E. Wight Bakke

Edward Wight Bakke (November 13, 1903 – November 23, 1971) was an American sociology and economics professor at Yale University who achieved prominence in the field of industrial relations. He was a Sterling Professor, He went to Onawa High School where he was president of his senior class among other activities. He graduated with a B.A. degree in philosophy in 1926. He then shifted fields and became an assistant professor of economics in 1934. The effects highlighted also included the loss of self-esteem to men as their wives and daughters found work but they, as traditional heads of households, did not.

He then conducted an eight-year study of the effects of unemployment in local New Haven, Connecticut, and published two works – The Unemployed Worker and Citizens Without Work – in 1940 from that study. The 2004 Encyclopedia of the Great Depression states that Bakke's New Haven study stands "as a powerful statement of the importance of stable, adequately-paying work opportunities for individual well-being, as well as broader social well-being" and that even given his other contributions to sociology, economics, and industrial relations, "Bakke's study of Depression-era unemployment remains his most influential and far-reaching work." Alice O'Connor, a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, wrote in 2010 that, "Seventy years later, the study's analysis still resonates".

Later career During World War II, Bakke was co-chair of the National War Labor Board's appeals committee. In terms of politics, Bakke characterized himself as an independent. Staging clinical working sessions between labor and management, he was able to bring representatives of both onto campus Bakke's earlier work as a sociologist before being an economist constituted a varied background that led him to construct an interdisciplinary approach that was beneficial for the field of industrial relations.

Much of Bakke's later career was taken up with the study of organizational theory, looking to find a theoretical approach to analysis that would explain not only behavior in businesses but also the same in other entities such as churches or schools. In books such as Bonds of Organization: An Appraisal of Corporate Human Relations (1950) he defined all activities of an organization as to falling into one of five categories: perpetuation, workflow, control, identification, and homeostasis.

In 1958 Bakke published a report for the center entitled "The Human Resources Function". This is credited by Georgia State University professor and industrial relations scholar Bruce E. Kaufman as being the first use of the term "human resources" in its modern form, although Bakke used in a more pervasive sense to refer to all working relationships within an organization and not just those handled by a personnel department.

In addition to his role at Yale, in 1929 Bakke was one of the co-founders of the nearby Connecticut College of Commerce, subsequently holding a life position on its board of trustees and serving as chair of the board. He remained chair of the board in later years, by which time it was known as Quinnipiac College.

His last book, about student activism in the 1960s, was written in collaboration with his wife Mary, who was an accomplished academic herself and had taught and served as a dean at Quinnipiac College. Mary Bakke lived until 1987.

Published works The Unemployed Man: A Social Study (E. P. Dutton & Co., 1934) After the Shut Down (Yale Institute of Human Relations, 1934) [co-author with Ewan Clague and Walter J. Couper] Insurance or Dole? The Adjustment of Unemployment Insurance to Economic and Social Facts in Great Britain (Yale University Press, 1935) The Unemployed Worker: A Study of the Task of Making a Living Without a Job (Yale University Press, 1940) Citizens Without Work (Yale University Press, 1940) Mutual Survival: The Goal of Unions and Management (Harper and Bros., 1946) Unions, Management, and the Public (Harcourt, Brace, 1948) [co-editor with Clark Kerr] Workers Wanted (Yale Labor and Management Center, 1949) [co-author with E. William Noland] Bonds of Organization: An Appraisal of Corporate Human Relations (Harper, 1950) Labor Mobility and Economic Opportunity (John Wiley & Sons, 1954) [co-author with five others] A Positive Labor Market Policy: Policy Premises for the Development, Operation, and Integration of the Employment and Manpower Services (Charles E. Merrill Books, 1963) Revolutionary Democracy: Challenge and Testing in Japan (Archon Books, 1968) Campus Challenge: Student Activism in Perspective (Archon Books, 1971) [co-author with Mary S. Bakke]