Human Relations School: Elton Mayo, Hawthorne Studies, Informal Organisation and Critique

Administrative Thought: Scientific Management and Scientific Management movement; Classical Theory; Weber’s bureaucratic model – its critique and post-Weberian Developments; Dynamic Administration (Mary Parker Follett); Human Relations School (Elton Mayo and others); Functions of the Executive (C.I. Barnard); Simon’s decision-making theory; Participative Management (R. Likert, C. Argyris, D. McGregor).

This article: the rise of the human relations school; Elton Mayo and his associates; the Hawthorne studies and their findings; informal organisation; the features of human relations theory; classical versus human relations; Taylor versus Mayo; critique; the revisionists and the behavioural sciences; contribution to personnel administration; relevance today.

Official Syllabus: Paper I · Unit 1-02 Administrative Thought

The human relations school (also called the neo-classical, socio-economic or humanistic theory) arose in the 1930s as a reaction to the classical approach. Taylor, Fayol, Gulick, Urwick and Weber had designed organisations as machines of tasks, structures and rules; the human relationists showed that an organisation is also a social system in which feelings, group membership, informal leaders and supervision shape output as much as pay and physical conditions.

• Its founding evidence: the Hawthorne studies (1924–1932) at the Western Electric Company’s Hawthorne Works near Chicago, interpreted by Elton Mayo and his Harvard colleagues.
• Its core message: the worker is a social man, not merely an economic man; productivity depends on morale, and morale depends on human relationships at work.
• Its legacy: personnel counselling, attention to supervision and communication, informal organisation, participative management, and the whole field of organisational behaviour.

1. The Rise of the Human Relations Movement

1.1 Conditions that produced it

• Social disintegration: Mayo believed that industrialisation had uprooted people from village and craft communities in which work was part of communal life; factory workers became isolated, “normless” and maladjusted (an idea he took from Émile Durkheim‘s anomie).
• Industrial unrest: mistrust between management and labour, strikes and union conflict after the First World War.
• Limits of scientific management: time study and piece rates raised output at first, but workers resisted speed-ups, and rest pauses and incentives produced puzzling results.
• Growth of the social sciences: industrial psychology and sociology offered new tools for studying work.

1.2 Elton Mayo and his associates

• George Elton Mayo (1880–1949), an Australian-born psychologist and industrial researcher, taught at the University of Queensland, moved to the United States in 1922, worked at the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), and joined the Harvard Business School in 1926, where he led its industrial research. He is called the father of the human relations school.
• The “First Enquiry” (1923): at a textile mill near Philadelphia with very high labour turnover in its mule-spinning department, Mayo introduced rest pauses chosen by the workers; turnover fell and output rose. He concluded that monotony and the feeling of isolation, not just physical fatigue, were the problem, and called his approach a clinical method.
• Major works: The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization (1933), The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilization (1945), The Political Problems of an Industrial Civilization (1947).
• Others in the school:
  • F.J. Roethlisberger (Harvard) and W.J. Dickson (Western Electric): Management and the Worker (1939), the full report of Hawthorne, often called the “bible” of the movement;
  • T. North Whitehead (The Industrial Worker, 1938), W. Lloyd Warner (social anthropology of the bank wiring room), L.J. Henderson (the idea of the organisation as a social system);
  • Western Electric managers such as George Pennock, who designed the early experiments.

2. The Hawthorne Studies (1924–1932)

The studies were conducted at the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company (the manufacturing arm of the Bell telephone system) in Cicero, near Chicago. They ran in four phases.

