The Hawthorne studies began in 1924 in a Western Electric
plant near Chicago as a small-scale scientific management study of the relationship between light intensity and productivity. Curiously, the performance of a select group of employees tended to improve no matter how the physical surroundings were manipulated. Even when the lights were dimmed to moonlight intensity, productivity continued to climb! Scientific management doctrine could not account for what was taking place, and so a team of behavioral science researchers headed by Elton Mayo was brought in from Harvard to conduct a more rigorous study. By 1932, when the Hawthorne Studies ended, over twenty thousand empolyees had participated in the studies into one way or another. After extensive interviewing of the subjects it became clear to researchers that productivity was than much less affected by changes in work conditions by the attitudes of the workers themselves, specifically between members of a work group.