Business History: Revisiting The Hawthorne Studies

At the start of the 20th century, companies were increasingly using scientific approaches to improve worker productivity. What were the best techniques for work on an assembly line? Could better lighting improve worker efficiency?

But that all began to change in 1924 with the start of the landmark Hawthorne Studies, a 9-year research program at Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois. The program, of which Harvard Business School researchers Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger played a major role, concluded that that an organization's undocumented social system -- what workers felt about their work and about their colleagues -- was a powerful motivator of employee behavior, perhaps much more powerful than any "rational engineering" program could be. The Hawthorne Studies led to the development of the Human Relations Movement in business management.

Management "was not about controlling human behavior but unleashing human possibility," according to HBS professors Michel Anteby and Rakesh Khurana, writing about the Hawthorne program. It's a lesson many organizations today are still trying to learn and apply.

You can read about and view fascinating images from the Hawthorne Studies at a new online exhibit by Harvard Business School's Historical Collections department.