Phase	Years	What was done	What was found
1. Illumination experiments	1924–1927	Sponsored by the National Research Council; lighting raised and lowered for test groups, constant for control groups	Output rose in both groups, even when light fell almost to moonlight; physical conditions alone did not explain output
2. Relay Assembly Test Room	1927–1932	Five women assemblers and a layout operator moved to a separate room; rest pauses, shorter hours, snacks introduced and withdrawn over many periods	Output rose almost steadily whatever the change; the group felt special, was consulted, had a friendly observer instead of a strict supervisor and developed team spirit
3. Mass interviewing programme	1928–1930	About 21,000 employees interviewed; questions gave way to non-directive interviews in which workers talked freely	Complaints often expressed personal and social concerns, not objective conditions; being listened to improved attitudes; led to personnel counselling
4. Bank Wiring Observation Room	1931–1932	Fourteen men (wiremen, soldermen, inspectors) on a group piece-rate scheme observed without changes	The group set its own output norm below what the incentive scheme could have paid, and enforced it informally

• The Hawthorne effect: the tendency of people to change their behaviour because they know they are being studied and receiving attention. The term was coined later (by Henry Landsberger, 1958).
• Informal norms of the bank wiring group:
  • you should not turn out too much work: if you do, you are a rate-buster;
  • you should not turn out too little work: if you do, you are a chiseller;
  • you should not tell a supervisor anything that will harm an associate: if you do, you are a squealer;
  • you should not act officious or keep social distance: an inspector, for example, should not act like one.
• Why the group restricted output: fear that higher output would lead to rate cuts or lay-offs (the Depression had begun), and loyalty to the group’s own idea of a fair day’s work.

3. Findings and Features of Human Relations Theory

3.1 Main findings

• Social and psychological factors at work, not physical conditions, are the main determinants of morale and output: the most important finding.
• Non-economic rewards and sanctions (approval, acceptance, ridicule, isolation by the group) significantly affect behaviour and limit the power of economic incentives.
• Workers act as members of groups, not as isolated individuals; the level of output is set by group norms, not by physical capacity.
• Informal organisation exists alongside the formal one, with its own leaders, status systems and codes.
• Supervision and leadership matter: a democratic, interested, communicative supervisor raises morale.
• Communication and participation: workers respond well when consulted and allowed to express their feelings.
• Specialisation is not necessarily the most efficient division of labour; work has social meaning.
• Summing up the studies, Mayo said that “man’s desire to be continuously associated in work with his fellows is a strong, if not the strongest, human characteristic”, and that many problems of worker–management cooperation arose from the emotionally based attitudes of workers rather than from objective difficulties.

3.2 Three elements of the theory

• The individual: each person brings attitudes, beliefs, sentiments and hopes to work. Roethlisberger: “each person is unique”, bringing certain skills, technical, social and logical, and certain expectations of the job.
• The informal organisation: the social groups that form spontaneously within the formal structure (see Section 4).
• Participative management: managers should consult work groups and their informal leaders before introducing change, which:
  • develops a sense of participation;
  • lets workers influence decisions that affect them;
  • raises productivity;
  • makes the working environment more pleasant;
  • prevents alienation;
  • eases the acceptance of organisational goals.

3.3 Mayo’s broader ideas

• Rejection of the “rabble hypothesis”: the classical economists (Mayo singled out David Ricardo) treated society as a horde of unorganised individuals each pursuing self-interest. Mayo replaced it with a “herd” or social view of man: people seek belonging and act in groups.
• Logic of sentiments versus logic of cost and efficiency: workers’ behaviour follows sentiments (feelings about fairness, belonging, recognition); management’s follows cost and efficiency. Friction between the two logics produces conflict; management must understand the former.
• Spontaneous cooperation and social skill: Mayo hoped managers with social skills could restore the community that industrialisation had destroyed, producing spontaneous cooperation instead of forced compliance.
• Roethlisberger’s summary: “too often we try to solve human problems with non-human tools and in terms of non-human data”; a human problem requires a human solution.

3.4 Features in brief

• Work is a group activity; the social world of an adult is largely built around work.
• The need for recognition, security and belonging matters more for morale and productivity than physical conditions.
• Informal groups exercise strong social control over work habits and attitudes.
• Group collaboration must be planned and developed; when achieved, it builds cohesion that resists the disruptive effects of a changing society.
• Managers should attend to socio-psychological factors rather than mechanically applying principles of organisation.

