ABSTRACT
THE experimental studies of human relations to be reported in this book were conducted at the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company in Chicago. They were begun in the spring of 1927, when five employees were segregated from a regular operating department for special study. At the beginning of the inquiry the general interest was primarily in the relation between conditions of work and the incidence of fatigue and monotony among employees. It was anticipated that exact knowledge could be obtained about this relation by establishing an experimental situation in which the effect of variables like temperature, humidity, and hours of sleep could be measured separately from the effect of an experimentally imposed condition of work.
