Phenomenon of the Hawthorne Effect - Essay Example

Hawthorne Effect The Hawthorne Effect (HE) is a well-known behavioral phenomenon, which was firstly detected and observed during so called Hawthorn Studies. In its most general meaning HE demonstrates changes of the response of an experimental group, which take source from awareness of such group members about their being under experiment (attention). In other words, when a person knows that he or she is supervised, the results of his/her output change; as a rule, the output increases or improves. Nowadays HE is an instrument of great generality. It became fundamental point of one popular management theory, which says that any change in surrounding environment of an employee results in increase of his productivity or efficiency. HE must be taken into consideration when conducting practical researches, for example, different behavioral, sociological and psychological experiments, medical tests, or marketing researches, etc. HE takes source from series of experiments called Hawthorne Studies, which have been carried out from 1927 till 1933 at Hawthorn factory of Western Electronic Company, located in Illinois. In those times, Hawthorn plant was one of the most up-to-date and advanced production line, where about 29,000 people were employed. Telephones, wires, cables, relays and other telecommunication facilities were the main products of Hawthorne factory. Series of researches, directed on studying the effect of working environment on productivity, were conducted at Hawthorne Plant by a group of specialists from Harvard Business School. Professor Elton Mayo, together with his assistants F.J. Roethlisberger and William J. Dickson, were in charge of the research group. A group of volunteers from Hawthorne factory was selected for these experiments. Researches carried out the experiments with groups of the workers and with single employees. For the first experiment, the intensity of illumination was taken as environmental variable: initially a group of employees worked with usual level of lightening. Then researches started increasing illumination of the room step by step, and the employees responded with rise of productivity on every each increase. Following decreasing of lightening level was also accompanied by rise of the output. Finally, researches started keeping the level very low, so the employees could hardly see their work. Only in this case their productivity began decreasing. Similar experiments, involving variations with humidity and temperature at the working place, were carried out, and results were the same. Further researches moved to manipulating with psychological variables of working environment. The employees were offered to have 5 minutes of break every 30 minutes of their working shift, then 10 minute breaks, and then 15 minute breaks. Every change caused a new rise of productivity. Launching a piecework payment system also brought to increases in the amounts produced, because the employees could easily see their own rate and progress. Then, the research group continued experiments, manipulating with other variables: for example, they tried to shorten and then prologue time periods of working shifts, or make modifications in workday assignments, etc. All these experiments brought the research team to the conclusion that it was not the change of an environmental variable (physical or psychological), which resulted in steady increase of productivity. It became obvious that such increases took source from the very fact of changing something. So, the employees felt attention focused on them. They felt themselves to be important and central in this research, that's why every time they were trying harder and harder to spend as much efforts as they could to receive better results. Experimental Hawthorne Studies also helped to prove importance of social variables when estimating productivity. Initially, an experimental group of six female employees had to work in private separated workplaces, and then all the employees were moved into one big hall. As it was easier for them to communicate and socialize with one another in a shared room, their productivity started decreasing. Besides, the employees demonstrated stable rise of productivity in those groups, where there was a good contact established between them and their supervisor. As soon as the members of an experimental group started receiving attention and encouragement from their boss, they recognized themselves as individuals, as important people, not just "somebody" working at production lines. Correspondently, in those groups, where supervisor did not demonstrate friendly attitude and was severe to the workers, output and efficiency were notably smaller. During the experiments, there were numerous other researching activities, like interviewing the personnel, carrying out work observation tests, etc. The most successful were sessions of personnel counseling, when a qualified management consultant was discussing work related problems with the employees, consulting them and giving professional recommendations, how to make the work more pleasant. These experiments and researches resulted in significant growth of productivity at Hawthorne Plant, improved all economic indexes, helped to create perfect working environment and received lots of positive reaction from all the employees and administration of the factory. That is why the Studies, which had been supposed to last one year, were extended for more than 5 years. Detailed results of Hawthorne Studies were publicized as a 600 page book, written by a professor from Harvard School of Business Administration and two senior administrators of Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Plant. In this work the most important conclusion is stated as the following idea: all the improvements, which were demonstrated by the experimental group during the Studies, can be understood through the influence of social system on every individual member of the group. In other words, all the improvements in workers' performance and productivity must be explained from social positions, not with the changes in particular intensity of lightening or shortening of working shift duration. The Studies showed that every workgroup must be taken as a complicated social system, which consists of unique characters of every personality. That is how the authors comment on such a conclusion: "The work activities of this group, together with their satisfactions and dissatisfactions, had