4. Informal Organisation

• Definition: L.D. White called it “the set of work relationships that grows out of the mutual interaction of persons working together over a long period of time”. Hicks and Gullett described “the informal shadow organisation that exists within the structure of the formal organisation”.
• Formal and informal compared:

Basis	Formal organisation	Informal organisation
Origin	Planned, enacted, legal	Spontaneous, customary, social
Form	Written, manualised, on charts	Unwritten; cannot be charted neatly
Character	Rational, impersonal	Emotional, personal
Focus	Positions	People and relationships
Authority	Flows from above (position)	Flows from below (given by followers)

• Four functions of informal groups:
  • helping members attain personal objectives, which makes groups resist changes that threaten established satisfactions;
  • providing social satisfaction and status, even to those with low formal rank;
  • communication: the grapevine, faster than formal channels, carrying both valid information and rumour; rumours also tell an alert supervisor about anxieties;
  • social control of behaviour: internal (making members conform) and external (keeping a new supervisor “in line”).

• Barnard’s view: formal organisations are “vitalised and conditioned” by informal ones; “there cannot be one without the other. If one fails the other disintegrates” (see the article on Barnard).
• Managerial implication: if management’s goals fit group norms, harmony and high productivity follow; if they conflict, management’s aims will be diminished, if not defeated, by the employees.

5. Classical Theory and Human Relations Compared

5.1 Differences

Basis	Classical theory	Human relations theory
View of organisation	Formal structure; rational, impersonal system	Social system; emotional and interpersonal
View of man	Economic man; atomistic, rabble view	Social man; group (herd) view
Emphasis	Physiological and mechanical aspects	Sociological and psychological aspects
Behaviour explained by	Rules and regulations made by management	Attitudes, sentiments and feelings
People	Homogeneous	Heterogeneous
Supervision	Authoritarian	Democratic, participative
Efficiency depends on	Structure built on principles	Human relations, satisfaction and morale
Environment studied	Physical environment of the job	Social environment of the job
Motivation	Monetary, one-dimensional	Multi-dimensional: belonging, recognition, status
Communication	Formal orders down the hierarchy	Two-way; informal channels

5.2 Why it is called “neo-classical”

• Same goal: both seek efficiency and productivity; human relationists accepted efficiency as a legitimate value.
• Same structure: both accept the formal organisation; human relations modified and extended classical concepts rather than abolishing them. Mohit Bhattacharya notes that they differed from the traditionalists in characterising the organisation as a social system of individuals, informal groups and inter-group relations in addition to the formal structure.
• Same viewpoint: both look at the organisation from management’s side.
• Extension, not rejection: human relations widened the theory of motivation from money to social needs; it rejected only the concept of economic man and over-reliance on formal institutionalisation.

5.3 Complementarity

• Structure and people are two sides of one organisation: classical theory supplies the anatomy (division of work, hierarchy, coordination); human relations supplies the physiology (motivation, groups, morale). Neither alone explains organisational behaviour.
• Practical combination: good organisations combine clear structure and rules with good supervision, communication and participation; human relations techniques work best within a sound formal framework, and formal structures work best when they win informal support.
• Later synthesis: Barnard’s cooperative system, Simon’s decision-making theory, systems and contingency theories, and socio-technical systems all integrate the two.
• The limit of complementarity: some tensions are real: impersonal rules versus personal treatment; hierarchy versus participation; economic incentives versus social satisfaction. These are managed, not abolished.

5.4 The anatomy and the social behaviour of organisations

• “The anatomy came first”: for Gulick, Urwick and Fayol, the design of the formal structure was the principal consideration; people were fitted into the design. The approach contributed principles of organisation, a vocabulary (POSDCORB, span of control) and the foundations of structural reform.
• “A system of inter-related social behaviours”: for the human relationists and later behaviouralists (Barnard, Simon, March), the organisation is the pattern of interactions, motives and decisions of its participants. This approach contributed the study of motivation, groups, communication, leadership and decision-making.
• Evaluation: each is partial; organisational theory progressed when they were combined in systems, contingency and socio-technical approaches.

