Question

What lessons did we learn from the Hawthorne studies? Summarize Barnard’s contributions on cooperation and acceptance of authority.

Answer 1

The Hawthorne Studies conducted at the Western Electric Company occurred in several stages.

In thefirst stage of the Hawthorne Studies, production went up because the amount and quality of attention paid to the workers in the study and their development into a cohesive work group led to significantly higher levels of job satisfaction and productivity.

In the second stage, productivity dropped because the workers had been an existing work group for some time and had already developed strong negative norms, in which individual rate busters who worked faster than the rest of the team were ostracized or “binged” (hit on the arm) until they slowed their work pace.

The Hawthorne Studies demonstrated that workers were not just extensions of machines (workers’ feelings and attitudes affected their work), that financial incentives weren’t necessarily the most important motivator for workers, and that group norms and behavior play a critical role in behavior at work.

ChesterBarnard emphasized the critical importance of willing cooperation in organizations, noting that most managerial requests or directives will be accepted because they fall within the zone of indifference. Ultimately, he says, workers grant managers their authority, not the other way around