Manufacturing Knowledge A History of the Hawthorne Experiments [Paperback]

What motivates workers to work harder? What can management do to create a contented and productive workforce? Discussion of these questions would be incomplete without reference to the Hawthorne experiments, one of the most famous pieces of research ever conducted in the social and behavioral sciences.What motivates workers to work harder? What can management do to create a contented and productive workforce? Discussion of these questions would be incomplete without reference to the Hawthorne experiments, one of the most famous pieces of research ever conducted in the social and behavioral sciences.What motivates workers to work harder? What can management do to create a contented and productive workforce? Discussion of these questions would be incomplete without reference to the Hawthorne experiments, one of the most famous pieces of research ever conducted in the social and behavioral sciences. Drawing on the original records of the experiments and the personal papers of the researchers, Richard Gillespie has reconstructed the intellectual and political dynamics of the experiments as they evolved from the tentative experimentation to seemingly authoritative publications. Manufacturing Knowledge raises fundamental questions about the nature of scientific knowledge, and about the assumptions and evidence that underlay debates on worker productivity.Editors' preface; Glossary of manuscript collections; Introduction; 1. The management of work; 2. The T room; 3. Interpreting the relay test; 4. Elton Mayo and the research network; 5. The psychopathology of industrial life; 6. The anthropology of work; 7. Manufacturing the Hawthorne experiments; 8. Human relations in industry; 9. Human relations in the social sciences; Conclusion: manufacturing knowledge; Acknowledgements; Bibliography of the Hawthorne experiments; Index. By systematically deconstructing the Hawthorne experiments--from their inception to their effects on industrial relations and the social sciences--l#×