Elton Mayo

Elton Mayo (born Dec. 26, 1880, Adelaide, Australia—died Sept. 7, 1949, Polesden Lacey, Surrey, Eng.) was an Australian-born psychologist who became an early leader in the field of industrial sociology in the United States, emphasizing the dependence of productivity on small-group unity. He extended this work to link the factory system to the larger society.

After teaching at the universities of Queensland in Brisbane (1919–23) and Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (1923–26), Mayo served as professor of industrial research at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration (1926–47). The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization (1933) is probably his most important book.

In 1927 Mayo initiated a pioneering industrial research project at the Western Electric Company’s Hawthorne Works, Chicago; his associates F.J. Roethlisberger and William J. Dickson summarized the results in Management and the Worker (1939). Parts of this study—those concerning the collection of data, labour-management relations, and informal interaction among factory employees—continued to be influential. Mayo also advocated a personnel-counseling program that would address the particular needs of industrial workers unable to derive satisfaction from employment in large organizations.