American Journal of Sociologylated, on different occasions and sometimes concurrently, the length and timing of rest periods, the length of the work week, the length of the work day, and whether or not the company provided lunch and/or beverage. Productivity seemed to increase regardless of the manipulation intro duced (1984, p. 336; emphasis added).4Finally, I must mention the wider influence of the Hawthorne experi ments and the received wisdom of Hawthorne effects. In a leading case of popular business writing from the 1980s, for example, Peters and Waterman write, "For us, the very important message of the re search ... is that it is attention to employees, not work conditions per se, that has the dominant impact on productivity. (Many of our best companies, one friend observed, seem to reduce management to merely creating'an endless stream of Hawthorne effects')" (1982, pp. 5-6).III. THE HAWTHORNE EXPERIMENTSA. The Hawthorne Studies and the Hawthorne EffectThe Hawthorne experiments were conducted at the Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electric Company in the late l 920s and early l 930s and involved a variety of different studies of workplace behavior. The illumi nation experiments, which initially sought to establish a physiological relationship between intensity of illumination and workplace efficiency, predated the main Hawthorne studies themselves and showed that, in some instances, workers could maintain efficiency even under very low intensity of light, a finding that the researchers viewed as quite anoma lous.5 Indeed, Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939, p. 17) even mention a sequence of experiments in which an electrician pretended to alter light ing intensity si mply replacing bulbs by others of equal power a fter which the women involved commented explicitly on their preference for the old or new illumination intensity. Overall, they concluded, these experiments "failed to answer the specific question of the relation be tween illumination and efficiency," but, nonetheless, "they provided great stimulus for more research in the field of human relations" (Roeth lisberger and Dickson 1939, p. 18).64 As with the earlier textbook quotations, Adair's claim that output increased no matter what the experimental change is incorrect (see, e.g., Gillespie 1991, table 4, p. 57).5 Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939, p. 17) cite the case of two "capable and willing operators" who maintained their productive efficiency even when the amount of light was cut to 0.06 of a footcandle, "an amount of light approximately equal to that on an ordinary moonlight night."6 Gillespie (1991, pp. 38-48) discusses the industrial illumination tests in some detail and shows that, following Roethlisberger and Dickson's (1939) account, the standard454
American Journal of Sociology<BR><BR>lated, on different occasions and sometimes concurrently, the length and timing of rest periods, the length of the work week, the length of the work day, and whether or not the company provided lunch and/or beverage. Productivity seemed to increase regardless of the manipulation intro duced (1984, p. 336; emphasis added).4<BR>Finally, I must mention the wider influence of the Hawthorne experi ments and the received wisdom of Hawthorne effects. In a leading case of popular business writing from the 1980s, for example, Peters and Waterman write, "For us, the very important message of the re search ... is that it is attention to employees, not work conditions per se, that has the dominant impact on productivity. (Many of our best companies, one friend observed, seem to reduce management to merely creating'an endless stream of Hawthorne effects')" (1982, pp. 5-6).<BR><BR><BR>III. THE HAWTHORNE EXPERIMENTS<BR>A. The Hawthorne Studies and the Hawthorne Effect<BR>The Hawthorne experiments were conducted at the Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electric Company in the late l 920s and early l 930s and involved a variety of different studies of workplace behavior. The illumi nation experiments, which initially sought to establish a physiological relationship between intensity of illumination and workplace efficiency, predated the main Hawthorne studies themselves and showed that, in some instances, workers could maintain efficiency even under very low intensity of light, a finding that the researchers viewed as quite anoma lous.5 Indeed, Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939, p. 17) even mention a sequence of experiments in which an electrician pretended to alter light ing intensity si mply replacing bulbs by others of equal power a fter which the women involved commented explicitly on their preference for the old or new illumination intensity. Overall, they concluded, these experiments "failed to answer the specific question of the relation be tween illumination and efficiency," but, nonetheless, "they provided great stimulus for more research in the field of human relations" (Roeth lisberger and Dickson 1939, p. 18).6<BR><BR>4 As with the earlier textbook quotations, Adair's claim that output increased no matter what the experimental change is incorrect (see, e.g., Gillespie 1991, table 4, p. 57).<BR>5 Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939, p. 17) cite the case of two "capable and willing operators" who maintained their productive efficiency even when the amount of light was cut to 0.06 of a footcandle, "an amount of light approximately equal to that on an ordinary moonlight night."<BR>6 Gillespie (1991, pp. 38-48) discusses the industrial illumination tests in some detail and shows that, following Roethlisberger and Dickson's (1939) account, the standard<BR><BR>454
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