Using relevant theories and examples, explain what the Hawthore Essay

Using relevant theories and examples, explain what the Hawthore Experiments demonstrated in relation to Group Norms, Motivations and Leadership - Essay Example Mayo found a general increase in production and in productivity per worker as well as of the group in general, completely independent of any of the changes he made in the experiments. His findings were not in accordance with the then prevalent theory of the worker as being motivated solely by self-interest. It did not make sense that productivity would continue to rise even when he cut out breaks and returned the workers to longer working hours. The segment of the Hawthorne experiments that emphasised the positive effects of benign supervision and concern for workers that made them feel like part of a team became known as the ‘Hawthorne Effect’. The studies were instrumental for the emergence of the human relations school of management and motivational and related theories of worker-behaviour, of participatory management, team building, etc. However, in a true sense the Hawthorne Effect is not just about "positive outcomes†, it is about the absence of any definite correlation (positive or negative) between productivity and the independent variables used in the experiments such as monetary incentive, rest pauses, etc While analyzing the â€Å"amazing† findings of his experiments, Mayo realised that the workers had exercised a freedom they did not have on the factory floor and which had created a social ambience that included the ‘supervisor’ also who tracked their productivity. ‘The talked, they joked, they began to meet socially outside of work’ It is as if Mayo had discovered a fundamental ‘fact’ that seems obvious today, that workplaces are ‘social environments’ and people there are motivated by much more than mere economic self-interest. He concluded that all features of that work environment had social value. This may be characterised as the ‘group dynamics’ of the experiment. When some workers were singled out from the rest of the factory workers, it raised their self-esteem; when they had a friendly