Industrial sociology: A revised view of its antecedents

Industrial sociology traditionally places its origins in the studies conducted at the Hawthorne Plant of Western Electric and in the theoretical work of Vilfredo Pareto which was used to explain the results of those experiments. The results of the Hawthorne experiments were sociological and stimulated academic interest. Antecedents other than the Hawthorne experiments and an intellectual foundation other than Pareto, however, are now evident.