Western Electric Company study

VIR Vasterbotten Intervention Program—Sweden part of WHO MONICA project (monitoring trends and determinants in vascular disease) WECS, Western Electric Company Study. 

LeGrady D, Dyer AR, Shekelle RB, Stamler J, Liu K, Paul O, Lepper M, Shryock AM. Coffee consumption and mortality in the Chicago Western Electric Company Study. Am J Epidemiol 1987 126(5) 803-12. 

Next was a long-term study of workers at the Western Electric Company in Chicago, hinting that fish lovers enjoyed protection against heart disease. The risk of a fatal heart attack was slashed by a third just from this one lifestyle factor. A similar investigation that examined the habits of tens of thousands of male physicians revealed that those who ate fish at least once a week had half the risk of sudden cardiac death. 

Support of this project was initiated by a starter grant from the Department of Energy (Fowkes and Carnali, 1983). The SAXS studies were made with a Kratky camera at AT T Western Electric Company s Engineering Research Center in Princeton, NJ our thanks to Dr. John Emerson, who made these arrangements and provided technical advice to the project. The spinning drop measurements were made with the support of Atlas Powder Company. Our thanks also to IBM for a distinguished graduate fellowship for J. 0. Carnali. 

The Hawthorne Effect gets its name from a series of experimental field studies conducted between 1924 and 1932 at the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company. The main product that the Hawthorne Works produced was the telephone. At this point in time, the telephone was a heavy piece of complicated wiring, relays, coils, and materials that were assembled and packaged in a labor-intensive manner. 

In November 1924, the Western Electric Company, in connection with the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, planned to study the relation of quality and quantity of illumination to efficiency in industry. In other words, the researchers were planning on changing the lighting in the work area to provide more or less light in different work areas, and then study any differences in production. This particular study lasted until April 1927, a period of two and one-half years. 

I am not trying to pick on unions, nor am I touting them. I certainly do not believe that because your company consists of a mostly unionized workforce that good management principles should fall by the wayside. Remember that the Western Electric Plant where the Hawthorne Study was conducted so many years ago was a union shop. 

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