9 Behavioural Management

Dr.Vishal Kumar

9.1  Learning Objective

9.2  Introduction

9.3  Behavioral Science Approach

9.4  Elton Mayo and Hawthorne Study

9.5  Mayo’s Contribution to Management Thought

9.6 Findings of Hawthorne Experiment

9.7 Criticism of Hawthorne Experiment

9.8 Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory of Motivation

9.9 Herzberg’s Motivation Hygiene Theory

9.10 McGregor’s Participation Theory

9.11 Summary

9.1 Learning Objective

After completing this module, students you will be able to:

i. Understand the meaning and concept of Behavioural Management.

ii. Understand various approaches of behavioural management. And also

iii. Know about the experiments to under behavioural management.

BEHAVIORAL MANAGEMENT

9.2 Introduction

In the new classical period that is from 1930-1950, the importance was attached to the human relations concept in the organization. As the scientific management movement reduces the importance of man and his behavior, strained relationship developed between the employee and employer. Classical school of management was concern for high production and efficiency which considered being the most important to an organization success at the initial stage. Therefore the next phase of management started with an emphasis on social sciences and human relations in the industry. So, the good working conditions, motivation and satisfaction formed the foundation for behavioral management theory. During this period, the human relations made very significant contribution to the management thought. The behavioral school of management adopts a rational and scientific approach to understand, explain and predict human behavior in organizational set-ups.

9.3 Behavioral Science Approach

Behavioral school of management relies on the concept that managers will better understand the human aspect to workers and treat employees as important assets to achieve goals of the organization. Management taking a special interest in workers makes them feel like part of a special group. This approach recognizes that the productivity of workers depends more on satisfaction, morale, motivation and sensitivity of managers towards employee’s needs. With the passage of time, thinking shifted, and management started looking at employee satisfaction and working conditions as a way to increase productivity. Behavioral approach is also known as “Human Relations Approach” or “Behavioral Science Approach”.

As time went on, thinking shifted, and management started looking at employee satisfaction and working conditions as a way to increase productivity. Behavioral Management deals with the factors which encourage higher performance on the part of the workers. The improvement on working conditions, lowering of hours of work, improvement of social relations of workers, besides monetary gains help in increasing productivity. Theorists like Elton Mayo, Abraham Maslow, Douglas McGregor, Herzberg and others studied employee productivity under different conditions to determine a connection.

Features / Characteristics of behavioral science approach

The behavioral approach exhibits the following features:

• This  approach  is  based  on  the  assumption  that  workers  want  to  work,  assume responsibility and are willing to cooperate and contribute to achieve organizational goals.
• According to this approach, an organization is a psycho-social system, and individual work for achieving common goals of the organization as well as the group goals.
• As well as the economic needs, employee have many other higher order needs such as social psychological needs including recognition, appreciation, self respect and dignity.
• Behavioral theory of management considers the different motivational factors which lead to high productivity and high morale.
• Behavioral theory explains the role of personal leadership in management and studies the human relations and the relationship between the leader and workers. It also involves the study of successful and unsuccessful managerial behavior.

9.4 Elton Mayo and Hawthorne Study

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Behavioral theory of management gathered momentum under the leadership of Elton Mayo, an eminent psychologist. Elton Mayo was born in Adelaide in Australia in 1880. He became a lecturer at the University of Queensland. Elton Mayo went to the United States of America in 1922. Later, Elton Mayo was selected in the Graduate School of Business at Harvard University in 1926. He was a professor of Industrial Research at Harvard University. He is best known for his work on the Hawthorne Studies and is considered one of the fathers of the human relations movement.

He was responsible for the initiation and direction of the five-year investigation of the Hawthorne studies, conducted at the Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electric Company in Chicago from 1924-1932. The result of these experiments has been published into six volumes. They are the Human Problems of Industrial Civilization, the social problem of an Industrial Civilization, the Industrial worker, leadership in a free society, management and worker, and management and morale.

