In 1924, the National Research Council, at the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric Company in Chicago, began a series of experiments to see how much lighting affected productivity. It was verified that with each alteration in the lighting, there was an improvement in productivity; however, when returning to the initial lighting conditions, productivity remained high, indicating that the attention given to the work environment was the predominant factor, not the luminosity itself. Over the years, studies and experiments in Hawthorne, which lasted until 1932, greatly expanded the initial focus, also addressing aspects of Continue reading “The Hawthorne Effect and Productivity in Organizations”