little ambition, wants security above all. (MacGregor, 1960, pp. 33–34)
In contrast to the assumptions about personal motivation inherent in Theory X, Theory Y articulates what many see as a more optimistic view of people and work:
1 The expenditure of physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play or rest.
2 External control and the threat of punishment are not the only means for bringing about effort toward organizational objectives. [People] will exercise self-direction and self-control in the service of objectives to which [they are] committed.
3 Commitment to objectives is a function of the rewards associated with their achievement.
4 The average human being learns, under proper conditions, not only to accept but to seek responsibility.
5 The capacity to exercise a relatively high degree of imagination, ingenuity, and creativity in the solution of organizational problems is widely, not narrowly, distributed in the population.
6 Under the conditions of modern industrial life, the intellectual potentialities of the average human being are only partially utilized. (MacGregor, 1960, pp. 47–48)
MacGregor wrote that adopting the beliefs of Theory Y was necessary to bring about innovative advances in products, technologies, and solutions to existing problems, and that managers would need to shed some of their existing assumptions about controlling people in favor of a more expansive and humanistic orientation to human behavior in organizations. His work went on to recommend several ways to put Theory Y assumptions into practice, including documenting job descriptions, restructuring the performance appraisal process, and more effectively managing salary increases and promotions.
At about the same time as MacGregor was arguing for a new set of assumptions about management, Likert (1961, 1967) studied four alternative ways of managing, the foundations of which correlate strongly with MacGregor’s work. He agreed with MacGregor’s assessment of the current state of management, writing that “most organizations today base their standard operating procedures and practices on classical organizational theories. These theories rely on key assumptions made by well-known practitioners of management and reflect the general principles they expound” (Likert, 1967, p. 1). Likert conducted a study in which he asked managers to think of the most productive and least productive divisions in their organizations and to place them on a continuum reflecting their management practices, which he labeled as Systems 1 through 4:
System 1: Exploitative authoritative. Managers use fear, threats, and intimidation to coerce employees to act. Information flow is downward and comprises orders being issued to subordinates. Upward communication is distorted due to fear of punishment. Decisions are made at the top of the organization. No teamwork is present.
System 2: Benevolent authoritative. Managers occasionally use rewards but also punishment. Information flow is mostly downward. Most decisions are made at highest levels, but some decision making within a narrow set of guidelines is made at lower levels. Some teamwork is present.
System 3: Consultative. Managers use rewards and occasional punishment. Information flow is both downward and upward. Many decisions are made at the top but are left open for decision making at lower levels. Teamwork is frequently present. Goals are set after discussion of problems and potential solutions.
System 4: Participative group. Managers involve groups in setting and measuring goals. Information flow is downward, upward, and horizontal. Decision making is done throughout the organization and is characterized by involvement and participation. Teamwork is substantial. Members take on significant ownership to set rigorous goals and objectives.
Likert (1961, 1967) found that managers reported that the most productive departments were run using a participative group management style, and that the least productive departments were led by managers who modeled an exploitative authoritative style. Despite this finding, Likert reported that most managers adopted the latter, not the former, style. To stress the point more forcefully, Likert (1967) followed up this perception data with quantitative data that showed a rise in productivity after a manager began to increasingly adopt the System 4 behaviors of participative management.
A third research program attempting to demonstrate a new set of management values and practices was that of Blake and Mouton. In The Managerial Grid, Blake and Mouton (1964) noticed that management practices could be plotted on a chart where the manager demonstrated a degree of “concern for production” and a “concern for people.” Each of these could be mapped on a grid, with a score from 1 (low) to 9 (high). A high concern for production but a low concern for people was referred to as a “9,1 style.” A manager adopting this style would demonstrate behaviors such as watching and monitoring employees, correcting mistakes, articulating policies and procedures, specifying deadlines, and devoting little time to motivation or employee development. Blake and Mouton advocate a 9,9 approach to management in which managers demonstrate both a high concern for production and a high concern for people, noting that one value of this style is that there is no inherent conflict between allowing the organization to reach its goals and demonstrating a concern for people at the same time. The 9,9 style, they argue, creates a healthier environment, because “people can work together better in the solutions of problems and reach production goals as a team or as individuals when there is trust and mutual support than when distrust, disrespect, and tensions surround their interactions” (Blake & Mouton, 1964, pp. 158–159). Blake and Mouton’s grid OD program, detailed in subsequent volumes (Blake & Mouton, 1968, 1978), defined a five-phase intervention program in which managers are trained on the grid concept and complete team-building activities, work on intergroup coordination, and build and implement the ideal organization.
As a fourth example of research in management practices, in a research program beginning in the late 1950s, Frederick Herzberg began to explore the attitudes that people had about their jobs in order to better understand what motivates people at work. A number of studies had sought to answer the question “What do workers want from their jobs?” throughout the previous decades, with contradictory results. In interpreting the studies, Herzberg suspected that job satisfaction was not the opposite of job dissatisfaction. In other words, he believed that different factors might be at play when workers were satisfied with their jobs than when they reported being dissatisfied with their jobs.
Through a series of in-depth interviews, Herzberg and a team of researchers set out to investigate. They asked people to reflect on important incidents that had occurred to them in their jobs—both positive and negative—and asked participants to explain what it was about that event that made them feel especially good or bad about the job.
The results showed that people are made dissatisfied by bad environment, the extrinsics of the job. But they are seldom made satisfied by good environment, what I called the hygienes. They are made satisfied by the intrinsics of what they do, what I call the motivators. (Herzberg, 1993, pp. xiii–xiv)
In the initial 1959 publication and through subsequent studies, Herzberg explained the key motivators that contributed to job enrichment, in what has been called his motivation-hygiene theory:
Achievement and quality performance
Recognition for achievement and feedback on performance
Work itself and the client relationship
Responsibility
Advancement, growth, and learning
At the same time, Herzberg, Mausner, and Snyderman (1959) point out that hygiene factors