6. Taylor and Mayo

Basis	Taylor	Mayo
School	Scientific management	Human relations
Concept of man	Economic man; isolated individual	Social man; member of a group
Focus	Tools, procedures, rules: physiological and mechanical	People and groups: social and emotional
Management style	Autocratic: planning by management	Participative
Organisational man	Rational and logical	Social and emotional
Motivation	Monistic: money	Socio-economic: belonging, recognition, money
Concern	Workers’ efficiency; one best way of doing tasks	Workers’ satisfaction and morale
Worker groups	Hostile to management (soldiering)	Not necessarily hostile; can be won over
Skills stressed	Technical skills	Social skills
Hypothesis	“Rabble hypothesis” (passive view of man)	“Herd hypothesis”
Method	Time and motion study	Observation, interviews, clinical method

• From Taylorism to Mayoism: organisation theory moved from engineering the task to understanding the person and the group, from economic incentives to morale, from formal to informal organisation, and from command to participation. The quest for organisational effectiveness remained the same, but its measures widened from output alone to satisfaction, cooperation and stability.
• But the road was not straight: revisionist historians argue that Taylor recognised worker cooperation and individual differences, and that Mayo’s methods could be as manipulative as Taylor’s (see the article on Scientific Management for Taylor’s “humanistic” side).

7. Critique of the Human Relations School

7.1 Methodological criticism

• Small, unrepresentative samples: Alex Carey (“The Hawthorne Studies: A Radical Criticism”, 1967) showed that the famous conclusions rested on five or six workers; two “uncooperative” women in the relay room were replaced; the evidence for the social explanation was weak.
• Alternative explanations: Franke and Kaul (1978) re-analysed the data and attributed most of the output increase to managerial discipline, the replacement of workers, the fear of unemployment during the Depression, and rest time, not to friendly supervision.
• The Hawthorne effect itself: the experiments were not natural: behaviour changed because of attention and publicity, so the findings cannot be generalised.
• Bias: the research was sponsored by management; the Harvard group’s interpretation fitted its prior beliefs (Daniel Bell called the methodology defective).

7.2 Ideological criticism

• Pro-management and anti-union: Loren Baritz (The Servants of Power, 1960) showed the human relationists serving management’s interests; the United Auto Workers called them “cow sociologists“: keep the cows contented and they give more milk.
• Manipulation: the theory teaches managers to manage feelings so that workers accept conditions they might otherwise contest; Daniel Bell described it as adjusting men to machines. Marxists see “Mayoism” as a subtle technique of exploitation that de-emphasises economic factors and the role of trade unions.
• Neglect of conflict: Mayo assumed that conflict between labour and management was a sign of social sickness to be cured, not a legitimate clash of interests. Reinhard Bendix and Lloyd Fisher (1949) criticised him for failing to state the ethical presuppositions of his work.
• Neglect of economic factors and the work itself: Peter Drucker argued that the human relationists neglected the nature of work and focused on interpersonal relations; they were not sufficiently aware of economic dimensions.

7.3 Theoretical and empirical criticism

• Over-emphasis on the informal: Amitai Etzioni remarked that human relations writers devoted much attention to informal relations among workers and between workers and supervisors, but little to formal relations or to the articulation of formal with informal ones.
• Unproved assumptions: that satisfied workers produce more; that democratic supervision raises productivity; that job enlargement and participation raise satisfaction or output. Each link proved weak or inconsistent; the causal order may be reversed.
• One-dimensional: it explored the social side of motivation but not its full range (achievement, growth, the work itself).
• Neglect of the environment: it studied the work group and ignored technology, markets, unions, laws and the wider society.
• Organisation without purpose: it concentrated on members’ feelings and neglected the organisation’s work and goals.

