The Hawthorne Experiments
The deviation from rulemaking on a higher level was documented for the first time in the Hawthorne studies (1924-1932) and called informal organization. At first this discovery was ignored and dismissed as the product of avoidable errors, until it finally had to be recognized that these unwritten laws of work of everyday life often had more influence on the fate of the enterprise than those conceived on organizational charts of the executive level. Numerous empirical studies in sociological organization research followed, ever more clearly proving this, particularly during the Human Relations Movement. It is important to analyze informal structures within an enterprise to make use of positive innovations, but also to be able to do away with bad habits that have developed over time.
Read more about this topic: Formal Organization
Famous quotes containing the words hawthorne and/or experiments:
“We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.”
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864)
“A country survives its legislation. That truth should not comfort the conservative nor depress the radical. For it means that public policy can enlarge its scope and increase its audacity, can try big experiments without trembling too much over the result. This nation could enter upon the most radical experiments and could afford to fail in them.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)