The Hawthorne plant was a manufacturing telephone system bell. Approximately 30,000 employees worked during this experiment period. The objective of the experiment was to find out the behavior and attitudes of employees under better working conditions. The benefits of pension and medical allowance were available to employees. Besides, the management arranged recreational facilities. Even though, the employees derived job satisfaction. The productivity of employees was not up to the expectations. So, in 1924, the management requested National Academy of Sciences to investigate the reasons for dissatisfaction of employees and decrease in productivity. On this basis, Prof. Elton Mayo and his team conducted researches in four phases.

The following are the four phases of these experiments:

• Illumination Experiments (Phase I)
• Relay Assembly Test room experiments (Phase 2) Interviewing Programme (Phase 3)
• The Bank Wiring Observation (Phase 4)

Illumination Experiments: This was the first phase of this study. In this phase, the popular belief that productivity is positively correlated with the illumination was tested. Experiments were done on a group of workers. Their productivity was measured at various levels of illumination. Under this experiment, two groups were formed. The first group was termed as experimental group or test group and second group was termed as control group. In one group, (experiment group) the intensity of light was changed whereas in the other group (control group), the illumination (Light) was kept constant.

The post test productivity of the groups was then compared and it was found that illumination affected production only marginally. The researchers concluded that illumination was not the cause of low productivity. This experiment was conducted for two and a half year. The researchers concluded that certain other factors might be responsible for low productivity therefore; second phase of experiment was undertaken.

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Relay Assembly Test room experiments: In this phase, the object of the study was broadened. It now aimed at knowing not only the impact of illumination on production but also of such other factors as length of working day, rest pauses, their frequency and duration and other physical conditions. These experiments had been conducted in three phases namely, first Relay Assembly test, second Relay Assembly group and Mica Splitting group.

A group of six women workers, who were friendly to each other, was selected for this experiment and were made to work in a very informal atmosphere with a supervisor-researcher in a separate room. The supervisor-researcher acted as their friend, philosopher and guide. The girls were told to work in natural way and allowed to comment freely about changes in the working conditions. The changes were made with durations ranging from four to twelve weeks. Whenever a change was introduced, the girls were allowed to express their       views and opinions.

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At times, the girls were allowed to take decisions themselves. Periodical training was conducted for the girls. The following changes were made in the experiment room:

Rest pauses: Over a period of two years, rest periods changes were made as follows:

1. Two five minute rests: One rest pause in the morning session was allowed. Subsequently the rest pauses were increased to ten minutes. There was increase in the production in this group.
2. Six five minute rests: The output decreased slightly when six five minute rest pauses were introduced.
3. Two rests pauses often minutes: The workers were served snacks with coffee or soup in the rest periods. The output recorded an increase.

Changes in week days and working hours: The decrease in working hours by one hour led to an increase in production. When five days week was tried the production increased and absenteeism also reduced. After some time the original schedule of timing was reintroduced and the production went up still higher. Researcher came to the conclusion that increase in output was not due to changes in physical factors but on account of positive attitude of girls and feeling of sense of responsibility, belongingness and self discipline.

Change in incentive system: Workers of experiment room were offered financial incentives for increased production. The output went up.

Changes in work: workers were consulted before making the changes and the work was also simplified. The result of this special attention and recognition caused them to carry a stimulating feeling of group pride and belongingness. At this stage researchers were interested to know the basic question: why the attitudes of the employees had become positive after participating in the experiment room? Then the third phase began to get answer to this question.

Interviewing programme: The knowledge about the informal group processes which was accidentally acquired in the second phase made researcher design the third phase. In this phase they wanted to know as to what were the basic factors responsible for human behavior at work. In this program questions were asked on employee’s attitudes towards company, supervision, insurance plans, promotion and wages. Approximately 20,000 employees were interviewed, many of whom were interviewed more than once. Initially, direct question were asked relating to the type of supervision, working conditions, living conditions and so on. But since the replies were guarded, the techniques were changed to non-directive type of interviewing, in which workers were free to talk about their favorite topics related to their work environment. This study reveals that the workers social relations inside the organization had an unmistakable influence on their attitudes and behaviors. In order to find out how the informal group operated, the bank wiring room experiments were conducted.

