You are on page 1of 8

SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY GRADUATE PROGRAM SCHOOL OF NURSING THEORIES: DOUGLAS MCGREGOR: THEORY X AND THEORY Y

SUMMER 2013

Douglas Murray McGregor (1906 1 October 1964) was a Management professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and president of Antioch College from 1948 to 1954. He also taught at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. His 1960 book The Human Side of Enterprise had a profound influence on education practices. McGregor was born in Detroit. He earned a B.E. (Mechanical) from Rangoon Institute of Technology, an A.B. from Wayne State University in 1932, then earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University in 1944 and 1955 respectively. McGregor died, aged 58, in Massachusetts. In 1994, the School of Adult and Experiential Learning at Antioch College was renamed the "McGregor School" in his honour. It was later renamed "Antioch University McGregor" and then "Antioch University Midwest." THE THEORY: THEORY X: This theory, which has been proven counter effective in most modern practice, management assumes employees are inherently lazy and will avoid work if they can and that they inherently dislike work. As a result of this, management believes that workers need to be closely supervised and comprehensive systems of controls developed. A hierarchical structure is needed with narrow span of control at each and every level. According to this theory, employees will show little ambition without an enticing incentive program and will avoid responsibility whenever they can. According to Michael J. Papa, if the organizational goals are to be met, theory X managers rely heavily on threat and coercion to gain their employees' compliance. Beliefs of this theory lead to mistrust, highly restrictive supervision, and a punitive atmosphere.The Theory X manager tends to believe that everything must end in blaming someone. He or she thinks all prospective employees are only out for themselves. Usually these managers feel the sole purpose of the employee's interest in the job is money. They will blame the person first in most situations, without questioning whether it may be the system, policy, or lack of training that deserves the blame. A Theory X manager believes that his or her employees do not really want to work, that they would rather avoid responsibility and that it is the manager's job to structure the work and energize the employee. One major flaw of this management style is it is much more likely to cause diseconomies of scale in large business. X-Type organizations tend to be top heavy, with managers and supervisors required at every step to control workers. There is little delegation of authority and control remains firmly centralized. McGregor recognized that X-Type workers are in fact THEORIES APRIL 17, 2013 ADMIN 1

SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY GRADUATE PROGRAM SCHOOL OF NURSING

SUMMER 2013

usually the minority, and yet in mass organizations, such as large scale production environment, X Theory management may be required and can be unavoidable.

THEORY Y: In this theory, management assumes employees may be ambitious and selfmotivated and exercise self-control. It is believed that employees enjoy their mental and physical work duties. According to them work is as natural as play. They possess the ability for creative problem solving, but their talents are underused in most organizations. Given the proper conditions, theory Y managers believe that employees will learn to seek out and accept responsibility and to exercise selfcontrol and self-direction in accomplishing objectives to which they are committed. A Theory Y manager believes that, given the right conditions, most people will want to do well at work. They believe that the satisfaction of doing a good job is a strong motivation. Many people interpret Theory Y as a positive set of beliefs about workers. A close reading of The Human Side of Enterprise reveals that McGregor simply argues for managers to be open to a more positive view of workers and the possibilities that this creates. He thinks that Theory Y managers are more likely than Theory X managers to develop the climate of trust with employees that is required for human resource development. It's human resource development that is a crucial aspect of any organization. This would include managers communicating openly with subordinates, minimizing the difference between superior-subordinate relationships, creating a comfortable environment in which subordinates can develop and use their abilities. This climate would be sharing of decision making so that subordinates have say in decisions that influence them. This more participative management style tends to be more widely applicable. In Y-Type organizations, people at lower levels of the organization are involved in decision making and have more responsibility. Comparing Theory X and Theory Y: Motivation

Theory X assumes that people dislike work; they want to avoid it and do not want to take responsibility. Theory Y assumes that people are self-motivated, and thrive on responsibility. Management Style and Control

In a Theory X organization, management is authoritarian, and centralized control is retained, whilst in Theory Y, the management style is participative: Management involves employees in decision making, but retains power to implement decisions. THEORIES APRIL 17, 2013 ADMIN 1

SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY GRADUATE PROGRAM SCHOOL OF NURSING Work Organization

SUMMER 2013

Theory X employees tend to have specialized and often repetitive work. In Theory Y, the work tends to be organized around wider areas of skill or knowledge; Employees are also encouraged to develop expertise and make suggestions and improvements

