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Employee Attitude Testing at Sears, Roebuck and Company, 1938–1960

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Sanford M. Jacoby
Sanford M. Jacoby
Affiliation:
Sanford M. Jacoby is associate professor of industrial relations at the UCLA Graduate School of Management.
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Abstract

Despite recent interest in the history of the American worker, relatively little attention has been paid to the evolution of corporate employment and labor relations practices, particularly in the nonunion sector. In this article, Professor Jacoby examines the employee attitude testing program at Sears, Roebuck and Company and places it in a larger historical context as well as in the narrower framework of developments in personnel relations. During the 1940s and 1950s the Sears program was one of the most innovative and sophisticated applications of behavioral science to workplace problems, and it served as a model for many other companies. Although the testing program was developed as part of an ongoing effort to forestall unionization, it also had a research component that made important contributions to a number of academic disciplines, particularly organizational theory and industrial sociology.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 60 , Issue 4 , Winter 1986 , pp. 602 - 632
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1986

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References

1 In 1950, only 5 percent of Sears retail and mail-order employees were union members. The best available, although imperfect, comparison figure is union membership among department store employees nationwide, which was about 10 percent in 1955. James C. Worthy to Clarence B. Caldwell, “Report,” 2 Feb. 1951, Worthy Papers, Evanston, Ill.; Estey, Marten S., “Patterns of Union Membership in the Retail Trades,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 8 (July 1955): 562CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Despite the recent flowering of historical research on American workers, relatively little attention has been paid to the development of management's employment and labor relations practices. We know a fair amount about the practices in effect before the 1930s, but we know little about subsequent developments, particularly in the nonunion sector, which has always employed a majority of the American labor force. This study attempts to fill some of those gaps. Examples of recent works on this topic are Gospel, Howard F. and Littler, Craig R., Managerial Strategies and Industrial Relations: An Historical and Comparative Study (London, 1983)Google Scholar; Harris, Howell John, The Right to Manage: Industrial Relations Policies of American Business in the 1940s (Madison, Wis., 1982)Google Scholar; and Jacoby, Sanford M., Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions, and the Transformation of Work in American Industry, 1900–1945 (New York, 1985)Google Scholar. Also see Baritz, Loren, Servants of Power: The Use of Social Science in Industrial Relations (Middletown, Conn., 1960)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 According to the Conference Board, between 1954 and 1963 the proportion of firms conducting surveys of their nonexempt employees dropped from 21 to 18 percent, while there was a slight increase for hourly employees, from 15 to 17 percent; at large firms (over 5,000 employees) the proportion held steady at 38 percent. A recent New York Stock Exchange study found that the technique's popularity picked up in the early 1970s, and that by 1982 attitude surveys were being used by 67 percent of large firms. In 1980 Foulkes reported thai four out of five huge nonunion firms conducted these surveys on a regular basis. National Industrial Conference Board, Studies in Personnel Policy, no. 145 (1954), 55, 109, and no. 194 (1964), 5,5–56; New York Stock Exchange, People and Productivity: A Report to Corporate America (New York, 1982), 44Google Scholar; Foulkes, Fred K., Personnel Policies in Large Nonunion Companies (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1980), 261Google Scholar.

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18 Clarence B. Caldwell, “Three Year Program: Training and Related Activities,” 19 Dec. 1944, 31, Worthy Papers. At that time, Sears had between 80,000 and 100,000 employees.

19 Houser Associates, “What This Is All About,” n.d.. Sears file, LMDC; James C. Worthy, “A Study of Employee Attitudes and Morale,” 2 Feb. 1942, 8–14, Worthy Papers; David G. Moore, telephone interview with author, 2 Oct. 1985. Sears liked to boast of its high morale scores—the company average stood at 70—but most of the other companies surveyed by Houser Associates also scored well above the morale scale's midpoint. Hull, “Measuring Attitudes,” 167; Hull, Richard L. and Kolstad, Arthur, “Morale on the Job,” in Civilian Morale, ed. Watson, Goodwin (Boston, 1912), 355Google Scholar.

20 Virginia Jones, “History of the Employee Morale Survey Program, “ Sears National Personnel Department 707, 27 July 1961, 5–9; Clarence B. Caldwell, “The Retail Personnel Program: 1940,” 26–28, Sears Archives, Chicago.

