ABSTRACT
The association between informal social relations and performance on the job was noticed early in sociological research, namely in the famous Hawthorne studies in the 1930s (see Jones 1992, for a review). This series of experiments was originally set up to test the influence of the physical environment, like that of the illumination of the workplace, on productivity. According to various interpretations of the Hawthorne experiments the attention accorded to the workers and the lack of close supervision were major conditions for their enhanced performance and not the changes in lighting.1
