Hawthorne Studies/Hawthorne Effect

James T. Austin & Scott A. Davies

The Hawthorne Studies and the Hawthorne Effect are threads through management schools and associated research from before the Great Depression to the present. They can be viewed from at least four vantage points. The Hawthorne Studies themselves were a series of collaborative investigations at the Hawthorne Works of Western Electric. The researchers began with a criterion of productivity and first studied environmental changes in illumination, encountered anomalies because production increased when illumination decreased to very low levels, and finally shifted toward recognition of social influences and personnel counseling. From one perspective, they linked the scientific management and the human relations movement schools. From a second standpoint, the studies attracted multiple disciplines interested in organizations (sociology, industrial, social, and then organizational psychology, organizational behavior, and human resource management). From a third outlook, they provide numerous lessons concerning the history of these fields in the unquestioning acceptance of secondary sources and in ...

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