Critically Discuss The Continued Relevance Of The Hawthorne Studies To 21st Century Management.

Answer

Critically Discuss The Continued Relevance Of The Hawthorne Studies To 21st Century Management.

Introduction

The Hawthorne studies were conducted at the Hawthorne Works facility of the Western Electric company between 1924 and 1932 with researchers realizing that employee productivity was largely affected by special treatment than other physical and monetary factors. The researchers initially wanted to test whether changes in the physical working environment of the employees at the facility would result in changes in the overall productivity of employees. The researchers discovered that employees were more responsive to social and psychological factors such as being treated as a member of a special group. Employee productivity increased significantly when they realized that they were being watched and also when managers showed greater interest in the affairs of employees at the workplace (Roethlisberger, 1948). The productivity of employees increased when they were allowed to choose their own coworkers and when they worked closely with their managers to ensure that they produced the right results. This discovery led to a whole new field of study based on the psychological and social motivators for employee productivity, which indicated that employees performed better with greater autonomy in their jobs as well as greater collaboration with their managers. Thus, the Hawthorne studies are extremely relevant to 21^st century management studies as employees are still motivated by the same factors that the Hawthorne researchers discovered up to today.

The Hawthorne effect and team productivity

The Hawthorne experiments showed that employee productivity is bound to increase in the presence of an interested sympathetic observer. The conclusions generated by the Hawthorne studies indicate that if the physical work conditions of a team are changed, then the productivity of the team is likely to improve. This means that a team leader can decide to change the seating arrangements of the entire team, which could imply that the team is now under observation. Such changes could easily trigger an increase in the productivity of team members especially if they believe that they are now under observation by their managers. Another measure that could be taken to increase team productivity is to actually put the entire team under constant observation by placing managers in the same work environment as their teams. The presence of the managers could act as a motivating factor to increase employee productivity especially if the managers demonstrate a keen interest in the employees’ work (Franke and Kaul, 1978). These two measures are directly derived from the Hawthorne experiments where productivity increased when the physical work conditions of the employees such as the lighting were changed, which increased employee productivity. Employee productivity also increased once they realized that they were under observation by a sympathetic observer who cared about the challenges they faced in the performance of their duties.

Lewin’s field theory and the Hawthorne experiments

Kurt Lewin’s field theory stated that it was possible to construct a life space that could help researchers predict and understand changes in the behavior of individuals and groups according to the life space. Lewin used his field theory mainly to study and understand the changes in behavior of groups under specific conditions just like in the Hawthorne experiments. Lewin’s experiments bear close similarity to the Hawthorne experiments as both experiments study changes in the behavior of groups under different conditions (Burnes and Cooke, 2013). The two experiments use the same methods to study changes in the behavior of people in different groups so as to study the impact of different phenomena on group behavior. Lewin used field theory to study the different forces that led to groups having undesired behaviors and also to determine the forces that could be strengthened or weakened to result in the right behaviors within a group. The difference between the Hawthorne experiments and Lewin’s experiments is that the Hawthorne experiments focused on the positive factors that influenced group behavior, while Lewin’s experiments focused on both the positive and negative factors that influenced group behavior (McCambridge, Witton and Elbourne, 2014). Lewin studied the formation of social groupings including how they were maintained and motivated to perform certain positive or negative group actions. Field theory was crucial to Lewin’s work as it enabled him to study the forces that brought about changes in the different groups within a workplace.

Relay assembly and bank wiring room assembly

The relay assembly experiments were conducted at the Hawthorne facility where employees were allowed to choose the work partners as part of their work group and were placed in a segregated room under close supervision. The supervisor of the work teams was heavily involved in the daily work of the employees as they were able to share ideas with the supervisor who also provided immediate feedback on the progress of the employees towards the set work targets. Variables such as the lighting and the length of breaks given to the employees were varied in order to determine the impact of changing each of the variables at the workplace and the impact of such changes on the productivity of employees (McAuley, et al., 2014). The researchers observed that any changes in each of the variables resulted in increased productivity, even negative changes that should have resulted in reduced productivity as per the expected results. The bank wiring study was conducted to determine the impact of financial incentives on workers who assembled telephone switching equipment. The result of this experiment was that the employees’ productivity decreased as they were suspicious that their performance had been boosted in order to fire some of them. This demonstrates that financial incentives do not necessarily result in increased performance and that sometimes social incentives are much better at increasing employee productivity.