21 Clarence B. Caldwell, “The Sears Survey Program, “ 15 Jan. 1952, Sears Archives.

22 Worthy, “Study of Employee Attitudes,” 56–61; Worthy, , “Factors Influencing Employee Morale,” Harvard Business Review 28 (Jan. 1950); 65Google Scholar. In his published writings, Worthy failed to mention that the two things employees reported as wont about their jobs were pay and promotion opportunities. Viewed as a whole, the survey results confirmed Frederick Herzberg's two-factor theory of job satisfaction, in which intrinsic factors lead to high morale, but extrinsic factors, if inadequate, cause dissatisfaction. Herzberg's ideas, published in the late 1950s, implicitly criticized the Mayoites for having substituted one dogma, human relations, for another, Taylor's homo economical. See Herzberg, Frederick, et al. , The Motivation to Work (New York. 1959), 113–37Google Scholar.

23 James C. Worthy, “Social Aspects of Industrial Relations, “4 Aug. 1943, 33–51, unpub. MS, Worthy Papers; Hull and Kolstad, “Morale, 363; David G. Moore, “How Do Our Employees Feel about Us?” in Proceedings of the Sears, Roebuck Personnel Conference, Chicago, 4–8 November 1946, 104, Sears Archives.

24 Burleigh Gardner, interview with author, 23 March 1985, Evanston, Ill.; Davis, Allison, Gardner, Burleigh, and Gardner, Mary, Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class (Chicago, 1941)Google Scholar; Warner, W. Lloyd and Davis, Allison, “A Comparative Study of American Caste,” in Race Relations and the Race Problem, ed. Thompson, Edgar (Durham, N.C., 1939), 234Google Scholar. Like the Hawthorne studies, Yankee City was funded by the Harvard Business School, and the two studies cross-fertilized each other. Warner designed the bank wiring phase of the Hawthorne study, developing ideas there that became the foundation for Yankee City, while Mayo and Koethlisberger gave advice on nondirective interviewing to Warner and his student assistants. In fact, the idea for Yankee City came from Elton Mayo, who encouraged his colleague Warner to investigate the relationship between factory and commuinty as a complement to Hawthorne's focus on the factory's internal organization. Although the area surrouding the Hawthorne plant seemed like an obvious research site. Warner and Mayo thought that its community of recent immigrants was too socially “disorganized” and “dysfunctional” to permit a satisfactory study. This pointed Warner toward New England and toward the south. Warner, Willam Lyoyd and Lunt, Paul, The Social Life of a Modern Community (New Haven, Conn., 1941), 3–5, 38–39, 49–51Google Scholar.

25 Gardner, Burleigh B., Human Relations in Industry (Chicago, 1945), 4–23, 96–116, 168–200Google Scholar; Gardner, and Whyte, William F., “The Position and Problems of the Foreman,” Applied Anthropology 4 (Spring 1945): 26Google Scholar; Gardner, , “The Factory as a Social System,” in Industry and Society, ed. Whyte, William F. (New York, 1946), 18–19Google Scholar.

26 James C. Worthy, interview with author, 18 June 1985, Evanston, Ill.; Worthy, “Methods and Techniques for Building a Cooperative Organization,” in University of Chicago, Industrial Relations Center, Executive Seminar Series on Industrial Relations, 1946–1947, session 11, April 1947, 21, Sears Archives.

27 “Sears Employe Attitude Program, 1938 through 1951,” Scars Personnel Department, Personnel Report no. 22, 1 Feb. 1952, 6–7, Worthy Papers; Burleigh Gardner, interview with author, 23 March 1985.

28 Gardner, Burleigh B., Case Studies for Interviewing Methods and Techniques: Business 245 (Chicago, 1944), 6–7Google Scholar; Moore, “How Employees Feel,” 106.

29 Gardner, Case Studies, 3–4; Worthy, “Methods and Techniques,” 10–11.

30 Proceedings of the Sears, Roebuck Personnel Conference, 116; Burleigh B. Gardner, “A Program of Research in Human Relations in Industry, American Management Association (AMA), Personnel Series no. 80 (1945), 35.

31 Gardner, Burleigh B. and Whyte, William F., “Methods for the Study of Human Relations in Industry,” American Sociological Review 11 (Oct. 1946): 506–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gardner, “A Program,”33–39; Worthy, interview with author, 18 June 1985; Caldwell, “Three Year Program,” 31–32; “Seminar on Problems of Organization and the Techniques of Business Leadership,” 25 Nov. and 2 Dec. 1946, Worthy Papers. Gardner resigned his university position in 1946 and started his own consulting group, Social Research Incorporated (SRI). Until the early 1950s, SRI derived most of its income from Sears, although the firm also conducted one-shot surveys for other firms, often those worried about unionization. SRI later branched out into market research and the psychological testing of managers. Gardner maintained his ties to the university and regularly hired graduate students to work for him, including Kahn, Earl L. and Gardner, William E. Henry, “Doing Business with Management,” in Applied Anthropology in America, ed. Eddy, E. M. and Partridge, W. L. (New York, 1978), 245–60.Google Scholar

32 Sears National Personnel Department, “Organization Survey: Chicago Mail Order,” Nov. 1948, Introduction, 1, Worthy Papers.

