Elton Mayo and the Deification of Human Relations

The article addresses the issue of transforming preferences and motives for choosing a place of work under the influence of global world trends. Factors that encourage labor in modern conditions, as well as socially significant factors of managerial influence on increase of labor efficiency are identified and ranked. Leading theories of motivation are considered: the scientific school of Frank Gilbreth and Winslow Taylor; The School of Human Relations founded by Elton Mayo; Frederick Hercberg 's theory of "work enrichment." Factors on which the efficiency of management impact realization depends, as well as forms and types of management impact are given. The results of the study of the factors of labor efficiency of A.G. Zdravomyslov (1960s) and the results of the present research of the author of the article are compared. The article examines the factors that encourage a modern person to work, and defines the impact of the management style of a manager on the work efficiency of employees. The hypothesis that if other conditions of employees' work are unchanged, the change in the management style of the manager leads to significant changes in the employee 's labor efficiency has been confirmed. The results of the study conducted by the author of the article on motives to work in modern conditions, as well as the results of the survey, interviews and sociological experiment are given.

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Henry S. Dennison, Elton Mayo, and Human Relations historiography

Management & Organizational History ◽

10.1177/1744935906064095 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 177-199 ◽

Cited By ~ 22

Author(s):

Kyle Bruce

Keyword(s):

Human Relations ◽

Elton Mayo

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Elton Mayo, muilezels en de ontdekking van de sociale ruimte

Gedrag & Organisatie ◽

10.5117/2009.022.001.005 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Laurens A. ten Horn

Keyword(s):

Social Space ◽

Human Relations ◽

Textile Mill ◽

Research Project ◽

The Individual ◽

The Relationship ◽

Over Time ◽

Elton Mayo ◽

The Way

Elton Mayo, mules and the discovery of 'social space' Elton Mayo, mules and the discovery of 'social space' L.A. ten Horn, Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 22, March 2009, nr. 1, pp. 41-49 The Human Relations movement has fundamentally altered the way we look at the relationship between work and the individual. This shift is traced using publications by Elton Mayo. Over a period of more than twenty years he reported several times on the same research project done in the spinning department of a textile mill in 1923/1924. Both his description and his interpretation changed dramatically between publications from 1924 to 1945. The changes were caused by and ran parallel to the Hawthorne studies in which he was deeply involved. The comparison of publications illustrates how fundamental and incisive this change in thinking was and how difficult it was to make the mental shift necessary. In addition, it questions the extent to which the development of knowledge over time is the result of strict rationality.

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Human Relations

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198708612.013.3 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Kyle Bruce ◽

Chris Nyland

Keyword(s):

Working Conditions ◽

Social Needs ◽

Management Model ◽

Management Decision ◽

Human Relations ◽

Organization Studies ◽

Management Decision Making ◽

Human Association ◽

Western Electric ◽

Elton Mayo

As ritualistically conveyed in management and organization studies textbooks, the Human Relations ‘school’ of management (HRS) is understood to have emerged from investigations into human association in the workplace by Elton Mayo and his associates between 1924 and 1932 at the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric. The HRS is said to have brought people’s social needs into the limelight and thereby increased their capacity for ‘spontaneous collaboration’ at work. This perspective, however, has been challenged by a growing body of scholars who have demonstrated that HRS provided employers with an authoritarian management model that held employees are irrational, agitation-prone individuals whose demand for better wages and working conditions was symptomatic of a deep psychosocial maladjustment. This perspective enabled employers to monopolise authority in the workplace and justify this monopoly on the grounds that workers lacked the rationality required to participate in management decision-making.

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