Human relations theory - Essay Example

Mainly, the Human relations theory in organization and management has been attributed to Elton Mayo. Mayo's major theoretical stand point, according to Wood (2004, p.35),is that " in the absence of an explicit understanding of the determinants of co-operative effort, rapid technological and scientific advance tends to be associated with increased social disorganization." Wood (2004, p.36) has added that "by social disorganization, Mayo means, a disruption (loosening, weakening, impoverishment etc.) in the social ties, codes and established routines." Wood (2004, p.36) has further clarified this position of Mayo by dileneating that these social ties, codes and routines are the factors that "regulates the relations of individuals to one another in a group and they foster a strong identification of the individual to the group." So, when these are disrupted, as predicted by Mayo, the "essential conditions for cooperative efforts among individuals and groups" are destroyed.(Wood, 2004, p.36) Mayo (1975, p.32))also has observed that when these elements are present, the act as an atmosphere where "non logical bases for co-operation" are present and from which, "rational bases for cooperation can also emerge". When the kind of social disorganization as observed by Mayo (1975, p.31) happens, "obsessive thinking" replaces "rational thinking." According to Mayo (1975, p.32), obsessive people are "those who have not been trained for co-operative effort." The rational people, on the other hand, have "explicit skills of communication required by the adaptive society (Wood, 2004, p.36).Mayo has analysed that as for obsessive people, there is no turning back unless they learn the skills to relate to others, modern societies without understanding of the importance of cooperative efforts and with rapid technological and scientific growth, also have no way to return from chaos (Mayo, 1975, p.33). Mayo has not put forth any magic solutions to this problem. He has instead suggested some indepth and longterm measures. One such measure is to observe the relations within a group, develop these observations into a systematic social science study, just like physical sciences and then incorporating sociology with psychological thought by an involved researcher (not a detached one) (Mayo, 1975, p.113). The Hawthorne experiments conducted by Mayo was a major milestone in the study of industrial behaviour (Mayo, 1975, p.60). He conducted an interview based research in Western Electric Company, Chicago, to analyse the development of employee attitudes and how that influences the outcome. He was searching for an optimal situation which could bring about highest productivity. Hawthorne experiment findings included observations like, "an individual's identity is strongly associated with his or her group' an individual's affiliation or sense of belonging to the group can be more important to him or her than monetary rewards' groups can be formal or informal'both can exercise a strong influence on individuals at work'(and) managers and supervisors would do well to take this group behaviour into account when seeking to extract the maximum amount of work from their subordinates" (Campbell and Craig, p.16). This was part of Mayo's efforts to develop a new approach which he named, "clinical sociology." (Mayo, 1975, 65-70). In this way, Mayo wanted to add sociology to the group of natural sciences. A second experiment, named, 'relay assembly test room' was conducted by Mayo, in which a group of women, whose work was to assembly telephone relays, were subjected to various changes in their conditions of work, payment, rest pauses etc. (Crowther &Green, 2004,p.35). And he found that workers' productivity depended less on their objective conditions and more on "communicating with them well, helping them become involved in the organization and making them feel wanted and important (Crowther &Green, 2004,p.35). This experiment was a major breakthrough in management studies. From his studies, Mayo inferred that "every social group had to secure for its individual and group membership, 1)the satisfaction of material and economic needs, 2) the maintanance of spontaneous cooperation throughout the organization" (Crowther &Green, 2004,p.35). The Hawthorne experiment " stimulated a marathon academic debate about social theory, research methods, industrial management and industrial sociology" ( Wood, 2004, p.4). It also "led to application of knowledge to industrial situations, including psychology and the development of related areas of academic study such as organizational behaviour." What Mayo wanted and demanded was that the " elite control its sentiments, develop logical thinking and hence master the human social facts" (Woods, 2004, p.42). Mayo's focus was always on the individual worker and the factors that related this worker to the betterment of industrial production (Mayo, 1975, p.120). But the Hawthorne experiment had made evident the necessity of team work. So he traversed the parallel roads of sociology and psychology. The monotony of work and the factor of fatigue was deeply probed by him. Mayo's thought later on inspired the formation of a human relations approach in management. The relation between productivity and morale, the significance of coordination among the working groups and between workers and supervisors, the styles and importance of leadership and the procedures for selecting leaders were the major ideological bases for this new thought and new practise (Crowther &Green, 2004,p.35). Mayo's theories developed during the Great War of 1914. Some scholars ( Tarhair and Zaleznick, 2005, p.87) have stated that the "war gave Mayo opportunity to extend his influence among colleagues." Mayo had called