7.4 Assessment

• Lasting contribution: discovery of the informal organisation, the social nature of work, and the importance of supervision, communication, participation and morale; Mayo is rightly called “a behavioural scientist long before the term became popular” (D.S. Pugh). Laurie Mullins calls the Hawthorne experiments “probably the single most important foundation of the human relations approach to management and the development of organisational behaviour”.
• Drucker’s balanced verdict: this does not mean that we have to discard human relations; on the contrary, its insights are “a major foundation” in managing people. “But it is not the building. Indeed, it is only one of the foundations.”
• The real lesson: the human relations school is incomplete rather than wrong; later behavioural science corrected its naivety without abandoning its central insight.

8. From Human Relations to Behavioural Science

8.1 How behavioural scientists modified Mayo’s findings

Later thinker	Modification
Kurt Lewin (1930s–40s)	Group dynamics; experiments on autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire leadership; change through group decision
George Homans (The Human Group, 1950)	Systematic theory of groups: activities, interactions and sentiments
Tavistock Institute (Trist and Bamforth, 1951)	Socio-technical systems: social and technical systems must be designed together
Abraham Maslow (1943, 1954)	Hierarchy of needs: social needs are one level; esteem and self-actualisation lie above
Frederick Herzberg (1959)	Two-factor theory: good relations and supervision are hygiene factors that prevent dissatisfaction; real motivation comes from achievement, recognition and the work itself
Rensis Likert (1961, 1967)	Measured management systems; participative System 4; linking pins
Douglas McGregor (1960)	Theory X and Theory Y: management’s assumptions shape behaviour; integration of goals
Chris Argyris (1957)	Conflict between formal organisation and the mature personality; job enlargement
Herbert Simon (1947)	Decision-making and bounded rationality: the cognitive, not just emotional, side of behaviour

• Warren Bennis called these writers revisionists: they shared a concern to revise the naive and unsound aspects of human relations without sacrificing its radical departure from traditional theory.
• Key shifts: from social needs to higher needs (growth, achievement); from friendly supervision to participation and job design; from groups alone to groups within structures and technologies; from impressionistic case studies to survey research and experiments; from “happy worker” to “engaged and empowered worker”.

8.2 Contribution to personnel administration

• Personnel counselling: Western Electric’s counselling programme grew out of the interviewing phase.
• Attitude and morale surveys: systematic study of employee opinion.
• Supervisory and leadership training: human relations skills became part of management education.
• Communication and participation: suggestion schemes, joint consultation, quality circles, works committees.
• Grievance handling and employee welfare: recognition that grievances may express deeper concerns.
• The shift to human resource management: people as a resource to be developed, not a cost to be controlled.
• In public administration: human relations ideas shaped training, staff welfare, joint consultative machinery and leadership development in the civil services; the behavioural movement in public administration began here.

9. Relevance Today

9.1 Is the human relations insight more relevant today?

• Networks over charts: in knowledge work, influence and productivity flow through informal networks (who helps whom, who shares information) more than through the formal chart. Organisational network analysis is now a management tool.
• Team climate: research on team effectiveness repeatedly finds that psychological safety (Amy Edmondson) and trust among colleagues predict performance better than individual talent.
• Remote and hybrid work: studies of remote work found that it siloes collaboration and weakens informal ties across groups, harming innovation, which confirms the importance of associations among workers.
• Engagement and the manager: Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2025 reported that global employee engagement fell from 23% to 21% in 2024, costing about US$438 billion in lost productivity; it attributes about 70% of variation in team engagement to the manager, a modern echo of Hawthorne’s finding on supervision.
• But also less relevant in some respects: gig and platform work is governed by algorithms, not by supervisors or stable work groups; pay, security and rights (labour codes, social security) matter as much as sentiments. The economic concerns the human relationists neglected have returned.

9.2 Are Mayo’s findings relevant in public organisations?

• Yes:
  • morale, recognition and team spirit drive frontline delivery (health workers, teachers, police) where outputs are hard to measure;
  • informal norms explain both dedication (ASHA workers’ community commitment) and resistance (go-slow, file-pushing);
  • good supervision and listening (grievance redress, staff consultation) reduce conflict and absenteeism.
• With limits:
  • public organisations are bound by law, rules and accountability; informal norms cannot override legality or equity;
  • pay, promotion and security in government are rule-based, so non-economic motivators (purpose, recognition, autonomy) carry even more weight, but cannot replace fair pay and working conditions;
  • “feel-good” human relations without real participation risks becoming manipulation.

