importance of motivation and attitudes in explaining worker behavior. The approach was largely based on a series of studies conducted at the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company, located in the suburbs of Chicago. These studies were conducted over 12 years and demonstrated that in addition to the job itself, certain factors can influence workers' behavior. Informal social groups, management-employee relations, and the interrelationships among the many different parts of the work environment were found to be influential on workers.
Perhaps the most important outgrowth of the Hawthorne studies was the recognition that there is a social aspect to work. Adherents of the human relations a
...