The Hawthorne Effect - Mayo Studies in Employee Motivation
Elton Mayo's Hawthorne Studies
The Hawthorne Studies (also knowns as the Hawthorne Experiments) were conducted from 1927 to 1932 at the Western Electric Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago). This is where Harvard Business School professor Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger examined the impact of work conditions in employee productivity. Elton Mayo started these experiments by examining the physical and environmental influences of the workplace (e.g. brightness of lights, humidity) and later, moved into the psychological aspects (e.g. breaks, group pressure, working hours, managerial leadership) and their impact onemployee motivation as it applies to productivity.