[…], since the famous Hawthorne experiments, the relevant research had taken place mainly in organizations of industrial production. There, groups were easy to discover because of the formal organization of work and their spatial (machine-related) coherence. But this also spared the question whether the extent to which formal organization leads to the formation of informal groups does not vary from type of organization to type of organization, so that the findings on informal organization can only be generalized to a very limited extent. During many years of work in public administration, Niklas Luhmann had encountered Coalitions and Networks of various kinds, but not groups in a sense that could be delimited on the basis of their self-understanding.
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In 1927, two industrial sociologists began a study of the Western Electric Company plant in Hawthorne, Illinois (Roethlisberger/Dickson 1939/1961).
They observed a work group of fourteen men assembling telephone switchboards on an assembly line. Their results surprised everyone who thought formal organizations were run strictly by rules. Workers' behavior was determined just as much by unofficial norms they developed themselves.
So the company expected the workers in the assembly hall to work at a steady pace. But in reality, they worked harder in the morning and took it more leisurely in the afternoon. Accordingly, the work group frowned on anyone assembling more panels than the "normal" amount, although Western Electric tried to maximize output by paying on a piece-rate basis (the greater the number of pieces, the more pay). This was because they believed that if their total output was too high, their piece rate would be lowered. In addition, workers alleviated monotony by swapping jobs with each other – against company rules – and sometimes they set aside their own work – also against the rules – to help a colleague who had fallen behind. Even supervisory personnel did not act as Western Electric expected. Assembly line inspectors, it was assumed in higher management, would exercise their authority and report violations. But in reality, the workers massively discouraged the inspectors (one inspector they considered "one of their own") from pursuing such an official course.
The results of the Hawthorne study demonstrate the existence of both a formal and an informal structure in organizations. The formal structure consists of the official positions and duties and the regulations issued by management. The informal structure is formed by the unofficial norms that workers develop among themselves in their day-to-day interactions. They are designed to solve problems not governed by regulations, to eliminate unpleasant or unnecessary drudgery, and generally to protect workers' interests. In the case of Western Electric, the company's informal structure reduced production output without management noticing. Informal norms, however, can also have a positive effect on an organization's work output. In a bureaucratic structure, such as that of a public administration, individual employees can exchange certain information that is important for the completion of their tasks through what is known as "small official channels." This is just one example of what Luhmann (1964/1999: 304–314) characterizes as "usable illegality." The fact that the management of an organization perceives an announced "service by the book" of the employees as a threat proves how important for efficiency and effectiveness informal circumventions of the formal rules often are.
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JOAS, Hans and MAU, Steffen (eds.), 2020. Lehrbuch der Soziologie. 4., vollständig überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag. ISBN 978-3-593-44386-7, p. 339 (Informal norms of behavior)
LUHMANN, Niklas, 1964/1999. Funktionen und Folgen formaler Organisation: mit einem Epilog 1994. 5. Aufl. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Schriftenreihe der Hochschule Speyer, 20. ISBN 978-3-428-08341-1.