Mgt 521

Viewpoints Paper

Akeem Vance

MGT 521

August 25, 2015

Robert Leonik

Viewpoints Paper

As the different styles of management were heavily researched in the 20th century many issues arose that dealt with the way people interacted and were motivated to accomplish the mission statement of the organization. Within the classical era the management principles that were brought did not give a substantial evidence for different issues that arose in the decorum of employees. It became known that the classical theory although relevant to many other aspects of business put motivation and behavior on hold. In this moment, behavioral viewpoints became a way of revolutionizing the experience of being in management.

The behavioral management theory is often called the human relations movement because it addresses the human dimension of work. Behavioral theorists believed that a better understanding of human behavior at work, such as motivation, conflict, expectations, and group dynamics, improved productivity. The theorists who contributed to this school viewed employees as individuals, resources, and assets to be developed and worked with — not as machines, as in the past. Several individuals and experiments contributed to this theory. Elton Mayo's contributions came as part of the Hawthorne studies, a series of experiments that rigorously applied classical management theory only to reveal its shortcomings. The Hawthorne experiments consisted of two studies conducted at the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company in Chicago from 1924 to 1932. The first study was conducted by a group of engineers seeking to determine the relationship of lighting levels to worker productivity. Surprisingly enough, they discovered that worker productivity increased as the lighting levels decreased — that is, until the employees were unable to see what they were doing, after which performance naturally declined. A few years later, a second group of experiments began. Harvard...