Elton Mayo was a pivotal figure in the field of industrial psychology and management theory. Born on December 26, 1880, in Adelaide, South Australia, and passing away on September 7, 1949, Mayo's work significantly influenced organizational behavior and management practices.
Mayo attended St. Peter's College in Adelaide and later studied philosophy, psychology, and education at the University of Adelaide. He was deeply influenced by the ideas of Henri Bergson and Émile Durkheim, which would later shape his research in human relations.
After working briefly as a teacher and in business, Mayo moved to the United States in 1922 to teach at the Harvard Business School. Here, he became involved with the Hawthorne Studies, which would become one of his most notable contributions to management theory.
The Hawthorne Studies, conducted at the Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois, from 1924 to 1932, initially focused on the effects of lighting on worker productivity. However, Mayo's involvement shifted the research towards understanding the psychological and social factors influencing workers:
Mayo's work emphasized the importance of:
After the Hawthorne studies, Mayo continued his work, contributing to the development of organizational psychology. His ideas were instrumental in shifting management focus from purely economic incentives to a broader understanding of employee motivation and satisfaction. Mayo's work has been both praised for its insights into human behavior in organizations and criticized for methodological flaws and overgeneralizations.