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Abstract
In this research note, we speculate about how management theory might have evolved without the influence of the Hawthorne bias. This will, in turn, lead us to question the Hawthorne 'bequest' for the Human Relations School (HRS), Human Resource Management (HRM) and Organizational Behaviour (OB). We hope to open a debate on managerial elites and by that on potential benefits through leaving the 'straightjacket' of Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856- 1915) and his notions of Scientific Management (SM) on the one hand, or the possible disadvantages through a rather subtle form of psychological and moral control of the workforce with the HRS on the other hand.
We then seek to shed light on the change between 'rational' and 'normative' interpretations and the problem that the episodic rhythm of 'ideology' wavechanges may or may not be based on 'false facts'. In last, we qualify our own and other scholars' critique on the Hawthorne studies, as we attempt to empathize with contemporary perspectives.
Keywords: Hawthorne experiment, Human Relations School, Human Resource Management, Elton Mayo, Scientific Management, Taylor.
Introduction
The series of experiments conducted at the Hawthorne works of the Western Electric Company in the US mid-West, which mainly assembled telephone equipment, still remain 'ground-breaking' for constructing the foundations of today's people-management.24 The term Human Relations itself appears to date from a little earlier from the period of the First World War and was used by Social Christians in 1916 according to etymological sources, when there was great interest in boosting morale at work for the war-effort, as there also had later been in the Second World War.6 Taylor, however, preferred to use the term Mutual Relations in his seminal monograph Principles of Scientific Management, in 1911.23
Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933) published widely on her take on Human Relations in the 1920s and 1930s, in parallel with the Hawthorne work but received less attention in managerial circles.6
Soon after, the renowned Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London in 1947 set up its long-surviving journal Human Relations in that very year. This perpetuated the wider use of the term in both academic and managerial writings. Hence, the term was to decidedly enter the language of many writers on management and even of practising managers on both sides...