1924 the national scientific research Council of the 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, called Hawthorne Experiment, was led and completed by Professor Mayo of Harvard University. The main contents of this study include:
1. Lighting experiment, the purpose of which is to investigate the relationship between illuminance and work efficiency in 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. The relay assembly room experiment aims 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 working conditions, but employees' mood. The important factor affecting 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 complaints to solve problems, and finally realize the improvement of production efficiency. It is found that solving employee dissatisfaction has great influence on improving production efficiency.
4. The distributor winding operation experiment.
The results of this experiment show that, in addition to 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, researchers found that there were many problems in traditional management theory. According to the analysis of Hawthorne's experimental results, Mayo put forward the following new ideas in the book "People in Industrial Civilization" published by 1933:
First, the early management theories, methods and systems were all based on the basic assumption of human nature, that is, people are "economic men" driven by economic interests, so money has become the only motivation to stimulate the enthusiasm of workers. Hawthorne's experiment proved that people are "social people", that is, people are members of complex social relations. Therefore, to arouse the enthusiasm of workers, we should not only meet their material needs, but also pay attention to meeting their social and psychological needs.
Second, the early management thought that production efficiency was mainly restricted by working methods and working conditions. Hawthorne's experiments prove that work efficiency mainly depends not on working conditions and working methods, but on the 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 employee satisfaction.
Third, early management only paid attention to formal organization, division of power, rules and regulations, etc. Hawthorne's experiment proves that there are still informal organizations among employees, and they have their special relationships and rules. Formal organizations mainly adopt efficiency logic, while informal organizations adopt 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 man", "morale" and "informal organization" have opened up a new field of management science, emphasizing the influence of interpersonal integration on production efficiency.
Frederick W taylor (1856- 19 15) is regarded as the "father of scientific management" and is recognized as a pioneer of management science in academic circles. Since then, management science has embarked on the road of science. This great man has been accompanied by two things in his life, one is the American steel industry, which he fought for all his life, and the other is the Puritan spirit that penetrated into his bone marrow. The practice of iron and steel works made him create an unprecedented systematic theory in management technology and methods, and the puritanism spirit made him create a far-reaching theoretical legacy in management thoughts and concepts.
The Taylor family is a typical American middle class. His father is both a devout Quaker and a successful lawyer. A good family environment has shaped some unusual excellent qualities in Taylor's character since childhood. It is said that Taylor is particularly disgusted with the bad habit of wasting, being lazy and careless and turning it into a big deal. In Taylor's early education, he read a lot of classic works and formed the habit of being diligent and keen on experiments. He is persistent in everything. Even if he is running, he should come up with the least tiring running method. He wants to explore the "best way" for trivial things in the eyes of ordinary people. This spirit of "asking the truth in a casserole" has been maintained throughout his life. Some people think Taylor is an idealist. He pursues perfection with enthusiasm, persistence 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. 18 years old, she got her wish and was admitted to Harvard Law School. However, studying too hard seriously damaged his eyesight, and nervous headache forced him to drop out of school and start his career. Later, some scholars who specialized in Taylor thought that poor eyesight was just an excuse for Taylor to drop out of school. The real reason is that Taylor doesn't want to inherit his father's business. After experiencing the "identity crisis" of teenagers, he showed his independence in this way.
Whatever the reason, Taylor did not become a "white-collar" as his parents expected after dropping out of school, but worked as an apprentice in a hydraulic factory in Philadelphia for four years. Because the family has money, Taylor's apprenticeship has no income. At this stage of the ascetic life, Gentelle personally felt the joys and sorrows of the lower-level workers, and further tempered his character. Taylor's experience fulfilled the famous saying of Mencius, who is well-known in China: "If a person is entrusted with a heavy responsibility by God, he must first suffer from his mind, work hard on his bones and muscles, starve his body, empty his body, and do things in disorder, so he must be patient and have benefited from his incompetence."
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-scale machinery industry, especially steel industry and railway, and become the representatives of advanced productive forces at that time. But most of the workers at that time were uneducated, let alone the supervisors. The management level of the whole industry is basically at the level of "Nanwuwen" against "Chai Lubang". In the "rude" workshop, workers with higher education and good personal cultivation like Taylor are rare. Because of Taylor's outstanding performance, his position in Midvale rose rapidly, from a worker to a workshop manager, a mechanic monitor and a chief technician responsible for the maintenance of the whole factory. Go to 1884 and become the chief engineer of Midvale. At this stage, he took 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 he gets excellent grades.
