Hawthorne Studies

Buchanan, A. H. (2001). Organizational Behaviour:An Introductory Text (4 ed.). (F. T. Hall, Ed.) Pearson Education.

Behavioral Management Theory is the understanding and response of employee needs to enforce motivation. This theory guides management in a better understanding of the human aspect. It involves management to treat employees as important resources in the workforce. The goal is to raise productivity and to do this by motivating employees. Motivating employees can involve incentives like employee bonuses, promotions, and the collection and redeeming of points for rewards. As the management takes interest in employees, it makes them feel like an important part of the puzzle, and in turn motivates employees to work harder. Like in most cases, if the employees are satisfied and working conditions are good, productivity raises automatically. A theorist by the name of Mayo Hawthorne devised an experiment that allowed a group of telephone line workers to be separated and observed in a private room. The controlled group of employees increased greatly in productivity. This brought the human relations movement that involved management spending time, showing interest, and rewarding employees to increase productivity. Employees felt management was

Kreitner, R., & Kinicki, A. (2013). Organizational behavior (10th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Retrieved from

Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2015). Organizational behavior (16th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. (Note: Refer to Chapter 3)

Robbins & Judge. (2013). Organizational Behavior, Fifteenth Edition, eBook Collection, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey; Published by Prentice Hall.

Knights, D. & Willmott, H. 2007. Introducing organisational behaviour and management. Australia : Thomson, 2007, pp. 344-372.

Kinicki, A., & Fugate, M. (2016). Organizational behavior: a practical, problem-solving approach. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.

Carson, R., Butcher, J., and Mineka, S. (2000). Abnormal Psychology and Modern Life, Eleventh Edition. Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.

On May 19th, 1864 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of such stories as The Scarlet Letter, Young Goodman Brown, and The Birthmark dies of an unknown cause. He was 59 years old. During the latter part of his life the once active Hawthorne’s health began to decline for mysterious reasons. He wrote little during the final years of his life, and what he did write was often little more than incoherent babbling. It was clear the once brilliant Nathaniel Hawthorne was not in full possession of his mental faculties.

Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2011). Organizational behavior (14th ed.). Upper Saddle River,

Theory X, that adopts the authoritarian view that people normally abhor working and must be forced to work with punishment for failing to meet the objective. These people actually prefer to be directed and lack ambition.

Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2011). Organizational Behavior (14th Edition). Boston, MA: Prentice Hall.

Douglas McGregor was a management professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He introduced a new motivational theory in his book ‘The Human Side of Enterprise’, stating that all workers were divided into two groups: Theory X and Theory Y. Theory X workers were lazy, irrational and unreliable, and were only motivated by money and threatened by punishment. Theory Y workers were able to seek and accept responsibilities and fulfil any goals given.

Bloisi, W., Cook, C. & Hunsaker, P.(2003). Management and Organisational Behavior: European Edition. Berkshire: McGraw-Hill Education

References:Huczynski, A. A. and Buchanan, D. A. (2007) Organizational behaviour: An introductory text. 6th ed., Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall.