Horkheimer argued factory research serves workers regardless of employer motives

Evidence

Even if one may have reservations about the theoretical value of research of this sort, information about the company, down to the smallest group of workers, will have to be encouraged in this country to the same extent that it has advanced in other countries, particularly the United States. What encourages a company owner to provide the opportunity for such research is of no importance: he may see human factors as creating the conditions for, or restricting, a desired increase in productivity and profitability, or else he may see them as ends in themselves; he may see the problem as one of leadership', or else as one of partnership’. Workers themselves have just as much interest in the development of scientific methods as management does. In spite of their understandable mistrust, they need to have clear information about their own working life and how to improve the factors affecting it. The factory matters to them. Where things are more or less right, a bond with the company forms. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2087 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In the summer of 1950, the Frankfurter Neue Zeitung published an article, written with Horkheimer’s collaboration, on Sociology in the Struggle Against Prejudice: HICOG supports Frankfurt University Institute of Social Research'. The article claimed that the tasks of social research were not restricted to the field of education and information, like the Institute's studies on prejudice, but rather made it possible, for example, to decide where and how a factory should be correctly set up for its workers to achieve the highest productivity’. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1855 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Horkheimer argued workplace opinion research benefits workers regardless of management’s motives. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2087; Horkheimer publicly advertised social research as a tool for industrial productivity — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1855

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer argued workplace opinion research benefits workers regardless of management’s motives. #corroborates (1.00) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2087
• Horkheimer publicly advertised social research as a tool for industrial productivity #qualifies (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1855