Elton Mayo

George Elton Mayo ( born December 26, 1880 in Adelaide ( Australia), † September 1, 1949 in Guildford, Surrey ( England)) was an Australian sociologist. He taught from 1911 to 1923 at the University of Queensland in Australia, then at the University of Pennsylvania, the greater part of his professional life, however, from 1926 to 1947 as a professor at Harvard Business School, he was there co-founder and chief representative of the U.S. Industrial Sociology.

As the initiator of the Hawthorne studies, he began to develop in the 1930s, methods for improving the interpersonal relationships in operation. With the help of employee surveys - personal conversations with specially trained interviewers - should the cooperation of workers and promote their sense of belonging to the company strengthened (rather than to the union ). A useful side effect of these interviews, which were later carried out in large enterprises of their own sociological services, was the information gain of the management of imminent conflict and increase the options available to strike prevention.

Writings

• The social problems of an industrial civilization (1933 ), dt, problems of industrial working conditions, Frankfurt aM: Verl d Frankfurter books, 1949.

Secondary literature

• Kyle Bruce, " Henry S. Dennison, Elton Mayo, and Human Relations historiography " in: Management & Organizational History, 2006, 1: 177-199
• Richard CS Trahair, Elton Mayo: The Humanist Temper, Transaction Publishers, U.S. 2005 ISBN 1-4128-0524-4
• Helen Bourke Mayo, George Elton ( 1880-1949 ). In: Douglas Pike ( ed.) Australian Dictionary of Biography. Volume 10 Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Victoria, 1986, ISBN 0-522-84327-1 (English)