The Bank Wiring Observation: These experiments were conducted to find out the impact of small groups on the individual. A group has been formed to conduct this experiment. This group consisted of group of fourteen male workers. The men were engaged in the assembly of terminal banks for the use in telephone exchanges. This experiment determines the effect of informal group norms and formal economic incentives on productivity. it was found that the group evolved its own production norms for each individual worker, which were much lower than those set by the management. Workers would produce that much and no more, thereby defeating the incentive system. The company target was more than the target fixed by the workers.

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However, the workers have failed to achieve the target due to the following reasons:

Workers feel that if they produce more, a few workers among them would be put out of employment. So they feared unemployment problem.

Most of the workers were of the view that if they had reached the standard level of production, the management would raise the standard level of production, so they feared unduly high standards of management.

The workers were friendly on the job as well as off the job. They told that the fellow workers have responsibility which required them to remain in the job. So the fast workers protected the slow workers by slowing down their production. In their opinion, if they did not do so, the slow workers were likely to be retrenched.

9.5 Mayo’s Contribution to Management Thought

Mayo was the first person to advocate for the understanding of workers’ problems in the context of growth of science and technology. He wanted the management to understand the problems of workers and make efforts to improve them.

1. Human Relations Approach: –Mayo stated that human beings are the most important factor in organization and influence its performance. So, social and psychological needs of human beings cannot be ignored. He is rightly called the father of human relations movement.
2. Non Economic Awards: –Elton Mayo criticized the traditional assumption that workers will work more if more monetary incentives are provided to them. He said that the techniques of monetary incentives were unrealistic and respectful treatment, sense of participation and belonging, recognition, morale, human pride and social interaction are sometimes more important than monetary incentives.
3.  Social System: Mayo was of the opinion that informal relationships in the organization are more effective than formal relationships. People form informal groups learnt a lot of things and implement these into the organization. He explained that besides logic and facts people are also guided by sentiments and feelings.

In nutshell, it enriched the management thought in the following manner:

The Hawthorne studies served to refocus attention on the social side of work and man as opposed to just the economic and technical aspect.

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The effect and influence of informal group on the individual appeared to be significant and group unity and the quality of forming a united whole were also found to be important.

The Hawthorne studies clearly demonstrated that productivity of workers is not controlled by physical factors alone but is more strongly affected by the leadership practices and work group pressures on employee satisfaction and performance.

9.6 Findings of Hawthorne Experiment

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The followings are the major findings and conclusions Hawthorne Experiment:

1. Social Factors: –At Hawthorne studies Elton Mayo described that organization is a ‘social system’ and social norms at work play an important role in motivating people. Mayo stated that main cause of changes in productivity study is the restructuring of social relationships. : Hawthorne Experiment proved that social factors are responsible for deciding the level of output.
2. Informal Groups are important: –Elton Mayo stated that informal groups have a favorable impact on productivity and attitude of the workers and influence the work performance. Informal groups may help to overcome the limitations of the formal group.
3. Leadership: –Leadership is very important in each and every organization to achieve the desired results. Informal leaders are more acceptable in an organization because they have more influence on the behavior of the subordinates as, they associate themselves with the social problems of the workers and able to get the cooperation from them.
4. Communication:– During decision making workers participation is must and the logic behind every decision should explained and communicate to the workers. This will not only help to brought much better results but also useful to understand the attitude of the workers and give them due recognition.
5. Balanced Approach: –The management must take into account every aspect of the problems of the workers. All the problems should be discussed and decisions should be taken for improving these problems/limitations. Experiments showed that a balanced approach should be taken to manage the situation.
6. Production level: The production level is determined by social norms. In simple words, there is no direct relationship between production level and working conditions.
7. Motivation: Workers are not merely motivated by money. A worker does not work for money. Non-financial rewards such as affection and respect of his workers also significantly affect his behavior and largely limit the effect of economic incentive plan.
8. Behavior of workers: Workers are not as individuals but as members of a group. The information groups have their own norms and belief. A leader of a group has an over influence on the attitudes behavior and performance of individual workers.
9. Supervision: The genuineness of the supervisor affects the productivity. Productivity was not affected in Hawthorne Experiments only because of the existence of friendly relationship between the supervisor and the workers.
10. Reaction of workers: complaints and criticism by workers are symptoms of deeper satisfaction.

