MCGREGOR’S THEORY X & THEORY Y
‘people respond primarily to their social environment, that motivation depends more on social needs than on economic needs, and that satisfied employees work harder than unsatisfied employees’
(Moorhead & Griffin, 2004, p. 11).
Employees who are highly-motivated tend to be more productive, dedicated and cooperative whilst non-motivated workers are less-productive, resistant to change and generally inflexible or lazy (Hiriyappa 2010). As mentioned by Lengnick et al. (2013), some of the major human resource theories and principles which organizations should follow are; motivational theories, decision making theories and others. States that there are two types of managers: Theory X and Theory Y. McGregor seeks to come up with ideas that help understand human conduct and human nature (Lorsch & Morse, 2013). Organizations can use Theory X and Theory Y to motivate their employees. The two theories cater for two groups of employees; those that need to be pushed in order to motivate them to complete their work as well as those that require to be assigned more responsibilities in order to be motivated (Kopelman, 2008). Theory X on the other hand argues that every employee needs to be pushed, threatened and supervised in order to work hard (Ovidiu-Iliuta, 2013). While Theory Y states that people have a need to work and thus they do not require to be pushed in order to work effectively (Ovidiu-Iliuta, 2013). In relation to this, Quinn and Strategy (2013) commented, the managers can improve these employee’s perform after analyzing the situation properly. It has been assumed that employees automatically get motivated if they like the work and they get unmotivated if they do not like the work at all (Band et al., 2016) Bobic and Davis (2003) found that most of the population has the ability to be innovative and creative.
At
this place workers or employees are very much who follows the leaders without
asking a single question. As discussed by Jonassen and Grabowski (2012),
‘theory X’ is considered as the ‘authoritarian management style. ‘Theory X’
considers that average person dislike work. Here the management take decision
and arte directive in nature without taking any feedback from the employees
(Becker and Gerhart, 2009). Workers and employees dislike their works, tries to
neglect their roles and responsibilities and being forced to work and no
delegation of authority is being passed. According to this theory, the
employees of a company named Hartley who perform poorly and dis-satisfied from
job falls under theory X (Alfes et al., 2013). Theory X assumptions believe that workers must
be controlled and threatened with punishment (Allio, 2009). Furthermore,
Cherian and Jacob (2013) opined that such employees need direct supervision
from their managers for achieving organizational success. Turan (2008) has
identified that it can be better to motivate workers or students by rewards,
points and high scores rather than the desire to do good job as they prefer to
be directed under motivational theory X.
This is the theory that assumes that working environment of the worker is very much friendly and delegation authority is passed to the lower management level while making . On the other hand, Nisbett et al. (2012) argued that ‘theory Y’ can be considered as participative management style. People often seek to apply self-direction and self-control without any external control of punishment or threat. Here the employees are very much self-motivated and take responsibility to fulfill the goals of the company (Bhatnagar and Sharma, 2013). Every employees are very much goal oriented and are loyal to the company because of the working condition of the employees are strong motivated. This finding supports the argument that Theory Y assumptions contribute positively toward more participative decision-making, ultimately benefitting the organization (Russ, 2011). As stated Chuang et al., (2013) by, theory Y employees are creative in nature and are having high level of intelligence.
In Video 01 illustrate the McGregor's Theory X & Y describe divergent managerial beliefs about what motivated employees and has had a profound influence on fields like Management, Organizational Communication, and Organizational Studies in General.
Video 1:Mcgorge theory x & theory y.
(Source – Alex, 2016)
As an example, the organization where I work, School leavers have to work as intern trainers for 12 months before becoming employees of the organization. During that 12 months training, the organization split employees into different areas and handover them to department heads. These department heads are supervised about how to work, how to take responsibilities, about attendance and about the attitude to work. By giving marks according to these factors they make a priority list of the trainees and handover it to the HR department. By using this list HRM decides that the trainees who got highest marks will become permanent employees (by using theory Y) while others have to wait until further notice (by using theory X). In the organization employees get their salary increments also according to the marks the get by their performances. Employees who are well motivated, working hard with taking responsibilities and have high attendance has highest marks and get high salary increments (by following Theory Y) and who get less marks get low salary increments (by following Theory X).
Reference
Alex, (2016), Douglas McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y, Organizational Communication Channel, [online]. Avalable from:<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXAzZRnJo2>.[Accessed on 20 April 2021].
