Deck 5: Discovering the Social Organization

Question 1

What are group norms?

A) The official groups that a manager places.
B) The official rules and norms that a manager tells the group they should follow.
C) The rules of conduct that group members must adhere to in order to fit in.
D) The normal ways of working that make a group work well.

Answer 1

C
Explanation: Group norms are the unwritten rules that shape the behaviour of people within groups. They are often not told to people directly, but we can get to learn them indirectly through things like jokes, stories, or watching how other people are treated. Group norms are powerful because they are the (unofficial) rules that a group has if someone wants to fit in with the group. One of the key findings from the Hawthorne Studies was that these group norms are very powerful and often have more direct control over employees' behaviour than official rewards and sanctions such as pay and promotion (because we all want to fit in).

Question 2

What was Mayo's view of Human nature? Please select all that apply.

A) That human beings are irrational and are governed by sentiment.
B) That human beings are economic animals who are only interested in cost-benefit analysis and work for their own rational ends.
C) That human beings are rational beings and always act in sensible ways based upon evidence and are governed by their rational best interests.
D) That human beings are social animals who have social and psychological needs.

Answer 2

A,D
Explanation: Mayo offers us a mixed view of human nature. On the one hand it is more holistic and positive than Taylorism as it does not see people like machines (as a Taylorist view does) but as wider human beings with social and psychological needs, however, there is also a darker side to Mayo's views. Mayo considered workers to be largely irrational and governed by sentiment.

Question 3

The experiments at the Hawthorne works examined the _______________ factors that shaped how people worked.

Answer 3

psychological and social
Explanation: Whilst Taylorism focused on the physical factors that shaped how people worked, the Hawthorne Studies demonstrated the importance of the psychological and social factors that shaped how people worked. In particular, they highlighted the importance of the group relations and how these impacted people's experiences of work.

Question 4

Did Mayo think that workers were rational?

A) No. Mayo thought that workers were irrational and governed by sentiment.
B) No. Mayo thought that workers were not able to understand rationalization
C) Yes. Mayo thought that workers were rational and would always work in a way that would produce harmony with management.
D) Yes. Mayo thought that it is important for managers to understand the needs of workers and to design systems and procedures to work with them effectively.

Question 5

Did Mayo consider all workers to always be cooperative and harmonious? Please select all that apply.

A) No. Whilst Mayo considered that people are naturally cooperative and harmonious he argued that the industrial revolution had led to a fragmented society that meant that people lost a sense of individual significance. Workers were unhappy due to psychological reasons rather than economic ones.
B) No. Mayo believed that all workers were in conflict with one another and management by nature but with the right amount of management intervention they could be made more cooperative.
C) Yes. Mayo believed that all people are naturally cooperative and harmonious and that with the right level of support and development this could be harnessed effectively by organizations to make them run more effectively and efficiently.
D) Yes. Mayo believed that peoples are naturally cooperative but they can become less cooperative when they work in hierarchical organizations where there is a management structure that gets in the way of people's individual freedom.

Question 6

The fundamental aim of the Hawthorne Studies was completely opposed to the aims of Taylorism?

Question 7

Complete this sentence: Group dynamics can result in workers… Please select all that apply.

A) …always increasing their output in order to do well for the group
B) …always decreasing their output in order to fit into the group
C) …working at the level that the manager wants them to
D) …working within the norms of the group

Question 8

Mayo's interpretation of the Hawthorne studies led to the foundation of the _______________ movement.

Question 9

What is the Hawthorne Effect? Please select all that apply.

A) Observing someone changes their behaviour.
B) Researchers can never really know what people do in reality.
C) Increasing productivity can come from understanding the psychological and social factors.
D) The power of hygiene factors.

Question 10

Mary Parker Follett believed that managers should act as ________? Please select all that apply.

A) administrators.
B) joint workers.
C) leaders.
D) facilitators.

Question 11

The results of the interview programme, the researchers argued, was that home life was irrelevant to their working life.

Question 12

The Hawthorne studies are credited with discovering the _______________ person.

Question 13

From a critical viewpoint did Mayo's work help to give more freedom to workers? Please select all that apply.

A) Yes - the result of the Hawthorne Studies was that workers no longer had to work in Taylorist styles and therefore could always work in teams. This gave workers a lot more freedom.
B) Yes - Mayo's work gave workers considerably more freedom that Taylorism as instead of just telling workers what to do workers were listened to.
C) No - whilst Mayo took into account wider human factors his purpose was not to increase freedom for employees but to give more power for managers in order to control them better.
D) No - whilst Mayo took into account wider human factors he used this knowledge to increase the motivation of the workers through factors such as understanding levels of fatigue or commitment levels that Taylor did not take into account.

Question 14

What were Mayo's views of the labour/capital relationship? Please select all that apply.

A) Mayo argued that managers have the right to manage and that workers are irrational and need managers to solve their problems.
B) Mayo argued that he had solved many of the excesses of Taylorism and therefore had solved the labour/capital dilemma. Mayo argued that people are naturally cooperative and that they want to work together.
C) Mayo argued that workers and managers have fundamentally different interests and that these interests cannot be reconciled.
D) Mayo argued that under human relations workers would be able to work with management as equals by developing good relations with each other.

Question 15

What were Mayo's views on the role of managers? Please select all that apply.

A) Managers had the right to manage.
B) Managers should involve staff in all decision making and have a vote on the decisions that the organization takes.
C) Managers should listen to their staff.
D) Managers and staff are equal and should always work together cooperatively.