9.7 Criticism of Hawthorne Experiment

It is a swing in the opposite direction and is as much incomplete as the scientific management and administrative management approaches. If Taylor and Fayol viewed task and structure as their central tenets and ignored the human variable, the human relations writers saw only the human variable as critical and ignored other variable. The finding of the Hawthorne experiments has been criticized in many ways as given as under:

• Elton Mayo concluded that workers are mostly driven by emotions whereas management is always logical. This fact is not true always.
• This experiment was not concluded scientifically. There is no strong reason for selecting a work for experiment.
• This approach over-emphasizes the importance of symbolic rewards and underplays the role of material awards.
• This approach provides an unrealistic picture about informal groups by describing them as a major source of satisfaction for individual workers.
• Elton Mayo omitted detailed study of the impact of social factors on workers behavior and total work situation within the organization.

This approach based on a wrong assumption that satisfied workers are more productive workers.

9.8 Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory of Motivation

Abraham Maslow’s motivation theory is a important theory of behavioral school of management.

It is based on the human needs. These needs are classified into a sequential hierarchy from the

lower to higher order.

These needs are:

• Physiological Needs
• Safety and Security Needs Social Needs
• Esteem Needs
• Self-Actualization

9.9 Herzberg’s Motivation Hygiene Theory

Frederick Herzberg gave a new motivation theory which is a improved version of Maslow theory. This theory is known as Herzberg’s Motivation Hygiene (Two-Factor) Theory. This theory is based on the assumption that there are two sets of factors that affects motivation in the workplace. According to Herzberg the factors that cause dissatisfaction in the workplace is termed as ‘hygiene’.

• Compensation Job Security
• Organizational Policies Working Conditions
• Leadership Quality
• Supervisors and Subordinates Relationship

9.10 McGregor’s Participation Theory

Douglas McGregor is a contemporary of Abraham Maslow and also contributed much to the development motivational theory as well as development of the management. He is best known for his Theory X and Theory Y explained in the book ‘The Human Side of Enterprise’. He explained the various assumptions of the managers about the human behaviour and that how the superior manages their subordinates. McGregor identified an approach of creating an environment within which employees are motivated via authoritative, direction and control or integration and self-control, which he called theory X and theory Y.

9.11 Summary

Behavioral management thoughts were proved to be a landmark in the evolution of human relations. These approaches were developed in response to know about the employee behavior and motivation. These thoughts moved the management from a production orientation style to a leadership style and consider the workers’ human need for work-related satisfaction and good working conditions. These thoughts considered the social and welfare aspects of employees which further increase the satisfaction and motivation among them. No management can succeed without considering human aspect.

Suggested Readings

1. Sarker Md. Sadrul Islam, Khan Mohammad Rafiul Azam, “Classical and neoclassical approaches of management: An overview” (2013), IOSR Journal of Business and Management (IOSR-JBM) e-ISSN: 2278-487X, p-ISSN: 2319-7668. Volume 14, Issue 6 (Nov. – Dec. 2013), PP 01-05.
2. A.H. Maslow, Motivation and Personality, Harper and Row Publishers Inc., New York 1954.
3. Herzberg, Mausner, Snyderman, op. Cit., p. 113
4. Daniel A. Wren, Arthur G. Bedeian (2009), “The evolution of management thought”John Wiley & Sons
5. Douglas McGregor, The Human side of enterprise, McGraw Hill Company Inc., New York, 1960, pp.33-34.
6. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Behavioural Management Theory Disha, Behavioural approach to management (with criticism)
7. Sherri Hartzell, The emergence of the neo classical theory of management