Roethlisberger, F. J. (Fritz Jules), 1898-1974

Fritz Jules Roethlisberger earned a BA in engineering from Columbia University (1921) BS in engineering administration from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1922), and an MA in philosophy from Harvard University (1925). His studies toward a PhD in philosophy at Harvard were interrupted when he met Elton Mayo, Professor of Industrial Research at Harvard Business School. He became Mayo's assistant and a member of the HBS Department of Industrial Research from 1927 to 1946. He became Instructor of Industrial Research in 1927 and Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Human Relations in 1950. He died in 1974.

Fritz Jules Roethlisberger was born in New York City in 1898 and died in Massachusetts in 1974. He earned the BA in engineering from Columbia University in 1921, the BS in engineering administration from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1922, and the MA in philosophy from Harvard University in 1925. His studies toward a PhD in philosophy at Harvard were interrupted when he met Elton Mayo, Professor of Industrial Research at Harvard Business School. He became Mayo’s assistant and a member of the Harvard Business School Department of Industrial Research, remaining affiliated with the department from 1927 to 1946.

Roethlisberger held the following positions at Harvard Business School: Instructor of Industrial Research, 1927-1930; Assistant Professor of Industrial Research, 1930-1938; Associate Professor of Industrial Research, 1938-1946; and Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Human Relations, 1950-1974.

Roethlisberger was a key member of the team that studied employee relations at the Western Electric Company Hawthorne Plant in Hawthorne, Illinois. The Hawthorne Studies had started in 1924 under the supervision of MIT’s Dugald C. Jackson. Executives at Western Electric brought Elton Mayo and the Harvard Business School Industrial Research Group into the studies in 1927. Professor Roethlisberger worked on the studies actively from 1927 to 1936, first as Mayo’s assistant and later as his collaborator. The aim of the studies were to explore the relationships between such factors as physical working conditions (e.g., lighting levels), worker morale, and industrial output. Satisfying answers to questions about such relationships proved to be elusive in the early years of the project. Roethlisberger regularly expanded the boundaries of the investigation while searching for deeper insights into the behavior of employees. Approximately 20,000 employees were interviewed, and many others were observed at their jobs under laboratory conditions measuring productivity, individual physiology, and changes in physical working conditions. The studies became a milestone in the development of the Human Relations School of Industrial Management. Roethlisberger and fellow researcher William Dickson summarized the results of the studies in 1939 in the classic book, Management and the Worker .

Professor Roethlisberger served as a consultant to the Training Within Industry Program of the U.S. Government’s Office of Production Management from 1941 to 1942. He taught management to Radcliffe students in the Radcliffe Management Training Program from 1937 to 1947 and to union representatives in Harvard’s Trade Union Program from 1942 to 1946. He was a professor at Harvard Business School in the MBA Program, DBA Program, and Advanced Management Program (AMP). He was Chair of the Area of Organizational Behavior from 1961 to 1964.