In p>1924, the National Scientific Research Council of American Academy of Sciences decided to conduct a study in Hawthorne Factory of American Western Electric Company to explore the influence of working environment and working conditions on workers' work efficiency. This research is called "Hawthorne Experiment", which was led and completed by Professor Mayo of Harvard University. The main contents of this study include:
1. Lighting experiment, which aims to investigate and study the relationship between the illuminance and working efficiency of the factory. The results show that there is no simple direct relationship between them, but the production efficiency is still related to some unknown factors.
2. relay assembly room experiment, the purpose is to find out the relationship between working conditions such as rest time, working time and working form and the change of working efficiency. The results show that the decisive factor of production efficiency is not the working conditions, but the employees' mood. The important factor that affects employees' mood is the humanistic environment of the enterprise, that is, the interpersonal relationship between employees.
3. interview plan, the purpose is to understand how to get the real inner feelings of employees, and then understand the help of listening to their stories to solve problems, and finally realize the improvement of production efficiency. It is found that solving employees' dissatisfaction has great influence on improving production efficiency.
4. Winding operation experiment of distributor.
The results of this experiment show that besides formal organization, there are informal organizations in the workshop for some reason, and the influence of the latter on production efficiency can not be ignored.
Through Hawthorne's experiment, the researchers found that there were many problems in the traditional management theory. According to the analysis of Hawthorne's experimental results, Mayo put forward the following new viewpoints in the book "People in Industrial Civilization" published in 1933:
First, the early management theory, management methods and management system were based on a basic assumption of human nature, that is, people are an "economic man" driven by economic interests, so money became the only driving force to stimulate workers' enthusiasm. Hawthorne's experiment proves that people are "social people", that is, people are members of complex social relations. Therefore, in order to arouse the enthusiasm of workers, we must pay attention to meeting their social and psychological needs in addition to meeting their material needs.
second, the early management thought that the production efficiency was mainly restricted by working methods and working conditions. Hawthorne's experiment proved that the work efficiency was not mainly determined by working conditions and working methods, but the work enthusiasm of employees, that is, the morale or working mood of workers. Morale is related to people's satisfaction. The higher the satisfaction, the higher the morale. Therefore, the main way to improve production efficiency should be to improve employees' satisfaction.
Third, the early management only paid attention to the formal organization, division of powers, rules and regulations, etc. Hawthorne's experiment proved that there were still informal organizations among employees, which had their special relationships and rules. The formal organization mainly adopts efficiency logic, while the informal organization adopts emotional logic. Managers should face up to the reality of informal organizations and handle the relationship between formal organizations and informal organizations.
Hawthorne's experiment and Mayo's concepts of "social person", "morale" and "informal organization" have created a new field in management, which emphasizes the influence of interpersonal integration on production efficiency.
Frederic W. Taylor (1856—1915) was honored as the "father of scientific management", and was recognized as the pioneer of management science in academic circles. Since then, management science has embarked on a scientific road. This great man has two things with him all his life, one is the American steel industry for which he worked all his life, and the other is the Puritan spirit that permeated his bone marrow. The practice of iron and steel works made him create an unprecedented systematic theory on management technology and methods, and the Puritan spirit made him create a far-reaching theoretical legacy on management thoughts and concepts.
Taylor's family is a typical middle class in America. His father is both a devout Quaker and a successful lawyer. A good family environment has shaped some unusual excellent qualities in Taylor's personality since childhood. It is said that Taylor is particularly disgusted with that kind of bad habit of wasting, being lazy, being careless and turning it into something big. In Taylor's early education, he read a lot of classical works, and developed the habit of being diligent and keen on experiments. He is very persistent in everything. Even when running, he has to figure out a running method that is the least tiring. He has to explore the "best method" for the trivial things in the eyes of ordinary people. This spirit of "getting to the bottom of the casserole" has been maintained by him all his life. Some people think that Taylor is an idealist. He pursues perfection with enthusiasm, perseverance and tenacity that ordinary people do not have. His later achievements in management science are closely related to this personal character.