for a sea change in the social and military organization to reduce compulsion and instead morally inspire the people. (Tarhair and Zalesnick, 2005, p.90). He attacked war time profiteering by commercial organizations and the undemocratic functioning of the government (Tarhair and Zaleznick, 2005, p.89). The problems of industrial organization in war time was one of his favourite subject (Tarhair and Zaleznick, 2005, p.89). His pamphlet for the University War Committee outlined " how industrialists should forgo immediate interests and unions should curb their controls on work and how both should cooperate for the community's benefit." Tarhair and Zaleznick (2005, p.93) have summarized the approach of Mayo to society as given below: Society comprised individuals organized in occupations. Each occupation has its social function. Individuals' political attitudes and behaviours are created not by the party to which they belong, but by their race tradition or their inherited characteristics and by occupation. Of the two, occupation is the stronger. For a society to be stable and healthy, individuals must see clearly and accurately the functional relation between their and other occupations in society. Crowther and Green (2004, p.37) have deducted from their studies that Mayo's studies during the second world war into absenteeism and labour turnover in a small east cost industrial city and later in aircraft plants in southern California, strengthened his notion that " it was management's task to get (social worker groups) 'on side', so that their values and goals would be in line with managements'" Mayo have been severly criticized also for his finding and approaches. Critics have observed that Mayo's experiments were badly designed and the output, in some cases was dependent on financial incentives (Crowther &Green, 2004,p.37). Mayo has been also alleged to have been infected with some blind spots in his vision regarding "economic sophistification, understanding organizations and the problems of power" ( Tarhair and Zaleznick, 2005, p.12). Alvesson and Wilmott (1996, p.112) have criticized the lack of actual devolution of decision making process and raised the questions of who ultimately controls the process and what effects this will have on the lives of the controlled. The pro-left theories have negated the scope for a consensus in interests between the organization and the workers in majority of cases and have detected that while Marx and Mayo worked on the issue of labour, Marx stood for giving back the surplus value of labour to the workers themselves but Mayo stood for the self interest of the employer to get maximum production through giving some bread crumbs and a psychological pat on the back to the labour. (Adams, 1991, p.31). The intellectual leaders of labour movement also saw the application of Mayo's theory as "a means of blocking workers' political motives" ( Tarhair and Zaleznick, 2005, p.12). The post-structuralist and post-modern theorists (Pettigrew et.al, 2006, p.453) have stressed on the power relations, the resistance of the controlled to the controller and the ambiguity of social situations and texts. These theorists (Pettigrew et. al., 2006, p.453) have also criticized that many personal, professional and political interests had played behind the findings of Mayo as well as behind his theories getting dominance. Thus many have raised ethical and moral questions regarding the practice of Mayo's theory. In a broader view, Mayo's theory demands only that workers need to be motivated and not really paid for their exertions. This can also be read as psychological manipulation of workers in order to achieve production increase. A lasting influence of Mayo's theories can be seen even in today's organizations ( Campbell and Craig, 2005, p.16). Even now, there is the practice of grouping employees into "teams and task forces 'and most modern developments have included briefing groups, quality circles and 'buzz' groups." The aim has been to achieve greater cohescion and less supervision (Campbell and Craig, 2005, p.16). Many scholars (Crowther and Green, 2004, p.37) still think that the humanist aspect of work was brought to the fore front by the theories of Mayo. The importance of workers emotions was for the first time being registered in the history of organization by this theoretician. Many later theories have anchored themselves on human relations theory. Mayo (Mayo, 1975) has envisaged the administrator of the future in the below given lines: The administrator of the future must be able to understand the human-social facts for what they actually are, unfettered by his own emotion or prejudice. He cannot achieve this ability except by careful training-a training that must include knowledge of relevant technical skills, of the systematic ordering of operations and of the organization of cooperation. This was his vision. And this vision will stay relevant as long as work remain a group activity. References Mayo, Elton George (1975) The social problems of an industrial civilization, Taylor&Francis. Wood, Michael.C.(2004) George Elton Mayo: Critical evaluations in business and management, Volume 1, Taylor & Francis. Crowther, David, Green, Miriam (2004) Organisational theory, CIPD Publishing. Campbell, David.J., Craig, Tom (2005) Organisations and the business environment, Butterworth-Heinnemann. Tarhair, Richard.C.S., Zaleznick, Abraham (2005) Elton Mayo:The humanist tempor, Transaction Publishers. Alvesson, Mats, Wilmott, Hugh (1996) Making sense of management: A critical introduction, SAGE Publications. Adams, Roy.J. (1991) Comparative industrial relations: Contemporary research and theory, Routledge. Pettigrew et. al.(2006) Hand book of strategy and management, SAGE Publications. '''.. Read More