industrial relations summary

industrial relations, or organizational relations, Study of human behaviour in the workplace, focusing especially on the influence such relations have on an organization’s productivity. Classical economics viewed workers as instruments of production, subject to the laws of supply and demand. Industrial relations did not become a subject of scholarly attention until the late 1920s, when Elton Mayo (1880–1949) studied productivity at Western Electric Co.’s Hawthorne Works. Concluding that merely being chosen to participate in the study improved workers’ productivity (the “Hawthorne effect”), Mayo became the first scholar to show workers responding to psychosocial stimuli. Other aspects of industrial relations include human resources management, which involves the development of job descriptions and organizational structures; recruitment, training, and general oversight of employees; and negotiation of terms of employment, planning for the future, and the study of managerial styles.