Rewards and Appraisals

Theory X organizations work on a carrot and stick basis, and performance appraisal is part of the overall mechanisms of control and remuneration. In Theory Y organizations, appraisal is also regular and important, but is usually a separate mechanism from organizational controls. Theory Y organizations also give employees frequent opportunities for promotion. Application Although Theory X management style is widely accepted as inferior to others, it has its place in large scale production operation and unskilled production-line work. Many of the principles of Theory Y are widely adopted by types of organization that value and encourage participation. Theory Y-style management is suited to knowledge work and professional services. Professional service organizations naturally evolve Theory Y-type practices by the nature of their work; Even highly structure knowledge work, such as call center operations, can benefits from Theory Y principles to encourage knowledge sharing and continuous improvement. RENSIS LIKERT: LIKERTS MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Rensis Likert was an American educator and organizational psychologist best known for his research on management styles. He is also famous for developing the Likert Scale, a psychometric scale commonly involved in research using questionnaires and the linking pin model. Likert was known for his support of interdisciplinary collaborations and emphasis on using social science research to effect positive change. Rensis Likert was born to George Herbert Likert and Cornelia Adrianne (Cora) (ne Zonne) Likert in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where his father was an engineer with the Union Pacific Railroad. After training to be an engineer, the younger Likert was THEORIES APRIL 17, 2013 ADMIN 1

SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY GRADUATE PROGRAM SCHOOL OF NURSING

SUMMER 2013

working as an intern with Union Pacific Railroad during the watershed 1922 strike. The lack of communication between the two parties made a profound impression on him and caused him to study organizations and their behavior for the rest of his life. Likert received his B.A. in economics from the University of Michigan in 1926. The social sciences of the 1920s were highly experimental and incorporated many aspects of modern psychology. In 1932 Likert received a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University. In his thesis, he devised a survey scale Likert Scale for measuring attitudes and showed that it captured more information than competing methods. The 5-point Likert Scale would eventually become Likert's best-known work. Likert died, 3 September 1981 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the age of 78; leaving behind his wife of 53 years, Jane Gibson (3 June 1902 - 29 November 1997)

THE THEORY: Likerts Management Systems are management styles developed by Rensis Likert in the 1960s. He outlined four systems of management to describe the relationship, involvement, and roles of managers and subordinates in industrial settings. He based the systems on studies of highly productive supervisors and their team members of an American Insurance Company. Later, he and Jane G. Likert revised the systems to apply to educational settings. They initially intended to spell out the roles of principals, students, and teachers; eventually others such as superintendents, administrators, and parents were included. Dr. Rensis Likert has conducted much research on human behavior within organizations, particularly in the industrial situation. He has examined different types of organizations and leadership styles, and he asserts that to achieve maximum profitability, good labor relations and high productivity, every organization must make optimum use of their human assets. The form of the organization which will make greatest use of the human capacity, Likert contends, is; highly effective work groups linked together in an overlapping pattern by other similarly effective groups. Organizations at present have widely varying types of management style and Likert has identified four main systems: EXPLOITIVE- AUTHORITATIVE BENEVOLENT AUTHORITATIVE CONSULTATIVE SYSTEM PARTICIPATIVE SYSTEM ADMIN 1