33 Sears National Personnel Department, “Organization Survey Manual,” Jan. 1950, 12–35, Worthy Papers; James C. Worthy, “Discovering and Evaluating Employee Attitudes,” AMA Personnel Series, no. 113 (1947), 14; Worthy, “Methods and Techniques,” 23; Burleigh B. Gardner and David G. Moore, quoted in Jones, “History,” 17. In addition to multiple choice questions, the survey asked for written comments. See Sears National Personnel Department, “What Do Employees Like about Sears?” 10 June 1948, Worthy Papers.

34 Letter to author from David C. Moore, 25 April 1985; James C. Worthy, “The Study of Employee Attitudes and Morale,” address to the Fifth Annual Seminar Sponsored by the Office Management Association of Chicago and Northwestern University, 4 Feb. 1947, 16, Sears Archives.

35 “Interviewing,“ in Sears Planning Division, Manual for Conducting Store Surveys, c. 1949, Worthy Papers.

36 Worthy, “Discovering and Evaluating,” 14–17; Worthy, “Methods and Techniques,“ 12; Caldwell, “Sears Survey Program,“ 12; Burleigh Gardner, interview with author, 23 March 1985.

37 Jones, “History,” 32; James C. Worthy, interview with author, 18 June 1985; Frank J. Smith, interview with author, 20 March 1985, Chicago. In at least one case, however, Clarence Caldwell ordered his staff to help Nathan Shefferman survey a retail store (in Boston) that was in the midst of an organizing drive. U.S. Senate, Hearings on Improper Activities, 6168–69.

38 Burleigh Gardner, interview with author, 23 March 1985. Recent research done by Sears bears out these claims: a correlation of .57 was found between a unit's survey scores on certain items and subsequent unionization attempts. The survey's ability to predict union activity was not surprising, given Sears's identification of high-morale employees as those who made “positive and willing adjustments to the demands of the organization and had “ideological sentiments” akin to management's. Hamner, W. Clay and Smith, Frank J., “Work Attitudes as Predictors of Unionization Activity,” journal of Applied Psychology 63 (Aug. 1978): 415–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; David G. Moore and Burleigh B. Gardner, “Factors Related to Morale,” 1946, reprinted in Jones, “History,” Appendix J.

39 David C. Moore, “Analysis of Overall Morale Picture,” 1951, reprinted in Jones, “History,” Appendix Q; “Chicago Mail Order, Recommendations, 1–5.

40 Jones, “History,” 29–30; Worthy, “Methods and Techniques,“ 15; Moore, letter to author, 25 April 1985.

41 Moore, David G., “Managerial Strategies and Organization Dynamics in Sears Retailing” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1954), 253–59Google Scholar; Moore, “Organization Analysis: Department 707, “ n.d., 8 – 18, Worthy Papers.

42 Sears National Personnel Department and Social Research Incorporated, “Big Ticket Manual,“ c. 1949; Sears National Personnel Department, “Report on Service Stations,” 12 Oct. 1951; “Employee Morale in Pool Stocks and Detached Warehouses, “ n.d.; Earl L. kalm, “Report on Control Buyer Problems,” 1 May 1947, all in Worthy Papers. See also Kahn, , “A Study of Intraoeeupational Mobility” (M.A. thesis, University of Chicago, 1947)Google Scholar.

43 “Sears Program, 1938 through 1951,” 37, 40, 51.

44 David G. Moore, “Problem of Low Status Employees,” 1950, 4, Worthy Papers; Moore and Gardner, “Factors Related,” 4–5, 7; Worthy, “Factors Contributing to High Morale among Sears Employees,” ll 18 Feb. 1949, 16–17, Sears Archiv: Whyte, William Foote, “Human Relations–A Progress Report,” in Complex Organization: Sociological Reader, ed. Etzioni, A. (New York, 1961), 105Google Scholar. Gardner and Moore, cited a Sears study of two warehouses, one with high and the other with low morale levels. Despite the fact that the warehouse with low morale had poor working conditions and low wage levels, they concluded that these were not nearly so important as “the fact that no positive goals were provided employee.” Gardner, and Moore, , Human Relation in Industry (rev. ed., Chicago, 1951), 354–56Google Scholar.

