Human Relations School

Conceptual Overview

The Human Relations School drew from psychology (Sigmund Freud, Pierre Janet), political theory (Vilfredo Pareto), political psychology (Gustave Le Bon, Harold Lasswell), sociology (Émile Durkheim), anthropology (Bronislaw Malinowski), and contemporary political events and debates (labor movements and antimovements, capitalism versus communism, democracy versus fascism). In applied fields, it drew from industrial psychology and industrial relations (Hugo Munsterberg, Elmer Southard).

The Human Relations School originated in relation to a larger dialogue about the impact of the Industrial Revolution on individuals, families, communities, and society at large. From the early 19th century, the heavy noneconomic costs of industrialization were evident. In intellectual circles, sociology emerged in part to attack laissez-faire economics, which had been used to justify these costs. In the United States, the leading early sociologists were social reformers. Many were sons of clergymen, for churches founded and maintained the U.S. institutions of higher learning until the late 19th century. They earned their Ph.D.s in Germany in reform-oriented intellectual circles. They mounted campaigns addressing child labor, occupational hazards, and poverty-level wages. In companies, concerned executives established programs for employee welfare known as “industrial betterment.” Discussion and experimentation ensued to explore how to humanize the workplace. Offerings ranged from lunchrooms and showers to political experiments, including profitsharing, worker education, and joint decision-making. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the term human relations is found in such varied contexts as conflict resolution, immigration and diversity, and democracy and citizenship.

The Human Relations School developed in consort with the professionalization of business as a field, the growing view of managers as a class, and the acceptance of collegiate business schools as legitimate institutions. The Human Relations School was simultaneously a research agenda to lend credibility to the emerging science of management, a leadership program for elite young men of the nation, and a way to generate appropriate educational content for this elite.

Mayo grounded his approach in medicine. His family had expected him to become a doctor. He began medical studies but dropped out and decided to pursue psychology. His formative experience was as a clinical psychologist in a hospital, treating shell-shock victims of World War I. Through his lifetime, he considered verbal communication as a symptom of underlying disorders and conceived of his professional relationships according to the doctor-patient model.

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