THEORIES APRIL 17, 2013

SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY GRADUATE PROGRAM SCHOOL OF NURSING EXPLOITIVE AUTHORITATIVE

SUMMER 2013

Exploitative Authoritative is rooted in classical theory. In this system, managers tend to use threats, fear, and punishment to motivate their workers. Managers at the top of the hierarchy make all of the decisions and are usually unaware of the problems faced by those in the lower levels of the organization. Decisions are imposed on subordinates, and motivation is characterized by threats. The orders issued from the top make up the goals for the organization. As a result, workers tend to be hostile toward organizational goals and may engage in behavior that is counter to those goals. BENEVOLENT AUTHORITATIVE Less controlling than the exploitative authoritative system, under this system motivation is based on the potential for punishment and partially on rewards. The decision making arena is expanded by allowing lower-level employees to be involved in policy making but is limited by the framework given to them from upperlevel management. Major policy decisions are still left to those at the top, who have some awareness of the problems that occur at lower levels. This creates mainly downward communication from supervisors to employees with little upward communication, causing subordinates to be somewhat suspicious of communication coming from the top. The managers at the top feel more responsibility towards organizational goals than those employees at the bottom, who feel very little responsibility. This contrast in feelings toward responsibility can result in a conflict and negative attitudes with the organization's goals. Subordinates in this system can become hostile towards each other because of the competition that is created between them. Satisfaction among workers is low to moderately-low and productivity is measured at fair to good. CONSULTATIVE SYSTEM This theory is very closely related to the Human Relations theory. Motivation of workers is gained through rewards, occasional punishments, and very little involvement in making decisions and goals. Lower-level employees, in this system, have the freedom to make specific decisions that will affect their work. Uppermanagement still has control over policies and general decisions that affect an organization. Managers will talk to their subordinates about problems and action plans before they set organizational goals. Communication in this system flows both downward and upward, though upward is more limited. PARTICIPATIVE SYSTEM Likert argued that the participative system was the most effective form of management. This system coincides with Human Resources theory. This system promotes genuine participation in making decisions and setting goals through freeflowing horizontal communication and tapping into the creativity and skills of THEORIES APRIL 17, 2013 ADMIN 1

SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY GRADUATE PROGRAM SCHOOL OF NURSING

SUMMER 2013

workers. Managers are fully aware of the problems that go on in the lower-levels of the organization. All organizational goals are accepted by everyone because they were set through group participation. There is a high level of responsibility and accountability of the organizational goals in all of the employees. Managers motivate employees through a system that produces monetary awards and participation in goal setting. Satisfaction among employees is the highest out of the four systems as is production.

PATRICIA BENNER: FROM NOVICE TO EXPERT Patricia Benner is a Professor in the Department of Physiological Nursing in the School of Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Benner received her bachelor's degree in nursing from Pasadena College, her master's degree in medical surgical nursing from the University of California, San Francisco, and the Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in Stress and Coping and Health under the direction of Hubert Dreyfus and Richard Lazarus. THE THEORY: Patricia Benner was interested in the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition and applied it to nursing. Her area of concern was not how to do nursing but, rather, "how do nurses learn to do nursing?"

Dr. Benner categorized nursing into 5 levels of capabilities: Novice Advanced Beginner Competent Proficient Expert

NOVICE The Novice or beginner has no experience in the situations in which they are expected to perform. The Novice lacks confidence to demonstrate safe practice and requires continual verbal and physical cues. Practice is within a prolonged time period and he/she is unable to use discretionary judgement. ADVANCE BEGINNER

THEORIES APRIL 17, 2013

ADMIN 1

SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY GRADUATE PROGRAM SCHOOL OF NURSING

SUMMER 2013

Advanced Beginners demonstrate marginally acceptable performance because the nurse has had prior experience in actual situations. He/she is efficient and skilful in parts of the practice area, requiring occasional supportive cues. May/may not be within a delayed time period. Knowledge is developing. COMPETENT Demonstrated by the nurse who has been on the job in the same or similar situations for two or three years. He/She is able to demonstrate efficiency, is coordinated and has confidence in his/her actions. For the Competent nurse, a plan establishes a perspective, and the plan is based on considerable conscious, abstract, analytic contemplation of the problem. The conscious, deliberate planning that is characteristic of this skill level helps achieve efficiency and organisation. Care is completed within a suitable time frame without supporting cues. PROFICIENT The Proficient nurse perceives situations as wholes rather than in terms of chopped up parts or aspects. Proficient nurses understand a situation as a whole because they perceive its meaning in terms of long-term goals. The Proficient nurse learns from experience what typical events to expect in a given situation and how plans need to be modified in response to these events. The Proficient nurse can now recognise when the expected normal picture does not materialise. This holistic understanding improves the Proficient nurse's decision making; it becomes less laboured because the nurse now has a perspective on which of the many existing attributes and aspects in the present situation are the important ones

EXPERT The Expert nurse has an intuitive grasp of each situation and zeroes in on the accurate region of the problem without wasteful consideration of a large range of unfruitful, alternative diagnoses and solutions. The Expert operates from a deep understanding of the total situation. His/her performance becomes fluid and flexible and highly proficient. Highly skilled analytic ability is necessary for those situations with which the nurse has had no previous experience.

THEORIES APRIL 17, 2013

ADMIN 1

SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY GRADUATE PROGRAM SCHOOL OF NURSING

SUMMER 2013

THEORIES APRIL 17, 2013

ADMIN 1

You might also like