BACKDROP AND

CONTEXT OF
DEVELOPMENTS IN
MANAGEMENT
APPROACHES
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During 1920’s and 1930’s, the US and
other industrialized nations experienced
economic, technological, social and
cultural changes.

Mass production and assembly lines

produced floods of inexpensive
goods.
Increasing consumer society.

SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

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 Overall standard of living rose.

Working conditions in many

industries improved.

attract workers from the farms

to the cities by making industrial
employment more appealing
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“Great Depression”
Began to adopt Keynesian Economics to
play a more influential role in people’s lives.
(Keynes’ basic idea: to keep people fully
employed, governments have to run
deficits when the economy is slowing as the
private sector would not invest enough to keep
production at the normal level and bring
the economy out of recession.)
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Forming power Unions to
influence management decisions.

Legalized collective bargaining.

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Behavioral Sciences Approach
 Humanistic management
perspective to understand
individual behavior and
interaction in an
organizational setting

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The Behavioral school of
thought, two main phases:
1.) Human Relations Movement
2.) Human Resources/
Organizational Behavior Approach

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Human Relations Movement
 Emphasizes the “People Side” of
the organization.
Importance of understanding the
various factors that affect human
behavior in an organization.
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 Humanistic Perspective
Understanding human behavior,
needs and attitudes in the
workplace.
Mary Parker Follet and Chester
Barnard
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 Human Relations Movement
(HR)
Effective control comes from
within the individual worker
rather that strict authoritarian
control.

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Satisfaction of employees’ basic
needs to increase worker
productivity.
Arose from early attempts to
systematically discover the social and
psychological factors that would
create effective human relations.
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Hawthorne Studies
Began when a struggle developed
between manufacturers of gas and
electric lighting fixtures for control of the
residential and industrial market.
Needed more light to get more
productivity.
Relationship between the level of
lighting in the workplace and worker
productivity.
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Hawthorne Studies
Committee on Industrial Lighting
(CIL) – Thomas Edison as honorary
chairman
Relay Assembly Test Room- Elthon
Mayo and Fritz J. Roethlisberger

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Hawthorne Effect
Human factors influenced
productivity.
Possibility that individuals
singled out for study may improve
their performance simply because
of the added attention they
receive from the researchers .
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Bank Wiring Observation Room
Workers were placed in a separate
room and a number of variables
altered: ;

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Elton Mayo, Roethlisberger and Dickson
concluded that a complex of chain of attitudes
influenced the increase in productivity:
1. Recognition and attention
motivated them to work harder
2. Intervention by the researchers
created the perception among the
workers that what they were doing
was important.
3. Informal work groups the social
environment of employees have
positive influences on productivity
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“Social man”- motivated by
social needs, desiring rewarding
relationship in the workplace,
responding to peer work- group
pressures than to management
control
“Rational Man” – motivated by
personal economic needs
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 “Behavioral
Scientists” rather than
“Human Relations
Theorists”

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Behavioral Scientists brought two
dimensions to the study of management
and organizations.
1. More sophisticated view of human
beings and their drives
2. Applied their methods of scientific
investigation to study of how
people behaved in organizations
as whole entities.
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