Tutor HuntResources Business Studies Resources

Understanding Management, Leadership And Decision Making. 

THEORY X and Y DOUGLAS McGregor

Date : 28/09/2019

Author Information

Chad

Uploaded by : Chad
Uploaded on : 28/09/2019
Subject : Business Studies



Understanding Management, leadership and decision making.

Douglas McGregor was an American psychologist who conducted research into the attitudes of managers to workers. In his book The Human Side of Enterprise (first published in 1960), he suggested that managers approaches to workers can be grouped into two types, known as Theory X and Theory Y.McGregor found that the majority of managers assumed their workers did not enjoy work, did not want to work and were motivated primarily by money, he termed this type of management approach Theory X and noted that it was likely to be self-fulfilling. In general, a Theory X manager assumes that workers:

are lazy, dislike work and are motivated by money

need to be supervised and controlled or they will underperform

have no wish or ability to help make decisions or take on responsibility

are not interested in the needs of the organisation and lack ambition.This is an authoritarian approach in which the manager tells workers what to do and supervises them doing it. Such an approach can be useful in a crisis situation or in organisations with many constantly changing or part-time workers, who need clear instructions and clear supervision.

The alternative, minority view that emerged from McGregor`s research was that managers assumed workers enjoyed work, wanted to contribute their ideas and wished to gain satisfaction from employment. He termed this a Theory Y approach. In general, a Theory Y manager assumes that:

workers have many different needs, enjoy work and seek satisfaction from it

workers will organise themselves and take responsibility if they are trusted to do so

poor performance is likely to be due to boring or monotonous work or poor management

workers wish to, and` should` contribute to decisions` This is a democratic approach in which the manager delegates responsibility and. authority and therefore involves staff much more in decision making`.

This resource was uploaded by: Chad

Other articles by this author