Human relations and the Hawthorne experiments

The human relations theories analyzed by Roethlisberger in his review of about five works on industrial psychology and human relations shows evidence that industrial psychology was widespread and developed greatly in the 20^th century. The evidence shows that industrial psychology was used to develop theories about human relations at the workplace, which are closely related to the Hawthorne studies that are entirely based on human relations. The works written during the periods before World War I and World War II dwelt on the management of people and the management of work. This was the scientific study of management and was strongly related to the human relations theories discussed in Lewin’s field theory as well as the human relations field. It was during this period that the human relations field matured where the management of employees was regarded as a human relations issue under scientific management theories (Jung and Lee, 2015). Human relations at the workplace were discovered to have a significant impact on employee performance and were the subject of numerous studies as stated within Roethlisberger’s review. Human relations as a field matured after World War II as evidenced by the study conducted by Roethlisberger’s review of the five books that dwell on the matter at length. Therefore, the study of human relations is still relevant in the 21^st century, just as it was relevant in the 20^th century during Roethlisberger’s time.

The illumination studies

The illumination studies were the initial studies to be conducted at the Hawthorne Works facility where researchers went in to conduct experiments that would determine the responsiveness of worker productivity to different illumination levels. Initially the researchers increased the lighting at the workplaces of workers doing repetitive work and the productivity of the workers was supposed to vary according to the increased illumination or decreased illumination of their workspaces. However, researchers found that the productivity of workers increased when the illumination was increased and the same happened when the illumination was decreased to previous and lower levels. The results baffled the researchers who had to abandon their initial researcher and embark on different research objectives to determine the factors that led to fatigue and tiredness. This led to the relay assembly and the back wiring tests experiments that were carried out to replace the illumination test which proved ineffective after the results were the same for different illumination levels (Stephenson, 2014). This study is also linked to Lewin’s force field study as it demonstrates the forces that might not have the same impact on employee performance as opposed to forces that would have a significant impact on employee productivity. These studies are interrelated and all point towards non-monetary factors as the key determinants of employee performance and productivity.

Recommendations

It is highly recommended that 21^st century managers read about the Hawthorne studies and get a good understanding of the various factors that motivate employee behavior and performance. Modern managers should explore other ways of motivating their employees based on social and psychological factors given that monetary incentives do not always work. Employers should consider giving employees greater choice over the members of the work teams that they are part of at the workplace given that such autonomy had a positive impact on the performance of employees at the Hawthorne facility.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is still relevant for researchers to keep studying the Hawthorne experiments as they contain numerous lessons for modern managers and management experts in terms of employee motivation. The studies should serve as a lesson to modern 21^st century managers that sometimes financial incentive might not work in relation to employee motivation and productivity and that social and psychological factor play a major role in employee performance. The illumination studies are a good example of some of the physical workplace factors that might lead to increased employee productivity (Henry, et al., 2015). Therefore, 21^st century managers have a challenge of finding methods of motivating their employees that do not relate to financial incentives given the drastic failure of financial incentives to motivate increased employee productivity. The Hawthorne experiments were a breakthrough in human psychology as it was through these experiments that researchers discovered that workers might actually respond negatively to financial incentives, but respond positively to social and psychological factors. Therefore, 21^st century managers can learn a lot from the Hawthorne experiments such that, it is vital that they study these experiments in order to identify unique ways of motivating their employees through teamwork, and team bonding sessions among other social activities.

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