In a short essay, describe the Hawthorne studies and how they ...

[magmichele12]

In a short essay, describe the Hawthorne studies and how they were interpreted.
 
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

In a short essay, describe how the work of Abraham Maslow influenced management.
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[jharrington11]

Answer to Question 1

Answer: The Hawthorne studies were a series of studies conducted by engineers at the Western Electric Company Works in Cicero, Illinois. The engineers initially designed the studies as a scientific management experiment to test the effect of various illumination levels on worker productivity. The engineers expected a simple relationship to emergethe greater the illumination was, the higher the productivity would be.

The results did not support the expectations of the engineers. Instead of a clear-cut relationship between light intensity and productivity, they saw varied resultssome groups performed better than others in low light levels, for example. To explain these results, they began exploring the nature of groups and group interactions. These additional studies resulted in two primary conclusions. First, the authors of the studies concluded that group pressures could significantly affect individual performance. And second, they concluded that people behave differently when they know they are being observed in a test situation.

These results functioned to further the importance of human behavior as it pertains to management. After the Hawthorne studies, managers realized that people in a workplace could be affected by more things than just their jobs and the work conditions themselves.

Answer to Question 2

Answer: Maslow thought that basic human needs formed a hierarchy in which as soon as one need was met, the individual moved on to seek to fulfill a higher-level need. Lower-level needs served as strong motivating factors as long as they remained unfulfilled. Once fulfilled, needs ceased being strong motivators.

As an example of Maslow's view, when a person is hungry, he or she is highly motivated to fulfill that need, even risking his or her life to obtain nourishment. Indeed, while the person is still without food, that need totally dominates the person's consciousness. However, once the person finds a situation that supplies ample food to meet that unfulfilled need, the motivation to obtain the need is greatly reduced. Instead of thinking about the need all the time, the person rarely gives the now-fulfilled need even a thought.