These ideas about obedience to authority and hierarchy were the dominant
management doctrine in the early 1900s and still exert considerable influence
today. Although there were a few early humanistic writings on management
and workers (e.g., Follett 1926; Munsterberg 1913), it was not until
the publication of the Hawthorne studies in the 1930s that there was any
significant recognition of the importance of social (as opposed to economic
or technical) factors in work motivation. Even the Hawthorne experiments
themselves began as a study of “the relation between conditions of work
and the incidence of fatigue and monotony among employees” (Roethlisberger
and Dickson 1939, 3). But the study did not go as planned, and the
researchers ultimately found that human relationships (including the worker’s
relationship with the researchers) influenced worker behavior. Consequently,
new models were needed to explain worker behavior. The researchers found
that behavior and motivation are complex, influenced by attitudes, feelings,
and the meanings that people assign to their work and their relationships atwork. As Roethlisberger and Dickson stated, “It is [our] simple thesis that
a human problem requires a human solution” (1939, 35).