McGregor, Douglas

McGregor, Douglas. The Human Side of Enterprise. New York McGraw-Hill, 1960. 

For more information about Theory-X and Theory-Y managers, including some very interesting examples, read the book McGregor, Douglas, The Human Side of the Enterprise, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1985. 

These findings led to fhe development of Douglas McGregor s Theory X and Theory Y management. Theory X, a basic assumption of bureaucratic organizations, assumes that people inherently dislike work, must be coerced and threatened to do the job, avoid responsibility, and have few career ambitions. Theory Y, in contrast, looks at workers as individuals willing to work and accept responsibility and as capable of self-direction and control. It also considers that the expenditure of menfal and physical energy at work is the same as at play. 

Douglas McGregor, who specialized in human behavior in organizations, is famous for his formulation of Theory X (authoritarian management) versus Theory Y (participative management [2]). 

Another well-known use of this rhetorical device is the juxtaposition of Theory X and Theory Y in Douglas McGregor s 1960 book The Human Side of Enterprise. The juxtaposition was used to encapsulate a fundamental distinction between two different management styles (authoritarian and participative, respectively), which turned out to be very influential. And there are, of course, even more famous examples, such as Galileo s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems and the philosophical dialogue in the works of Plato. 

Let s discuss a little bit of theory. If you reach back and think of basic worker theories, you might remember X-, Y-, and Z-type workers. In 1960 Douglas McGregor published a book called The Human Side of Enterprise. This book discussed theories X and Y at great length. One philosophy was that workers were basically evil, lazy, and not willing to be team members because their basic nature will not allow them to do so. This is called theory X. Theory X carried with it the following three main assumptions ... 

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