Productivity has concerned managers, administrators, and governments for years—even centuries. It
is an understandable concern when you consider the difference in rates of working and the effective
ness of the work done by different people.
There have been many ways in which managers have sought to influence the productivity of their
employees; this paper will consider the most influential of them. The practices considered are in use
today in many organisations, but will be presented in sequence reflecting the development of manage
ment thinking and knowledge about productivity over the past fifty years.
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References
1.
For an account of the Hawthorne Studies see Roethlis, Landsberger and Dixon, Management and the Worker, (Harvard1939).
2.
A very useful summary and assessment of the studies was produced by Henry A. Landsberger in Hawthorne Revisited, (Ithaca1958 ).
3.
For example, the studies by Donald Roy of the ways in which employees 'manipulated' incentive bonus schemes, published in Tom Lupton (ed) Payment Systems, (Penguin1972).
4.
Joan Woodward , Management and Technology, ( HMSO1958).
5.
T. Burns & G. Stalker.The Management of Innovation, (Tavistock1961).
6.
Some of these points are my own deductions from Burns and Stalker's findings, not necessarily to be found in the original text.
7.
Neil Millward , Family Status and Behaviour at Work, Sociological Review, Vol.16, No.2 (1968).
8.
Described in T. Lupton & A.M. Bowey, Wages and Salaries, ( Penguin1974).
9.
A.M. Bowey "Pay Systems in Perspective", Personnel Management, (April 1976).
10.
J. Goldthorpe et al., The Affluent Worker, ( Cambridge University Press1968).
11.
M. White, Motivating Managers Financially, (IPM1973).
12.
Paul Hill, Towards a New Philosophy of Management, (Gower Press1972).
13.
M. Marchington , "Worker Participation and Plant-wide Incentive Schemes", Personnel Review, vol.6, No.3 (Summer 1977).
