In the 1930s the emphasis of management researchers shifted from individuals to the work group. Of primary importance was the human relations research program carried out by Elton Mayo and his associates at the Hawthorne Western Electric plant and their discovery of the “Hawthorne effect”—an increase in worker productivity produced by the psychological stimulus of being singled out and made to feel important. The ideas that this team developed about the social dynamics of groups in the work setting had lasting influence. (See history of the organization of work.)

Behavioral scientists had made their entry into the field by attacking as oversimplified the tendency to view workers as autonomous labourers and to comprehend companies through notions, borrowed from engineering, that stressed organizational structure, technology, and efficiency. As often happens in arguments between members of competing schools of thought, some behavioral scientists went so far as to view the work organization exclusively as a system of social relations and to downplay the role of economic forces. During the l950s and ’60s the field underwent a major process of redefinition that helped change previous conceptions of the worker.

Behavioral scientists now recognize the importance of economic factors, but they see material rewards as having an effect upon behaviour in combination with social and psychological factors, and they study the pattern in this combination. Thus, over the years behavioral scientists have deepened the understanding of the ways that interpersonal, structural, and technological forces can affect organizations and industrial relations.

Classical economists made no distinction between the manager and the entrepreneur, the person who brings together land, labour, and capital and puts them to work. This distinction did not take hold in the literature until the publication of The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1933) by Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means. When the authors demonstrated that in most American corporations the owners (that is, the stockholders) played no direct role in the management of the concern and that the managers generally had insignificant holdings of stock, it became apparent that theories of entrepreneurial behaviour contributed little to the understanding of managerial behaviour.

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Max Weber, 1918.

Leif Geiges

At the onset of the 20th century, German sociologist Max Weber approached the study of managerial behaviour through his concept of bureaucracy. Weber used the term to highlight a phenomenon of growing importance to industrialized society: that of the large organization with a fixed hierarchical structure based on specialization and division of labour and with established rules and regulations governing behaviour. To Weber, the manager was a person who interpreted and applied the rules of the organization.

Later organizational sociologists, though recognizing the importance of Weber’s emphasis on the impersonality and rationality of modern industrial and governmental organizations, pointed out flaws in Weber’s model of the modern business organization. They argued that Weber’s theory gave an unduly rigid picture of organizations, that it failed to devote attention to processes of change, and that it built so exclusively on the hierarchy of authority as to neglect relations not explicitly defined by the structure. In any case, Weber’s formulations were of interest primarily to social scientists. Practicing managers and students in business schools at that time were likely to have little familiarity with the Weberian approach to managerial behaviour.

The early model of the manager taught in American business schools emphasized functional specializations. In these terms the manager was the one who had mastered such subjects as accounting, marketing, production, finance, and so on. Later it was recognized by theoreticians and practicing managers alike that management was a good deal more than the sum of these specialized functions, and this realization in turn led to the conception of the manager as generalist—a person capable of comprehending the organization’s various specialized functions and the people engaged in them. The emphasis turned to decision making, leadership, and the relation of the firm to its environment.

Some of the most innovative thinking on management education and practice was originated by management theorist Douglas McGregor in The Human Side of Enterprise (1960). In this book McGregor challenged many of the prevailing managerial assumptions about worker motivation and behaviour. According to the prevailing view, which he labeled “Theory X,” workers were seen as uninformed, lazy, and untrustworthy members of the organization. Management’s task was to control workers and motivate them through a combination of control systems, fear of discipline or dismissal, and organizational rules. McGregor contrasted this with a “Theory Y” assumption, namely, that workers are highly motivated and can be trusted to contribute to the organization’s objectives if given the opportunity to participate in organizational decision making. Out of the work of McGregor and others, such as Rensis Likert, has evolved “participative management,” a process in which managers consult with and involve employees at all levels of the organization in organizational problem solving and decision making.

McGregor’s views were supplemented by theories that promoted innovations in the design and implementation of new technologies and production systems that would accommodate the physical and social needs of workers. These sociotechnical concepts originated in Europe and had substantial impacts on the design of innovative work systems in Scandinavia in the 1960s and ’70s. By the early 1980s they had achieved significant acceptance and use in American firms.

Sociotechnical theory and worker-participation models of decision making have become essential to companies as they face global competition and rapid technological change. Most contemporary organizational and industrial relations scholars have concluded that the full potential of new information and manufacturing technologies can only be realized through management processes that support participation and communication across functional lines and departments. This must be accompanied by effective problem solving and flexibility in how work is organized. Yet there is still considerable debate among practitioners over the feasibility, wisdom, and even the legal consequences of involving workers in organizational decision making. Therefore, vestiges of both Theory X and Theory Y can be found in the concepts and practices of contemporary organizations.