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Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne Experiments

(1880-1947)

Biography of Elton Mayo

George Elton Mayo was born on 26th December 1880 in Adelaide, South
Australia. He was brought up by his respected colonial family. His
father was a civil engineer who was married to Henrietta Mary nee
Donaldson. They wanted their son, Elton Mayo to do well in his
education and to succeed something in life. Mayo was looking forward
to follow his grandfather’s path in medicine but, he failed his
studies at university in Edinburgh, Scotland. In Great Britain, he
wrote a book on Australian politics for the Pall Mall Gazette and
taught at the Working Men’s College in London. Mayo returned to South
Australia to work in an Adelaide Publishing organisation, where his
management practices were not accepted.

He went to university and he became the most intelligent student in
philosophy. In 1912, he became a foundation lecturer and taught many
subjects such as, philosophy, economics and new psychology of Pierre
Janet (the French psychologist, who had researched the problems of
repetitive and monotonous tasks in industry), at a newly established
university in Queensland.

In Queensland, Mayo married to Dorothea McConnell, who has been
educated in landscape art at the Sorbonne. They had two daughters,
Patricia and Ruth Elton Mayo. Patricia followed her father’s
management thinking. Ruth became a British artist and novelist.

Throughout the First World War, he served on government bodies and
lectured about industrial and political psychology, and
psychoanalysis. In 1916, Mayo wrote a book called, Lady Galway’s
Belgium Book. After the First World War, he became a Professor of
Philosophy in his own university.

In, 1921, Mayo became a directorship of adult education at the
University of Melbourne and taught psychoanalysis, before taking
sabbatical leave to Great Britain.

In 1922, Mayo emigrated in the United States to work as a professor
and researcher in Wharton School in Philadelphia. In 1923, he attended
to the University of Pennsylvania. Two years later, he was offered a
choice of two job positions: a directorship of the new psychological
laboratory at McGill University, or a Professor of Industrial Research
at Harvard Business School, with support from the Rockefeller
Foundation. At Between 1926 and 1947, he chose to work as a Professor
of Industrial Research at the Harvard Graduate School of Business
Administration and taught there for many years.

In 1927, Mayo worked on an industrial research project at the
Hawthorne Works of the West Electric Company, a manufacturing plant of
telephones, Western side of Chicago. His associates, F. J.
Roethlisberger and William J. Dickson helped Mayo with his research on
employees’ behaviour at work. The investigation lasted for five years
and all of their results that they have recorded were written in a
book called, Management and the Worker (1939). This book was authored
by F. J. Roethlisberger and William J. Dickson.

Elton Mayo wrote two books, one of the books was called, The Human
Problems of an Industrial Civilisation (1933). This book contains
information about his experiments and the conclusions of the Hawthorne
Studies (his motivation theory) and school of the human relations.

In December 1947, he had a serious stroke and wasn’t capable to go to
work. Few years of retirement, Elton Mayo had died in his apartment at
the National Trust’s manor of Polesden Lacey, in Surrey.

The Hawthorne Experiments

Elton Mayo was the founder of the Human Relations Movement and
Industrial Sociology. He has done a lot of research at the Western
Electric Company’s Hawthorne Works in Chicago.

Mayo and his expert team gathered a group of six women employees
(assembly workers) and separated them. Then, the team altered their
working conditions in different ways, for about five years, and
observed the effects on production and the confidence of the group.
During the period, Mayo and his team would make alterations such as,
new paying systems, rest breaks of different durations, changing the
duration of the working day, and give out refreshments. From the
changes that the team has made to their working conditions, it caused
the productivity to rise.

At the end of the experiment, Mayo was pleased that he had proven his
point. When Mayo returned the employees’ their original working
condition; a six days a week, with long hours and no rest breaks and
refreshment, he recognised that the productivity in the group remained
unchanged (the productivity was still increasing). From this
surprising result, Mayo had to rethink his conclusions.

Mayo finally realised that it was the following factors that made the
productivity to increase:-

· greater satisfaction from freedom and control over their working
environment

· the individuals became a team and co-operated well with the
experiment

· group standards are important and influenced by unofficial
leadership

· better communication between employees and managers

· employees are influenced by the amount of interest shown in them
(this is known as ‘the Hawthorne Effect’)

The work of Mayo shows, that group working relations and employees’
involvement are important in motivating staff. He believed that an
employee’s attitude is the key of motivation. Also, Mayo believed that
increased personal satisfaction is the suitable way of motivation. He
felt that tension between employees and managers could guide to
conflict within the organisations. Mayo felt that recognition,
security and sense of belonging are important in determining
employees' confidence and productivity than, the physical conditions
in which an employee works. He thinks that informal groups within the
workplace, effects strong social controls over the work habits and
attitudes of the individual worker.