9.3 Productivity and emotional response

• Mayo’s claim: productivity reflects workers’ emotional response to their work and its social setting more than physical working conditions.
• Evidence for: engagement, burnout and wellbeing research; the WHO’s recognition of burnout as an occupational phenomenon (ICD-11, 2019); the effect of managers on team engagement.
• Evidence against or qualifying: physical conditions still matter (heat stress, safety, ergonomics); the Code on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions, 2020 (in force with the other labour codes from 21 November 2025) rests on the premise that conditions matter; job design and skills affect productivity; satisfaction and productivity are only loosely linked.
• Synthesis: productivity results from the interaction of conditions, job design, skills, incentives and emotional-social factors; Mayo was right to add the last, wrong to treat it as the only one.

Key Terms

Term	Meaning in simple words
Human relations school	Approach that sees organisations as social systems where feelings and groups shape work
Neo-classical theory	Another name for human relations theory; it extends rather than rejects classical theory
Hawthorne studies	Experiments at Western Electric (1924–1932) that revealed the social side of work
Hawthorne effect	People change behaviour because they know they are being observed
Social man	View that people are motivated by belonging and recognition, not only money
Economic man	View that people work only for money
Informal organisation	Unplanned network of relationships, leaders and norms within the formal structure
Group norm	Unwritten rule a group enforces on its members
Rate-buster	Worker who produces too much, breaking the group’s output norm
Chiseller	Worker who produces too little
Squealer	Worker who informs on colleagues to the supervisor
Grapevine	Informal channel of communication
Rabble hypothesis	View of society as isolated self-interested individuals, rejected by Mayo
Logic of sentiments	Workers’ behaviour guided by feelings and group loyalty
Personnel counselling	Listening to employees’ concerns to improve attitudes and relations
Cow sociology	Critics’ term for keeping workers content to raise output
Revisionists	Later behavioural scientists who corrected the human relations school
Psychological safety	Team climate in which members can speak up without fear

Contemporary Developments

• April 2025: Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2025 reported global engagement down from 23% to 21% in 2024, driven by falling manager engagement (30% to 27%).
• 21 November 2025: India’s four labour codes, including the Code on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions, 2020 and the Code on Social Security, 2020, came into force, bringing welfare, safety and platform-worker provisions into one framework.
• 2020 onwards: Mission Karmayogi embeds behavioural competencies in civil service capacity building.
• Continuing: hybrid work, workplace wellbeing programmes and organisational network analysis have renewed attention to informal relationships at work.

Revision Grid

Thinker / body	Work or report (year)	Key idea
Elton Mayo	Philadelphia textile mill “First Enquiry” (1923)	Rest pauses and morale
Elton Mayo	The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization (1933)	Social man; anomie
Elton Mayo	The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilization (1945)	Rabble hypothesis rejected; social skill
Roethlisberger and Dickson	Management and the Worker (1939)	Full Hawthorne report; logic of sentiments
T. North Whitehead	The Industrial Worker (1938)	Relay room analysis
Henry Landsberger	Hawthorne Revisited (1958)	Coined “Hawthorne effect”
Reinhard Bendix and Lloyd Fisher	Critique (1949)	Unstated ethical presuppositions
Loren Baritz	The Servants of Power (1960)	Social scientists serving management
Alex Carey	“A Radical Criticism” (1967)	Weak evidence for the social explanation
Franke and Kaul	Re-analysis (1978)	Discipline and fear explain output
Kurt Lewin	Group dynamics (1930s–40s)	Leadership climates; group decision
George Homans	The Human Group (1950)	Activities, interactions, sentiments
Trist and Bamforth	Coal-mining study (1951)	Socio-technical systems
Warren Bennis	Revisionists	Correcting human relations