Alfes, K., Shantz, AD., Truss, C., and Soane, EC., (2013), The link between perceived human resource management practices, engagement and employee behavior: a moderated mediation model, The international journal of human resource management, 24(2), pp. 330-51.
Allio, RJ., (2009), Leadership- The five big ideas, Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 37, No. 2, pp. 4-12.
Band, G., Shah, NV., Sriram, R & Appliances, E., (2016), Herzberg Two Factor Theory among the Management Faculty in Nagpur City, In International Conference on Management and Information Systems September, Vol. 23, p. 24.
Becker, B and Gerhart, B., (2009), The Impact of Human Resource Management on Organizational Performance: Progress and Prospect, Academy of Management Journal, 39, 4, pp. 779–801.
Bhatnagar, J and Sharma, A., (2013), ‘The Indian Perspective of Strategic HR Roles and Organizational Learning Capability,’ International Journal of Human Resource Management, 16, 9, pp. 1711– 39.
Bobic, MP & Davis, WE., (2003), A kind word for theory x: or why so many Newfangled Management Technics Quickly Fail, Journal of public admistration and theory, 13(3), pp. 239-64.
Cherian, J and Jacob, J., (2013), Impact of self-efficacy on motivation and performance of employees, International Journal of Business and Management, 8(14), p. 80.
Chuang, CH., Chen, SJ and Chuang, CW., (2013), Human resource management practices and organizational social capital: The role of industrial characteristics, Journal of Business Research, 66(5), pp. 678-87.
Hiriyappa, B., (2010), Management of motivation and its theories, York: Dr. B. Hiriyppa.
Jonassen, DH, and Grabowski, BL., (2012), Handbook of individual differences, learning, and instruction, Routledge.
Kopelman, R., (2008), Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Y: Toward a construct valid measure, Journal of Managerial Issues, 20(2), pp. 255-71.
Lengnick-Hall, ML., Lengnick-Hall, CA and Rigsbee, CM., (2013), Strategic human resource management and supply chain orientation, Human resource management review, 23(4), pp. 366-77.
Lorsch, J & Morse, J., (2013), Beyond Theory Y, Harvard Business Review.
McGregor, D., (1960), The human side of enterprise, McGraw Hill, New York.
Moorhead, G & Griffin, RW., (2004), Organizational behavior, Managing people and organizations, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, p. 11.
Nisbett, RE., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, DF and Turkheimer, E., (2012), Intelligence: new findings and theoretical developments, American psychologist, 67(2), p. 130.
Ovidiu-Iliuta, Dobre, (2013), Employee motivation and organizational performance, Review of Applied Socio-Economic Research, 5(1), pp. 53-60.
Quinn, JB and Strategy, ES., (2013), Strategic outsourcing: leveraging knowledge capabilities, Image, 34.
Russ, TL., (2011), Theory X/Y assumptions as predictor of manager’s propensity of participative decision making, Management Decision, Vol. 49, No. 5, pp. 823-83.
Turan, A., (2008), A Discussion on the
Application of Two Factor, X and Y Theories in
Classroom Management, American- European Journal of Scientific
Research, 3(1), pp. 111-6.
Agreed, The theory X and Y as a management style is well-rooted in the understanding of motivation in organizations. The theory is assigned to Douglas McGregor who viewed employees in two separate ways as being negative, which is called theory X or positive, which is called theory Y. McGregor, from his studies of managers and the employees, concluded from manager's interactions with employees that human nature is predicated on some assumptions that influence managers to act a certain way towards the personnel (Robbins et al., 2012).
ReplyDeleteAgreed with you Nivethini. In addition, All organizations want to stay ahead of their competition in whichever industry they may be in. If motivated employees are one way of ensuring this happens, then it will be worthwhile for the organization to go the extra mile in trying to accomplish this task. Motivated employees are bound to give better service to customers thus ensuring continued and repeat business (Luthans, 2011).
DeleteI agree with your views. There are mainly two types of employees in organizations and these two groups should be handled in different ways to reach common goals of the organization. McGregor (1960) postulates Theory X and Theory Y based on extreme assumptions about people and work. Theory X assumes that average employees dislike work, and that the only way to maintain or increase productivity is to simplify the production process, supervise the employees closely, and motivate them in short term through financial incentive schemes. Theory Y assumes that average employees desire self-direction and self-control, seek and accept responsibility, enjoy physical and mental effort, and have the potential to be self-motivating.
