known American social scientist E. Mayo introduced in sociology and management theory is an important concept as "human relations."This term became the basis not only for the formation of a specific model of management now, but also to create a management concept of the state and society in general.
concept of human relations E. Mayo, is an organic continuation of the previous theories (especially the concept F. Taylor), has become largely a consequence of the serious studies conducted by scientists who are known as the Hawthorne experiment.
In 1927 E. Mayo received an invitation from the company "Western Electric" to establish the discipline and in the enterprise.Thus began the famous Hawthorne experiment, stretched in time of five years.
E. Mayo Hawthorne experiments included four main stages.
The first stage was an experiment to determine the effect of light on the effectiveness of work.During the research workers were divided into two groups: one gradually intensified illumination of the workplace, and the other left everything as it was.First act "Taylor principle": improving working conditions led to an increase in productivity.However, over time and in the second group there have been improvements, in addition, and after returning to the original characteristics of the illumination performance continued to increase.
E. Mayo concluded that in such a positive result of the large role played by the effect of the participation of workers in the experiment, and what they felt the attention on the part of the authorities.
In the second phase E. Mayo tested the effects of different economic and socio-psychological factors in production.To do this, he took six workers, isolate them from the rest of the team, and through his assistant, who was playing the role of informal leader, held a series of experiments.At the beginning of the working conditions were drastically improved: increased wages, introduced additional breaks, the number of output.Productivity then naturally increased.But even after the return to the old conditions of labor efficiency of the selected workers is higher than the rest.From the results obtained E. Mayo concluded that the work is important to participate in this or that process with the people with whom they feel comfortable.Thus, the Hawthorne experiment made it clear that the existing collective informal working group to play a more important role than the formal.In addition, any informal group has a leader, through which it is possible to influence this small team as a whole.
third stage wearing a purely scientific and theoretical.There have been several surveys of thousands of workers about their relationship to small groups, but in the end these surveys to develop any theory did not help.
In the fourth stage of E. Mayo decided to return to the experiment, and has allocated a special group of 14 male workers, which has been embedded into his assistant psychologist.The main conclusion that the scientist made at the end of the experiment lies in the fact that any small informal group with time creates his own morality.This morality is aimed at preventing conflicts within the group due to the fact that each party is invited to some averaged model of behavior.Consequently, the administration of the enterprise, which deals with a large group, should also seek to achieve a certain level of morality in the whole plant.
Overall, Hawthorne experiment and conclusions E. Mayo on its results, found a broad response in scientific and in a production environment, and formed the basis for the creation of a trend in the sociology of enterprises associated with the careful, first of all, attitudeto the employee to his or her interests and needs.