Taylor's father wanted him to follow in his father's footsteps, so he sent Taylor to Exeter College to study. Taylor was furious and studied hard. At the age of 18, she got her wish and was admitted to Harvard Law School. However, studying too hard seriously damaged his eyesight, and his nervous headache forced him to drop out of school and start his career. Later, some scholars specializing in Taylor thought that the decline of vision was just an excuse for Taylor to drop out of school. The real reason was that Taylor did not want to inherit his father's business. After experiencing the "identity crisis" of teenagers, he showed his independence in this way.
for whatever reason, Taylor didn't become a "white-collar" as his parents expected, but worked as an apprentice in a hydraulic factory in Philadelphia for four years. Because his family is rich, Taylor's apprenticeship has no income. The ascetic life at this stage made Taylor feel the joys and sorrows of the lower-level workers personally, and further tempered his character. Taylor's experience fulfilled the famous saying of Mencius, who is well-known to China people: "If a man is entrusted with a great responsibility from heaven, he must first suffer from his mind, strain his bones and muscles, starve his body and skin, empty his body, and mess up his actions, so be patient and have benefited from his inability."
in p>1878, Taylor left the hydraulic plant and went to Midvale Steel Company. At first, he worked as an ordinary worker in the workshop. During this period, American factories have shown the great power of large machinery industry, especially steel industry and railway, and become the representatives of advanced productive forces at that time. However, most of the workers at that time were uneducated, and the supervisors were even less educated. The management level of the whole industry was basically at the level of "Namo Wen" against "Lu Chai Bang". In the "rude" workshop, workers with higher education and good personal cultivation like Taylor are just rare. Because of Taylor's outstanding performance, his position in Midvale rose rapidly, and he was promoted step by step by workers to workshop manager, mechanic monitor and chief technician in charge of the maintenance of the whole factory. By 1884, he became the chief engineer of Midvale. At this stage, he took part in part-time study at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey and obtained a degree in mechanical engineering. His spare-time study is also unique-he never attends lectures, only takes exams, but gets excellent grades.
Midvale provided Taylor with a vast world to improve management. He conducted many experiments in Midvale, especially in the study of working hours. Midvale's experiments made the young engineer eager to transform the world learn a lot. When he was a foreman, he confidently promoted his scientific methods in order to improve production and efficiency. However, he met with the confrontation of workers. The workers are fed up with the suffering of Namwin, and they show a high degree of distrust of any attempt to increase their output. In the face of workers' non-cooperation, Taylor once used fines, but he soon realized from practice that fines are useless. No matter how tempting your original intention of management reform is, you must get the understanding and support of workers. Workers also realized Taylor's good intentions to them in the confrontation and accepted his guidance instead. It is in this kind of exploration that a generation of management masters gradually perfected his thinking. After 12 years of continuous research and experiments, the basic concepts and methods of scientific management were born in Midvale. In view of Taylor's great contribution to the establishment of scientific management, people generally call it Taylor system.
After Taylor left Midvale, she was invited by Wharton, the major shareholder of Bethlehem Steel Company, to be a management consultant in Bethlehem. Wharton is the founder of the first American business school (located in Pennsylvania), and he knows the value of management. In Bethlehem, Taylor began his management experiment in an all-round way. He invited a group of assistants to work with him, including Gant, a well-known management consultant, Bath, who gave Taylor great help in mathematical methods, and merrick and others who got him into trouble in Waterton Arsenal. The work of this team is fruitful. The most famous pig iron handling experiment was carried out in Bethlehem, and the experiment of cutting metal that was not completed in Midvale continued here. The main contents of the Taylor system were realized here. However, Taylor encountered another test here. Residents of Bethlehem are worried that increasing labor productivity like Taylor will lead to reducing employment opportunities for citizens. The management department of the company is full of a large number of unskilled Namibian managers. Because Taylor introduced the cost accounting method, they can't continue to muddle along, and regard Taylor as a threat to their jobs. Especially the opposition of the old foreman, made Taylor's life in Bethlehem difficult. Taylor had to leave the company in 191. Ironically, after Taylor left, Bethlehem stopped implementing the Taylor system, which led to a decline in production. Grass-roots managers quietly adopted Taylor's method to resume production, but they just refused to admit it when reporting to their superiors.
