Douglas Mcgregor

(1906-1964)
Bibliography
• Douglas McGregor was born on 1906 in Detroit,
America
• During high school, Douglas McGregor worked as
a night clerk and played the piano and organ at
the chapel services
• McGregor went to Oberlin College and then
attended
to Wayne University, where he had graduated in
1932.
• While at college, he was married and left his
college work for about five years to save enough
money to start a family. McGregor began as a
gasoline station
attendant in Buffalo and quickly progressed to
Bibliography
• In 1935, he received a PhD degree from Harvard
University in Experimental Psychology. McGregor
was a brilliant student at Harvard that; he
achieved an A grade in every course.

• Then he was a psychology professor at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose
1960 book The Human Side of Enterprise had a
profound influence on management practises. In
the book he identified two approaches to
motivating workers, which he called Theory X and
Theory Y.
Theories
“X” – “Y”
Theory X
• According to McGregor, most managers
tend to subscribe to Theory X, in that they
take a rather pessimistic view of their
employees. 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. The result of this line of thought
is that Theory X managers naturally adopt
a more authoritarian style based on the
threat of punishment.
Theory Y
• In contrast, a Theory Y manager believes
that, given the right conditions, most
people will want to do well at work and
that there is a pool of unused creativity in
the workforce. They believe that the
satisfaction of doing a good job is a strong
motivation in and of itself. A Theory Y
manager will try to remove the barriers
that prevent workers from fully actualizing
their potential.
Conclusion
He suggested that management could use
either set of needs to motivate employees
but that better results could be obtained
by meeting the Theory Y needs.
Theory X and Theory Y are still important
terms in the field of management and
motivation. More recent studies have
questioned the rigidity of the model, but
McGregor's X-Y Theory remains a guiding
principle of positive approaches to
management, to organizational
development, and to improving
organizational culture.
• McGregor ideas were much informed by
Maslow's need satisfaction model of
motivation. Needs provide the driving force
motivating behaviour and general
orientation. Maslow's ideas suggested that
worker disaffection with work was due - not
to something intrinsic to workers, but due to
poor job design, managerial behaviour and
too few opportunities for job satisfaction.
• On the basis of these ideas about drives -
Maslow suggested a classification of needs
related to the development of the person -
lower level needs giving way
developmentally to higher order needs.
Thus a hierarchy is suggested although not
claimed by Maslow.
Douglas McGregor