The Hawthorne effect in management

Abstract

An important part of successful project management is about emotional intelligence and soft skills, such as motivation and communication. It requires skills in human relations.

The Hawthorne effect refers to the tendency of people to alter their behaviours in response to being aware that they are being observed. It is named after a study of worker productivity at the Hawthorne Electrical Works near Chicago in the late 1920s. The original idea was to test how changes in the work environment, such as lightning, working hours and rest breaks affected the productivity. However, based on the observations, the researchers concluded that the workers' productivity was not affected by the changes in working conditions, but rather by the awareness that someone was observing them.

This article will briefly present the history of the phenomena and the original studies it deprives from. Moreover, it will relate the term to state-of-the-art project management processes and how it can be applied within such.

Although the studies have become firmly established as a term within social science and management, it has been heavily criticised all the way from the beginning. This is first and foremost a result of lack of original data as well as shortcomings in the methodology. However, there is still a shared agreement on the relevance of the message that came with the studies – that people are highly influenced and motivation by social factors – hence the need for project managers possessing both hard as well as soft skills.

The "Hawthorne effect"

The “Hawthorn effect” is a phenomenon used to explain any change in behaviour related to an awareness of being observed, graded, or measured. In other words, it is the tendency for people to alter their behaviour when they know that they are being observed . The term is named after a study of worker productivity, that was conducted at the Hawthorne Works, a large plant of the Western Electric Company outside of Chicago, from 1924 to 1933. The original idea was to test how changes in the work environment, such as lightning, working hours and rest breaks affected the productivity. However, based on the observations, the researchers concluded that the workers' productivity was not affected by the changes in working conditions, but rather by the awareness that someone was observing them.

Since then, the phenomenon has permeated the fields of research, economics, psychology, sociology and not to mention industrial organization and management. Due to a lack of original data, the concept has been met with a lot of criticism, but supporters of the original studies argue that the research was intended to “generate, not verify, hypotheses” . It is considered to be the single most important investigation of the human dimensions of industrial relations in the early 20th century and has thus come to represent a major historical event in the development of social science .

Although the studies are almost a hundred years old, they continue to impact leadership and organizational schools of thought today. No other theory or set of experiments has contributed more to a change in management thinking, nor led to more research and controversy than the Hawthorne studies .

The History of the Hawthorne Studies

The Hawthorne studies refers to a total of six studies, conducted from 1924 to 1933 at the Hawthorne Plant, an electric factory, outside of Chicago . The earliest of the studies, and also the most frequently mentioned to back up the studies, are known as the “illumination experiments”.

The illumination experiments were jointly conducted by the Nation Research Council (NRC), Committee on Industrial Lightning (CIL) and Charles Snow, a researcher from MIT . The original idea was to examine how various amounts of lightning in the workplace affected productivity, and test claims that brighter lightning increased productivity. However, the results were not as expected, showing that the productivity in fact increased for all. The variation of lightning, both natural sunlight and artificial, had no effect proven. These findings led the researchers to the conclusion that the changes observed in the workers’ performance were not a result of changes in the work environment, but rather the awareness that they were being observed – what became known as the “Hawthorne effect”.

In the years to come, to help interpret the results of the studies, the Industrial Research Division at the Hawthorne plant consulted several external experts, including the charismatic figure, Elton Mayo of the Harvard Business School . Mayo encouraged management at the plant to further investigate the various factors affecting the worker’s productivity, such as shorter work hours, easier tasks, higher cage incentives, longer rest periods and friendlier and more flexible supervision Under the supervision of Elton Mayo, five more studies were conducted at the Hawthorne plant – The Relay Assembly Test Room (1927–1932, Two derivative studies (1928–1929), The Interview program (1928–1930) and The Bank Wiring Observation Room (1931–1932) – with results consistent with the ones from the illumination experiments. No matter how, or in what combination the factors varied, the worker’s productivity increased . This led Mayo and his team to the conclusion that the workers were prompted to increase their performance and work harder due solely to the attention they were receiving from the researchers – confirming the “Hawthorne effect”, that behaviour can be altered by a subject’s awareness of participating in an experiment .

