Modern Management: concepts and skills, 14/e

The Behavioral Approach

The behavioral approach to management emphasizes increasing production through an understanding of people. According to proponents of this approach, if managers understand their people and adapt their organizations to those people, organizational success will usually follow.

The Hawthorne Studies

The behavioral approach is usually described as beginning with a series of studies conducted between 1924 and 1932 that investigated the behavior and attitudes of the workers at the Hawthorne (Chicago) Works of the Western Electric Company.26 Accounts of the Hawthorne Studies are usually divided into two phases: the relay assembly test room experiments and the bank wiring observation room experiment. The following sections discuss ...