Under the Guidance of: Mr.

David Selvanathan

Presented By: Hemant Sharma (A30201911055)

Human Relations School

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Human Relations School

The famous Hawthorne studies formed the basis of the human relations school, and are described by Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939) and Mayo (1945) and Homans (1950).

Mayo and Roethlisberger came from the Taylor tradition, and were studying fatique to optimize the length and spacing of rest periods for maximum productivity. The early work followed the scientific management approach, but surprisingly they found that production rose in both control and experimental rooms no matter what they did to the lighting. Later they found that people simply worked harder because they were part of the experiment and they wanted to do the best they could for the researchers and the company. Scotts summarizes this as "change is interesting, attention is gratifying" p. 57. Other Hawthorne studies (relay-assembly group, mica-splitting, bank wiring) all showed that workers are not simply motivated by economic self-interest but have complex motives and values. "They are driven by feelings and sentiments as much as be facts and interests... and also act as members of social groups (where loyalties are often stronger than individual self-interests)." Scott p. 57. The formal systems were subverted by evolving informal systems of norms and relationships, showing that socialpsychological effects were often stronger than economic effects.

However, the Hawthorne studies have been criticized extensively (e.g., Carey 1967)

Informal Group Processes

The Hawthore studies led to more study on the importance of informal group processes in organizations. Social psychologists like Maier (1952) and Katz (1951) and sociologists like Homans (1950) and Whyte (1959) were influential.

Outgrowths of the Human Relations School

Many other important branches of organizational research sprung from the Human Relations efforts. Some of these are: Leadership Theory X and Theory Y Sensitivity and T-Group Training Job Redesign Worker Participation

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Leadership
Human Relations Perspective:
From a human relations perspective, leadership is a mechanism for influencing the behavior of individuals. Studies showed that participants performed better under democratic than authoritarian or lassez-faire leaders. Another showed two basic dimensions of leadership -- consideration (trust, friendship, and respect between leader and subordinate) and initiating structure (organizing capability of leader to get the work out). Later studies showed that leadership characteristics vary with the situation and the specific motivation needs of individual participants. Most of these studies ignored the formal authority vested in the positions of the leaders (Scott p. 58-59).

Bales (1958) found that there two main types of leadership -- socio-emotional leadership that supports group maintenance, and task leadership toward the group activities.

Theory X and Theory Y

Human relation theorists emphasize the impact of individual characteristics like race, sex, class, cultural background on organizational and group behavior. Douglas McGregor's book on "The Human Side of Enterprise" distiguished between Theory X (classical systems theory) and Theory Y (human relations theory). Under Theory X, managers assume workers dislike and avoid work if possible, so they must use coercision, threats, and various control schemes to get workers to make adequate efforts against objectives. They assume the average worker wants to be directed and prefers to avoid responsibility, has little ambition, and wants security above all (paraphrase from McGregor p. 33-34). Theory Y, on the other hand, assumes that individuals do not inherantly dislike work, but see it as natural as play or rest. Furthermore, external control and threat isn't the only way to encourage productivity, and the most significant rewards are the "satisfaction of ego" and "self-actualization needs".

Sensitivity and T-Group Training

Human Relations researchers also sought to improve worker morale through personnel counselors. Sensitivity training for supervisors (Bethel-type sensitivity training) (Blake and Mouton 1964) or T-Group training.

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Job Redesign
The Human Relations Group warned against the dangers of excessive formalization and specialization in causing alienation and low morale among workers. They advocated job enrichment and job rotation programs to reduce alienation and increase committment and satisfaction of workers especially doing routine work (Herzberg, 1966).

Worker Participation
Kurt Lewin was one of the first to show that participation in decision-making can improve commitment and satisfication (Lewin, 1948). Much of this work was elaborated in the work at Tavistock and other european sites.

Criticism of Human Relations Theory

Later many attacked the techniques espoused and developed by the human relations school as just a more indirect and covert attempt at manipulation and exploitation. Worker's legitimate economic interests were being subverted and deemphasized, conflict was denied and "managed", and the new manager roles were just another form of elitism (Scott p. 61). People like Landsberger (1958) and Braverman (1974) noted that the human relations school was actually another methodology to increase worker productivity, not to actually improve worker relations. Empirically, the human relations school is also suspect. There is no empirical relation between: * worker satisfaction and productivity (Schwab and Cummings, 1970) * leadership style and productivity (Hollander and Julian, 1969) * decision-making participation and satisfaction or productivity (Vroom, 1969)

In fact, the relations might even be the opposite. Charles Perrow has a highly critical review in his Complex Organizations book (1986, p. 79-144). However, "sociological work on organizations well into the 1950's was shaped primarily by the human relations model"

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