Taylor left Bethlehem. Because of his rich patent income and savings, he stopped dealing with factories. Instead, he buried himself in writing and wrote the representative work of scientific management, Factory Management. At the same time, Taylor took pleasure in renovating his courtyard lawn in bocks, a suburb of Philadelphia. Perhaps a leopard cannot change his spots. He figured out a new soil mixing formula, investigated the lawn types of golf courses, and designed a new Y-shaped golf pole. Playing golf became an experimental way of his scientific management thought. Scientific management can exert its great power even in leisure life. Taylor, a novice golfer (he only learned to play in 1896), won the steeplechase championship of Philadelphia Country Club in 192, 193 and 195, depending on his improvement of the course, pole and hitting method. People's understanding of Taylor system began to change unconsciously in practice. Some factories take the initiative to adopt Taylor-style management methods one after another, and more and more scholars support Taylor. In this case, Taylor began to travel everywhere, give lectures everywhere, publicize and popularize scientific management. However, there is a principle that he has always adhered to, that is, he does not charge any remuneration for any speeches and consultations, even for travel and horses, and he is completely losing money to earn money. He refused to be paid until the War Department and Brooklyn Shipyard asked him to be a consultant.
the eastern railway freight case in p>191 made the Taylor system famous. At that time, the railway company demanded an increase in freight rates, and of course customers opposed the increase in freight rates. The Interstate Trade Commission held a hearing for this purpose. Brandeis, a Boston lawyer, is a very enthusiastic public welfare agent. He named Taylor's management method "scientific management". At the hearing, Emerson, who advocated the implementation of Taylor system, even calculated a detailed account, thinking that the railway company could save 1 million dollars every day after scientific management, so there was no need to raise freight rates at all, and the real thing to do was to reform management. Since then, scientific management has spread rapidly and widely, and Taylor also published his most important monograph "Principles of Scientific Management" in 1911.
However, things in the world are often complicated, and scientific management has encountered strong resistance in the promotion process. The biggest trouble comes from trade unions. According to his years of experience in the factory, Taylor doesn't have much affection for the trade union. He believes that the necessity of the existence of trade unions is based on the confrontation between labor and capital. If managers can properly act as intermediaries between employers and employees, so that workers' interests can be effectively safeguarded, trade unions are unnecessary. In 1911, Taylor was hired as a consultant of the Army Ordnance Department to promote the Taylor system in the arsenal. When merrick, his assistant, was studying working hours in Waterton Arsenal, a foundry worker refused to cooperate on the grounds of being a trade union member. After Colonel Wheeler, the leader of the Arsenal, talked with the worker, the worker still refused to cooperate. As a result, the factory dismissed the worker for "disobeying orders", which triggered a strike of workers. Trade union leaders took the opportunity to add fuel to the flames and asked Congress to investigate the matter. The House of Representatives organized a special committee to start the investigation hearing. During the hearing, Taylor was treated in a hostile way. The committee was obviously on the side of the trade union, and was rude to Taylor, repeatedly interrupting his narrative and misinterpreting his speech. In this case, Taylor showed the virtues of restraint, rigor and seeking truth from facts, and expounded the essence and significance of scientific management from the front, making his testimony one of the important documents about scientific management. However, this atmosphere of favoring trade unions finally affected the attitude of Congress, and the two houses of Congress formed an additional clause on government funding, stipulating that all enterprises funded by the government (mainly the army, navy and postal service) should not use any methods of Taylor system. It was not until 1949 that this additional clause was cancelled.
the congressional hearing is a kind of torture for Taylor, and the sudden emergence of many "efficiency experts" is a test for Taylor. Since the Eastern Railway Freight Case, Taylor has become a management fashion, and it seems that "efficiency experts" have sprung up everywhere. Most of them only know a little about Taylor's system, but they brazenly promise customers to improve efficiency quickly, and they have moved to some measures of Taylor's system like cats and tigers, ignoring Taylor's own warning that it will take at least three to five years to promote scientific management, and even less listening to the advice that scientific management is not a panacea. Taylor's basic principles and ideological spirit about scientific management were thrown into Java by these efficiency experts; The technical methods that Taylor thought could not be considered in the first place were regarded as the standard by these efficiency experts. Faced with the challenge of putting the cart before the horse, Taylor gave speeches everywhere with greater patience in order to correct his mistakes. Finally, Taylor caught cold on the train back from a speech and died of pneumonia. His graveyard is on a hillside where you can see the Philadelphia steel plant. The word "father of scientific management" on the tombstone represents his life's achievements.
Scientific management originated in the United States, and its content is quite rich. It is a set of management theories that are ideological and practical, starting from industrial and commercial production management and workshop management, combining theory, principles and operational technical methods. Its main content involves five aspects: production management technology and method, management function, management personnel, organization principle and management philosophy. It is from the beginning of scientific management that management, along the experimental scientific road founded by Galileo and Newton, bid farewell to simple experience summary and wisdom skills, and developed from "governance" to a science, which still loses its brilliance. When many works talk about scientific management, they often focus on the technical level. In fact, the ideological content of scientific management is far more important than its technical means.