to be viewed as manifestations of a complex pattern of interrelations." (Harrison) But, probably, the most important finding of Hawthorne Studies was the fact that productivity of any working group could be influenced and improved by manipulating with physical, social or psychological characteristics of working environment. It means that any administrator can use a number of "hidden" indirect controls and methods to improve the response of his subordinates and increase the productivity of the group or organization, using above mentioned environmental variations. The Studies also demonstrated that the impact of exactly social demands of the employees, both inside and outside of the working group, appeared to be much more important than any material requirements of working environment. For example, it became obvious from the interviews and consultations that it was much more important for the employees to feel respected, appreciated, valued, and to be secure at their workplaces, than to be provided with some modern equipment, machinery or developed technology for physical part of their work. Hawthorne Studies received the best application in developing Human Resource Management theories of evaluating intervention effectiveness. These researches specified instruments and sketched the schemes of stimulating of productivity of the employees, gave some hints about the opportunities of improving efficiency of the personnel, and underlined importance of social factor for achieving good results in organizational framework. It was proved experimentally that such characteristics, as excessive informality in the group of employees or establishing steady fixed norms of output, usually affect productivity. Every manager has to consider his group or organization as a dynamic developing social structure, which must not be taken as just a working machine. Friendly climate among the group members, proper feedback, openness of the administrators and attention to every single individual of working group make employees feel more comfortable at work and, as a result, respond with better productivity. The Studies demonstrate that it is good not only to specify employee's duties, obligations and responsibilities, but also to stimulate his/her self-recognition, individuality, importance and pride, to make him/her feel involved into the whole process of manufacturing, starting from setting up the standards and ending with calculation of financial rewards. In order to receive a good response, an employer must challenge his employees and encourage them to put their heart into the work, because the employees need to feel satisfied with what they have produced, and with the reward they have received for good output. Recently the results and conclusions of Hawthorne Studies came under the wave of criticism. One group of modern theorists headed by Berkley Rice defeats the principles of HE and calls it "Hawthorne Defect". They try to re-valuate the outcome of the Studies and prove its inefficiency, especially for our times. These specialists claim that the Hawthorne experiments were not very correct and effective from scientific point of view due to mistakes in investigational schemes, lack of control teams, etc. They refer to contemporary experiments, which were carried out under more severe control and did not demonstrate results, similar to outcomes of Hawthorne experiments. The other researchers also admit lack of purity of Hawthorne experiments. For example, the majority of volunteers from Hawthorne plant were young men, who worked at highly developed factory, so they obviously had good education, discipline and high motivation. Besides, the conclusions, made about the importance of social factors for productivity, were based mostly on the results of the experiments with young ladies, the employees of the plant. And the fact that women actually evaluate social issues much more, than men, is known. That is why the purity of the experiments can be taken as rather poor. But at the same time, there are numerous practical cases, which prove legitimacy and effectiveness of HE. Medical experiment, which took place in 1978 in the Department of Neuro-augmentive Surgery at the Sister Kenny Institute in Minneapolis, is one of such examples. A group of adult patients suffering cerebral palsy entered the experiment on improving their motor dysfunction. All of the participants were treated with good powerful cerebellar neuro-stimulators, together with extra care and attention from the side of researchers and medical personnel of the Institute. Shortly, all the patients informed about considerable improvements of their motor function and expressed enormous satisfaction with the treatment course. But, surprisingly, following medical tests did not indicate any progress of motor function of any patient. So, in this case HE worked perfectly and brought to psychological improvements of patients as a result of extra attention. (Burton) Summarizing all the above data, it is possible to identify HE as a helping tool when measuring attitude or behavior of an individual (for example, an employee or a patient). The main idea of HE is: when people are aware that they are being supervised, they change their behavior. Therefore, HE proves that participants of an experimental group always try to optimize their behavior or output, knowing that they are being overseen. Scientific meaning of HE can be expressed as the following: in order to receive true and accurate information during an experiment, the structure of this experiment must be designed in such a way, which guarantees elimination or minimization of outer influence from the side of conductors of this experiment. In case if such minimization can not be provided and guaranteed, a special "distortion" of the results must be taken into account when making conclusions. Bibliography: Draper, Stephen. "The Hawthorne Effect and Other Expectancy Effects." University of Glasgow. Department of Psychology. 28 Mar. 2004. 29 Aug. 2005 . Harrison, John. "The Hawthorne Effect and Its Relationship to Stuttering." Minnesota State University. Mankato. 22 Aug. 1999. 29 Aug. 2005 . "Hawthorne Effect." Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia Online. 20 Aug. 2005. 29 Aug. 2005 . Rice, Berkley. "The Hawthorne Defect: Persistence of a Flawed Theory." University of North Carolina. Department of Computer Science. 29 Aug. 2005 . "The Hawthorne Effect." The Burton Report. Ed. Charles V. Burton. Sept. 2005. 29 Aug. 2005 . Read More