The Hawthorne effect in Project Management

The Hawthorne effect put in the context of project-, program-, and portfolio management can be related to management skills and how to be a good project manager from a people’s perspective. The conclusion drawn from the experiments marked a shift in management styles, and established the foundation for understanding industrial behaviour and human relations in the workplace . For the first time, there was evidence of the potential benefits of interpersonal and subjective skills, such as leadership, communication and motivation, when it came to workers productivity. A great project managers should therefore not only possess technical skills but should also focus on developing soft skills – something that aligns with today’s perception of important competences as a project manager. The International Project Management Association (PMA), has based on numerous studies, suggested a competence baseline for project managers, based on three types: technical competences, behavioural competences, and contextual competences .

The Hawthorne effect can benefit a project manager in his or her management skills and engagement approaches. The findings of the studies provide important insight into the human behaviour and how motivation can impact project outcomes. The utilization of the knowledge related to the Hawthorne effect can help project manager more effectively engage with relevant stakeholders, build effective teams and optimize project performance.

The Importance of People Skills as a Project Manager

An important aspect of project management is about the people involved. One way to look at a project is as a collaboration between unique individuals, with different interests, expertise and personalities. The task of the manager is to find a way to make these people collaborate in the best possible way, working towards a shared, uncertain and at most times complex purpose (Geraldi et al., 2017).

Elton Mayo’s conclusion from the Hawthorne studies was that supervisors, such as a project manager, should strive for an equilibrium between the technical organization and the human one (Trahair & Zaleznik, n.d.). When aiming for an increased productivity among employees, it is not just about the action being taken and the technical skills such as managing risks, budget updates, keeping schedules and being an analytical and detailed-oriented person. Just as importantly is how it is done, by whom, and the perceptions of such changes by those directly affected by them (Merrett, 2006). A great project manager will have to be a leader – “a trustworthy and competent person who motivates, communicates, inspires, negotiates, resolves conflicts, manage crises, and people enjoy working with” (Geraldi et al., 2017).

Motivation

An important skill of a great leader is being able to motivate the followers. Motivation is defined as “set of forces that cause, focus, and sustain workers’ behaviour” (Griffin et al., 2013). The presence of it among relevant stakeholders is an essential part of a project’s success. The absence of it will often lead to stagnation, due to the fact that the employees will not seek out new ways to perform their work more effectively (Kumaran, 2012). In short, motivation is what inspires and encourages individuals, maximizing their full potential and creates environments that foster teamwork.

Annotated Bibliography

DS/ISO 21500:2021.

ISO 21500, Guidance on Project Management, is an international standard for project management. The standard is the result of 31 countries’ ISO (International Standards Organization) boards’ common understanding of project management. ISO 21500 represents a common language used to talk about projects. It provides guidance on concepts and processes of project management that are important for, and have impact on, the performance of projects. Furthermore, it represents a generic framework that can be used by any type of organization, including public, private or community organizations, and for any type of project, irrespective of complexity, size or duration (Danish Standards Association, 2021).

Doing Projects: A Nordic Flavour to Managing Projects (2nd edition)

The DS Handbook is written as the companion to the ISO 21500:2012 Standard, Guidance on project management. It provides a Nordic interpretation to the ISO 21500, and thus propose a management which centers on empowering practitioners to develop their own practices in collaboration with others. The overall intention of the book is to provide the reader with the foundation to transform the well-known processes suggested in the ISO 21500 standards into contextualized actions, together with others, to achieve a meaningful purpose.

Was There a Hawthorne Effect?

An article describing how the evidence for a Hawthorne effect has been tested, by examining the quantitative data on individual output levels collected over five years during the original Hawthorne studies. Contrary to the conventional wisdom in much research and teaching, he found essentially no evidence of Hawthorne effects, either unconditionally or with allowance for direct effects of the experimental variables themselves.

The “Hawthorne effect” is a myth, but what keeps the story going?

This article demonstrates that the Hawthorne studies does not pass a methodological quality test. Even though methodological shortcomings were waived, there is no proof of a Hawthorne effect in the original data.

History of the Hawthorne Effect.