Review of Management and morale

Abstract

Reviews the books, Management and morale by F. J. Roethlisberger (1941) and The fundamentals of industrial psychology by Albert Walton (1941). It is evident from the title of the first book, by Roethlisberger, that it deals with organizations--not alone business organizations as a whole but patterns of men within them, even going further and becoming concerned with organization within the individual. Indeed, the latter point turns out to be the principal one, when it is argued that the attitudes, standards of judgment, frames of reference of individual workers are things to be focused upon and understood, if the manager is to maintain high morale. The second book, by Walton, is unlike the first in many respects: it is more comparable to the conventional book on psychology in industry; it is less well documented; and it is better as a small reference book for people who have listened to lectures. It is designed to furnish points of departure for discussion of many phases of industrial psychology. However, it is doubtful if reading this would make any change in the way businesses are run. Another way in which these books differ is that the whole of the first is devoted to the application of a single technique in industry. It seems better to the reviewer to offer the business man one good thing dressed up in several guises than to bring out the whole stock from which he can select the one he thinks he needs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)