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

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.