Midville provided Taylor with a vast world to improve management. He conducted various experiments in Midvale, especially in the study of working hours. Midwell's experiment taught the young engineer who was eager to change the world a lot. When he was a foreman, he confidently promoted his scientific methods in order to improve production and efficiency. However, he met with resistance from the workers. The workers are fed up with Nanwen's sufferings, and they show a high degree of distrust of any efforts to increase production. Faced with the uncooperative workers, Taylor once used fines, but he soon realized from practice that fines were useless. No matter how tempting your original intention of management reform is, you must get the understanding and support of workers. The workers also realized Taylor's good intentions to them during the confrontation, but accepted his guidance. It is in this exploration that a generation of management masters gradually perfected his thoughts. 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 leaving Midvale, Taylor 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 business school in the United States (located in Pennsylvania), and he knows the value of management. In Bethlehem, Taylor started his management experiment in full swing. He invited a group of assistants to work with him, including Gant, a well-known management consultant, Bass, who helped Taylor a lot in mathematical methods, and merrick, who got him into trouble at Arsenal in Waterton. The work of this team is fruitful. The most famous pig iron treatment experiment was carried out in Bethlehem, and the unfinished experiment of cutting metal in Midville continued here. The main content of Taylor system is realized here. However, Taylor encountered another test here. Residents of Bethlehem are worried that increasing labor productivity like Taylor will lead to less 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, Gentelle had a hard time in Bethlehem. 190 1 year, Taylor had to leave the company. Ironically, after Taylor left, Bethlehem stopped implementing Taylor system, which led to a decline in production. Grass-roots managers quietly adopted Taylor's method to resume production, but refused to admit it when reporting to their superiors.
Taylor left Bethlehem, because of the rich patent income and savings, he no longer dealt with factories, but buried himself in writing and wrote the representative work of scientific management, Factory Management. Meanwhile, Taylor is happy to renovate his courtyard lawn in bocks, a suburb of Philadelphia. Maybe a leopard cannot change his spots. He came up with a new soil mixing formula, investigated the lawn types of golf courses and designed a new Y-shaped golf club. Playing golf has become an experimental way of his scientific management thought. Scientific management can exert its great power even in leisure life. Taylor, a novice golfer (1896 learned to play), 1902, 1903, 1905, champion of the obstacle course of Philadelphia country club. People's understanding of Taylor system began to change unconsciously in practice. Some factories have taken the initiative to adopt Taylor-style management methods, and more and more scholars support Taylor. In this case, Taylor began to travel everywhere, give lectures everywhere, publicize and popularize scientific management. But there is a principle that he has always adhered to, that is, any speech and consultation are free of any remuneration, even if it is travel and horses, it is completely at a loss. He refused to accept payment until the War Department and Brooklyn Shipyard asked him to be a consultant.
19 10 freight case of the orient railway, made in Gentelle became famous. At that time, the railway company demanded an increase in freight rates, and the customers certainly opposed it. The Interstate Trade Commission held a hearing for this purpose. Brandeis is a lawyer in Boston and a very enthusiastic public welfare agent. He named Taylor's management method "scientific management". At the hearing, Emerson, who advocated Taylor system, even calculated an account, thinking that the railway company could save $6.5438+0 million every day after scientific management, and there was no need to raise the freight rate at all. What it really needed 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" in191.
However, things in the world are often complicated, and scientific management has encountered strong resistance in the promotion process. The biggest trouble comes from the trade union. According to Taylor's years of experience in the factory, he doesn't have much affection for the 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 the interests of workers can be effectively protected, there is no need for trade unions to exist. 19 1 1 year, Taylor was hired as a consultant of the army ordnance department to promote Taylor system in the arsenal. While his assistant, merrick, 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 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. The union took the opportunity to add fuel to the fire and asked Congress to investigate the matter. The House of Representatives organized a special committee to start the investigation hearing. Taylor was treated with hostility at the hearing. 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, preciseness 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 on scientific management. However, this trade union-biased atmosphere finally affected the attitude of Congress, and the two houses of Congress formed an additional clause on government funding, stipulating that all government-funded enterprises (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 freight case of the Eastern Railway, Taylor has become a management fashion, and it seems that "efficiency experts" are everywhere. Most of them only know a little about Taylor's system, but they brazenly promise customers to improve efficiency quickly. They move around like tigers about some measures of Taylor's system, ignoring Taylor's own warning that it will take at least three to five years to popularize scientific management, and even less listening to the advice that scientific management is not omnipotent. Taylor's basic principles and ideological spirit about scientific management were thrown into the technical methods that Java Taylor thought could not be considered at first by these efficiency experts, and they regarded them as the standard. Faced with the challenge of putting the cart before the horse, Taylor gave speeches everywhere with greater patience to correct his mistakes. Finally, Taylor caught a cold on the train back from his speech and died of pneumonia. His grave is on the hillside, and you can see the Philadelphia Steel Works. The words "father of scientific management" on the tombstone represent his achievements in life.
Scientific management originated in the United States, and its content is quite rich. It is a set of management theory that integrates theory, principle and operation technology, and is both ideological and practical. Its main content involves five aspects: production management techniques and methods, management functions, management personnel, organizational principles and management concepts. It is from scientific management that management began, 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 is still glorious. When talking about scientific management, many works often focus on the technical level. In fact, the ideological content of scientific management is far more important than its technical means. Only by fully understanding the organic combination of iron and steel companies and Protestant ethics can we truly master Taylor system.