last updated 9/9/2006
HAWTHORNE STUDIES
Origins of
the "Human Relations School"
Elton Mayo and his team concluded:
(summary of key issues)
(see OC pp. 36-38
)
-
friendly warm relations with supervisors who listen
(First finding that upward communication is important to
satisfaction) and are supportive and
with peers increase productivity
-
worker satisfaction with relationships with peers influences productivity and conformity to norms
(social pressures can improve output).
-
supervisors need to understand workers actions in terms of "meanings" workers ascribe to
the work environment
(Numbers 1 and 2 above aren't well supported by research,
but they were widely believed)
Chester Bernard
Bernard was an early
HR theorist who wrote FUNCTIONS OF THE EXECUTIVE.
Those functions include:
A. Create and maintain effective communication system
B. Stimulate activity
C. Define goals
- members of organizations are complex, thinking beings.
- decisions are influenced by a complex of personal feelings, interpersonal relations and social pressures,
(thus, informal organization and cooperation [ vs obedience to orders) become
critical)
- making good communication processes necessary.
The "zone of indifference" anticipates cultural approaches
to organizational communication.
Maslow's Need Hierarchy
(see OC pp. 38-40
)
(an important psychological underpinning of HR)
-
survival
-
safety,
-
affiliation (social),
-
esteem (respect/ego),
-
self-actualization