THE EFFECT OF HUMAN RELATIONS ON THE PERFORMANCE OF AN ORGANIZATION

THE EFFECT OF HUMAN RELATIONS ON THE PERFORMANCE OF AN ORGANIZATION

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

CONCEPTUAL MEANINGS OF HUMAN RELATIONS

Job satisfaction is one of the most widely studied subjects in the management field (Loi and Yang, 2009), as it is considered as one of the determinants of the quality of the working context in any organization. The starting point in exploring employees‟ satisfaction and motivation was Taylor‟s scientific study in 1911, but the real beginning of job satisfaction and motivation researches began with Mayo‟s Hawthorne studies (1924), which shed light on the importance of the human element as being the most valuable resource in any organization. Thousands of researches in job satisfaction have been conducted since the Hawthorne studies and a great number of theories and models were established to explain the complex nature of the job satisfaction phenomena (Locke, 1983). This chapter is primarily devoted to discuss and outline the literature on job motivation and satisfaction in general. The starting point of this chapter is to present the different definitions and meanings of motivation and job satisfaction, to be followed by a review of the three major management schools of thought. The major theories of motivation and job satisfaction and an assessment of these theories will be presented. The effect of different personal characteristics on job satisfaction and motivational needs will be discussed, and the relationship between job satisfaction and employees‟ behavior at work, including performance, turnover, and absenteeism, will be outlined. Finally, the researcher will introduce the motivation process in Islam and its similarities and differences with western motivation theories. Amune (1988) defines human relations as the interaction of people into a work collectively, productivity and bring about social satisfaction. He went further on to define human relations as the study of human problem arising from organizational and inter-personal relation in industry especially with reference to the employer-employee relationship and the interaction between personal traits, group membership and productive efficiency.

 Human relations in the view of Harding (1983) is an existing aspect of workers meeting new people of all kind, such meeting will broaden their own horizon and hopefully other people derive pleasure from meeting them. Jones et’ al (2005) assert that Human relations movement advocates the idea that supervisors are behaviourally trained to manage subordinates in ways that elicit their cooperation and increase their productivity.

 The key element in human relations is its basic objective of making organizational members feel useful and important part of the system over all effort. This process is viewed as the means of building a cooperative and participative workforce.

DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN RELATIONS

The advent of human relations movement began in the 1920 and 1930s with the observation of the short sightedness and incomptences of the classical approach to management that left out the human resource factor (Andrew, 1988). The human relations theorists led by Elton Mayo observed that scientific management principles were neither necessarily the most efficient nor did they work as intended, for it failed to understand that workers were also social beings with certain psychological needs. They believed that in addition to using the most appropriately designed methods to achieve productivity, organizations must consider the human aspect of work. In other words, when the workers needs are not considered even with the best tools, organizational goals may not be achieved.

 Interpersonal relations particularly the feeling and attitudes within working groups were considered to be important. They hypothesized that people looked for the satisfaction of their social needs at work. Furthermore, the power and influence of groups, individual members was such that organizations could develop system and styles to try and satisfy people’s social needs in their workgroup.

 The basis of the human relations movement was the integration of various disciplines i.e. industrial psychology and sociology, applied anthropology and social psychology and was concerned with the human problems which management encountered (Appleby, 1980). Gullerman (1966) defines human relations as a way in which people or employee who comprises the organization think about each other and deal with each other. Hence, with the development of human relations it became apparent therefore, that the workers could no longer be viewed solely as a factor of production, rather as human beings with wants, desire, attitudes and feelings, all of which were occurring during the same period also contributing to the growth of the human relations movement.