HRM Guide publishes articles and news releases about HR surveys, employment law, human resource research, HR books and careers that bridge the gap between theory and practice.
This guide is based on Human Resource Management in a Business Context,
and includes links to extra articles, notes, tips and exercises.
Human Relations
The US human relations movement dominated management thinking until the 1950s and was a
significant influence on the development of modern HRM. The movement gained most of its
inspiration from the famous Hawthorne studies at the Western Electric Company plant of that name in Chicago from the 1920s to the early 1940s.
The plant employed 40,000 people and was regarded as progressive. The studies were organized
by the company, with some assistance from the Harvard Business School. The intention was to
find out how productivity might be affected if working conditions such as lighting, heating and
rest-pauses were varied. Elton Mayo, an Australian professor at Harvard, picked up these studies
and publicized a new approach in American management philosophy that spread to many other countries.
Pages 14-16 of Human Resource Management in a Business Context 2/e consider the significance of the Hawthorne
studies.
Tips for students using the book
Activity 1:3 You could compare the three on dimensions such as
'hard-soft', 'authoritarian-liberal', 'subjective-objective', etc.
Human Resources
