The Human Factor in Industry

Abstract

ONE of the difficulties which besets the investigator of the human factor in industry is the relative length of time which is frequently necessary before sound deductions can be drawn from his experimental investigations and observations. The application of scientific methods to investigation of industrial problems in which the human element is a principal factor is a departure in Great Britain which is almost if not exclusively confined to the post-War decade. In this field the formation in 1920 of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology is an outstanding feature, and this very readable account of its activities during its first decade contributed by H. J. Welch, chairman and honorary treasurer of the Institute and Dr. C. S. Myers, its principal, contains abundant material for justifying the initiation of this important experiment. The Institute has already become a living and growing organisation rich in experience and fruitful in services rendered, to which we can look with confidence for assistance in the solution of many serious problems in our industrial and social life.

Ten Years of Industrial Psychology: an Account of the First Decade of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology.

By Henry J. Welch Charles S. Myers. Pp. ix + 146 + 9 plates. (London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., 1932.) 6s. net.