ReplyDeleteYes Gagana I agree with your comment. Further,Theory X management style requires close, firm supervision with clearly specified tasks and the threat of punishment or the promise of greater pay as motivating factors. A manager working under these assumptions will employ autocratic controls which can lead to mistrust and resentment from those they Manage. In other hand, Theory Y management style seeks to establish a working environment in which the personal needs and objectives of individuals can relate to, and harmonise with, the objectives of the organization(CMI,2015).
DeleteAgreed with you Eranga, also for the McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y some arguments presented in terms of effectiveness for managers as follows,
ReplyDeleteAccording to Schein (2011, p. 157), “there is nothing in this theory that says a manager should behave in any particular matter, only that how he or she behaves is driven by deep cognitive assumptions“ which mean an organization should learn whether being more Theory X or Y has an impact on the effectiveness of the manager.
Agreed Eranda. Based on Lawter, Kopelman, & Prottas (2015) theorizing, managers possessing Y-type managerial X/Y attitudes will enact more Y-type managerial behaviors. More specifically, managers with a positive view of human nature will act in accordance with these beliefs, and will show higher levels of Y-type behaviors, providing higher levels of encouragement, delegation, autonomy, responsibility, and more general rather than close supervision. Cosmology, managers with more Y-type attitudes would enact behaviors which reflect these fundamental assumptions.
DeleteAgreed with you. McGregor's ideas designed to start scientific enquiry into management practice are still of great relevance today, yet to say the investigation is over is far from the truth. Over the past 50 years his ideas have had great relevance in transforming the view of managing people, yet their application is not done and new avenues of research offer the potential for fruitful insights. His ideas underpin our modern view of management (Gannon and Boguszak, 2013)
ReplyDeleteYes Chamara, In contrast, there is a body of literature, such as Thomas and Bostrom (2008), Rodrigues (2007), and Sager (2008), that takes the position that Theory X still remains a necessary approach to management, contributes to positive influences in organizations, and may still dominate in certain industries or geographical areas.
DeleteWell explained Uddika. As per Sager (2008) even Y type employees are more participative and benefitted the organization it is important to have X type management approach for certain industries where employees need to be controlled with rewards and punishments.
ReplyDeleteAdding up to same, Job satisfaction, motivation, and reward systems are included in one area of organizational theory. The strongest influence in this area is motivation because it overlaps into both of the other two components. A review of the classical literature on motivation reveals four major theory areas: (1) Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs; (2) Herzberg's Motivation/Hygiene (two factor) Theory; (3) McGregor's X Y Theories; and (4) McClelland's Need for Assessment Theory.
DeleteMcGregor's Theory Y matches much of Maslow's self-actualization level of motivation. It is based on the assumption that self-direction, self-control, and maturity control motivation. Reward systems must correspond to intrinsic factors if employees are to be motivated. Satisfying extrinsic factors is an all too commonly attempted method for motivating workers, but theory shows that these efforts cannot lead to motivated workers
McGregor found there are two types of managers: Theory X and Theory Y, theory X managers assume that workers are lazy, theory Y managers assume that workers care about the organization(Arslan & Staub,2013).
ReplyDeleteYes Sandun,Theory X assume that an average person dislike work and attempt to avoid the work and naturally unmotivated. Also avoid responsibility and management has to actively intervene to be directed and get things done. This type of people has no ambitions and would rather follow than lead. As per the Theory X, people resist for the change and do not care about organizational goals (Bennis, 2003)
DeleteTheory Y explains a participative style of management and which work in a de-centralized environment. It expounds that employee’s work with greater responsibilities, creative and self motivated. They do not need much direction and they are motivated to achieve their goals as well as organizational goals (Forrester,2000),
Very True. When considering X theory, Organizations are often a top priority, and managers and supervisors must manage employees at every step. There is little decentralization, but control remains firmly concentrated. (Mgbere, 2009).
ReplyDeleteAgree Harsha and adding more to the content,the requirement of job satisfaction cannot be overstated (Grego ,1960).The mentioned theory said what is the managers perception on motivation, where on X theory explained The most employees dislike work and it will avoid as much as possible, In order to get work done from the employees. Managers feel most employees prefer to be directed, and avoid responsibilities and have low ambition. Where acting on explained theory will benefit the employees and organization
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