45 Worthy, “Factors Influencing,” 65. Also see Worthy, “Attitude Surveys as a Tool of Management,” AMA General Management Series no. 145 (1950), 6; Worthy, “Psychological Studies of Labour-Management Relations,” 7 Sept. 1949, 10, Sears Archives.

46 Worthy, “Tool of Management,” 7. Also see Gardner and Moore, Human Relation, 350–51.

47 “Small scale industry where work is less divided displays a relative harmony between worker and employer. It is only in large scale industry that these relations are in a sickly state.” Durkheim, Emile, The Division of Labor in Modern Society (New York 1933), 356.Google Scholar

48 Worthy, “Factors Contributing,” 2; Worty, , “Organizational Structure and Employee Morale,” American Sociological Review 15 (April 1950): 169–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Organization Survey: Chicago Mail Order,” Basic Factors, 3.

49 William Lloyd Warner, in “Seminar on Problems of Organization,” discussion section. Also see Gardner's comments in the same discussion, 20–23; Worthy, “Organizational Structure,” 173–78; Worthy, “The X-Y Study,” unpub. MS, 1953, 85–89, 107–19, Worthy Papers.

50 Worthy, “X-Y Study,” 120–23.

51 Burleigh B. Gardner in “Seminar on Problems of Organization,” 20; Moore, “Managerial Strategies,” 74. In his study of Sears, Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., criticized Wood's “distrust of bureaucratic procedures” for holding back the company's development of a multidivisional structure. But if Gardner and Warner were right, Wood's aversion to structure and formal controls – while dysfunctional in some respects–nevertheless contributed to the high levels of morale found in the company's stores. This suggests that there may not exist an optimal organizational structure that simultaneously maximizes economic efficiency and employee morale (or what has been called “x-efficiency"). Chandler, Strategy and Structure, 279.

52 Frank J. Smith, interview with author, 20 March 1985; V. Jon Bentz, telephone interview with author, 23 Oct. 1985.

53 Worthy, “Discovering and Evaluating,” 13. See Baehr, Melany E., “A Simplified Procedure for the Measurement of Employee Attitudes,” Journal of Applied Psychology 37 (June 1953): 163–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Burns, Robert K., “Employee Morale–Its Meaning and Measurement,” in Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Industrial Relations Research Association, Roston, December 1951 (Madison, Wis., 1952), 52–68Google Scholar; Moore, “Managerial Strategies,” 132; “Sears National Personnel Department: Its Organization and Function,” 1958, 30–34, Sears file, LMDC.

54 Worthy, “An Employee Relations Program for Sears, Roebuck and Co., “ 1951, 10, Worthy Papers. In a 1954 survey of personnel managers, the SRA inventory was reported to be the most widely used standardized survey, followed hy those available from Opinion Research Corporation, Kolstad Associates, Ohio State University, and several others. Bureau of National Affairs, Personnel Policies Forum, no. 23 (Feb. 1954), 14.

55 V. Jon Bentz, “A Critical Analysis of the Sears Morale Survey Program,“ reprinted in Jones, “History,” Appendix R; Bentz, interview with author, 23 Oct. 1985.

56 William Foote Whyte, interview with author, 22 Oct. 1985; “Teamsters Union to Start Drive on Sears,” Wall Street Journal, 29 Dec. 1958, 5; Smith, interview with author, 20 March 1985; Jones, “History,” 51–64, 75–79; “The Utilization of the Behavioral Sciences in Sears, Roebuck and Company,” 1961, 16–21, Sears file, LMDC. Unions did not understand how Sears used the survey program. In the late 1950s, organizers for the Retail Clerks warned Sears employees not to participate in attitude surveys because individual employees supposedly could be identified from their handwritten comments on the questionnaire. See “Memo from Paul W. Hansen to all Local Union Secretaries, Northwest Division,” 13 Oct. 1958, Organizing Department Directors' Bulletins, reel 1, Retail Clerks Papers.

57 Sears provides an interesting exception to the claim that technical industries, such as electrical and chemical manufacturing, were the handmaidens of a science-based personnel strategy. See Noble, David F., America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism (New York, 1977).Google Scholar

58 Landsberger, Henry A., Hawthorne Revisited: “Management and the Worker,” Its Critics, and Developments in Human Relations in Industry (Ithaca, N.Y., 1958)Google Scholar. Although Human relations proponents rarely responded to their critics, Worthy, did in “Management's Approach to ‘Human Relations,’” in Research in Industrial Human Relations, ed. Arensberg, Conrad, et al. (New York, 1957), 14–24.Google Scholar

59 Slichter, Sumner H., “The Current Labor Policies of American Industries,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 43 (May 1929): 434–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar