally portray the Harvard Business School researchers as equally
benevolent toward worker and company interests.
The standard portrayal of wholehearted cooperation between the workers and
supervisors in the latter phases of research came under sharp attack from industrial
sociologists from 1937 onward including: GILSON; LYND; MILLS; LANDSBERGER. It
was BARITZ, however, who popularized the notion that industrial researchers were
inevitably "servants of power." The counseling phase of research in particular was
designed to apply the listening techniques of the "Catholic confessional" and the
"psychiatric couch" (p. 116) with the aim of adjusting people to situations (rather
than alleviating those situations from the workplace). An attempt at disciplinary
damage control was then published by DICKSON and ROETHLISBERGER. A more
convincing counter argument can be gained from other sources. Baritz clearly
overstated his argument. Early 20th century immigrant workers were not simply
hapless victims of capitalism. They used the limited opportunities presented by the
industrial workplace to create their own conditions for the further development of
their sub-cultures. ALTHENBAUGH; BERNSTEIN; SUSMAN; NELSON-ROWE all
indicate that these self-made conditions included such features as parochial
schools, organized labor unions, and even labor colleges.
GILLESPIE follows up this line of historical reasoning by placing the Hawthorne
research into the context of the rise of labor unions. The Hawthorne subject pool
did not mindlessly react to industrial management techniques nor did they simply
adjust or adapt to the less than subtle contingencies of social relations
experiments. They recognized these contingencies for what they were: New
company attempts to increase overall production and control union sentiment.
HOGAN; WEISS indicate that transplanted peasant culture which emphasized family
collectivism, religious devotion, and attitudes toward the value of work and formal
education likely affected workplace relations as much as any company-based
program.
Whereas scientific management decorticated workers, and the mental testing
tradition individualized workers, social relations research portrayed workers as
ruled by a sentiment of interpersonal irrationality. This was, of course, an
improvement; but not much of an improvement. BRAMEL & FRIEND caution modern
researchers to bare in mind that the results of industrial research can not be fully
understood by mere appeal to subject expectancy effects, nor even to
contextualized social work group relations. They must be understood in the wider,
shifting, societal-historical context of management-union relations.
Paul F. Ballantyne
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