Low Affective Commitment Among Employees Can Result in High Turnover Within an Organization.

Learning Outcomes

• Differentiate betwixt Theory Ten, Theory, Y, and Theory Z managers
• Explicate the implications of Theory X, Theory Y, and Theory Z for employee direction

McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y

The thought that a director'southward mental attitude has an impact on employee motivation was originally proposed by Douglas McGregor, a management professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the 1950s and 1960s. In his 1960 book, The Homo Side of Enterprise, McGregor proposed two theories by which managers perceive and accost employee motivation. He referred to these opposing motivational methods as Theory X and Theory Y management. Each assumes that the manager's role is to organize resources, including people, to best do good the company. Yet, beyond this commonality, the attitudes and assumptions they embody are quite dissimilar.

Theory X

According to McGregor, Theory Ten management assumes the post-obit:

• Work is inherently distasteful to most people, and they will attempt to avoid work whenever possible.
• Near people are non ambitious, take little desire for responsibility, and prefer to be directed.
• Most people have trivial aptitude for inventiveness in solving organizational bug.
• Motivation occurs only at the physiological and security levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
• Near people are self-centered. As a result, they must exist closely controlled and often coerced to achieve organizational objectives.
• Most people resist change.
• Near people are gullible and unintelligent.

Essentially, Theory Ten assumes that the main source of employee motivation is monetary, with security as a stiff 2nd. Under Theory Ten, 1 can take a hard or soft arroyo to getting results.

The hard approach to motivation relies on compulsion, implicit threats, micromanagement, and tight controls— substantially an surround of command and control. The soft approach, nonetheless, is to be permissive and seek harmony in the hopes that, in return, employees will cooperate when asked. However, neither of these extremes is optimal. The hard approach results in hostility, purposely low output, and farthermost union demands. The soft approach results in a growing want for greater advantage in exchange for diminished piece of work output.

Information technology might seem that the optimal approach to human resources management would prevarication somewhere between these extremes. However, McGregor asserts that neither approach is advisable, since the basic assumptions of Theory Ten are incorrect.

Drawing on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, McGregor argues that a need, once satisfied, no longer motivates. The company uses budgetary rewards and benefits to satisfy employees' lower-level needs. One time those needs have been satisfied, the motivation disappears. Theory X management hinders the satisfaction of higher-level needs because it doesn't acknowledge that those needs are relevant in the workplace. Equally a upshot, the only way that employees tin effort to meet higher-level needs at work is to seek more compensation, then, predictably, they focus on budgetary rewards. While money may not be the nigh effective style to self-fulfillment, it may exist the simply way available. People volition use work to satisfy their lower needs and seek to satisfy their higher needs during their leisure fourth dimension. Yet, employees tin be virtually productive when their work goals align with their higher-level needs.

McGregor makes the bespeak that a command-and-command surround is not constructive because information technology relies on lower needs for motivation, merely in mod society those needs are by and large satisfied and thus are no longer motivating. In this situation, one would expect employees to dislike their work, avoid responsibility, take no involvement in organizational goals, resist change, etc.—creating, in effect, a cocky-fulfilling prophecy. To McGregor, a steady supply of motivation seemed more likely to occur nether Theory Y management.

Theory Y

The higher-level needs of esteem and cocky-actualization are ongoing needs that, for most people, are never completely satisfied. As such, it is these college-level needs through which employees tin best be motivated.

In strong contrast to Theory X, Theory Y management makes the following assumptions:

• Work tin be every bit natural every bit play if the atmospheric condition are favorable.
• People will be cocky-directed and creative to run across their work and organizational objectives if they are committed to them.
• People will be committed to their quality and productivity objectives if rewards are in place that address higher needs such as self-fulfillment.
• The capacity for creativity spreads throughout organizations.
• Most people tin can handle responsibility because creativity and ingenuity are common in the population.
• Under these weather, people will seek responsibility.

Under these assumptions, there is an opportunity to align personal goals with organizational goals by using the employee's own need for fulfillment as the motivator. McGregor stressed that Theory Y management does not imply a soft approach.

McGregor recognized that some people may not have reached the level of maturity assumed past Theory Y and may initially demand tighter controls that tin be relaxed as the employee develops.

If Theory Y holds truthful, an organization can apply the post-obit principles of scientific direction to improve employee motivation:

• Decentralization and delegation: If firms decentralize control and reduce the number of levels of direction, managers will take more subordinates and consequently demand to delegate some responsibility and decision making to them.
• Task enlargement: Broadening the scope of an employee's chore adds multifariousness and opportunities to satisfy ego needs.
• Participative direction: Consulting employees in the decision-making process taps their creative capacity and provides them with some control over their work environment.
• Operation appraisals: Having the employee set objectives and participate in the process of cocky-evaluation increases engagement and dedication.

If properly implemented, such an environs tin can increase and continually fuel motivation as employees work to satisfy their college-level personal needs through their jobs.

Ouchi'south Theory Z

During the 1980s, American business concern and industry experienced a tsunami of demand for Japanese products and imports, especially in the automotive industry. Why were U.South. consumers clambering for cars, televisions, stereos, and electronics from Japan? Two reasons: (1) high-quality products and (2) low prices. The Japanese had discovered something that was giving them the competitive border. The secret to their success was not what they were producing only how they were managing their people—Japanese employees were engaged, empowered, and highly productive.

Management professor William Ouchi argued that Western organizations could learn from their Japanese counterparts. Although built-in and educated in America, Ouchi was of Japanese descent and spent a lot of time in Japan studying the country's approach to workplace teamwork and participative management. The result was Theory Z—a development across Theory Ten and Theory Y that composite the best of Eastern and Western management practices. Ouchi'due south theory start appeared in his 1981 book, Theory Z: How American Management Tin Meet the Japanese Challenge. The benefits of Theory Z, Ouchi claimed, would exist reduced employee turnover, increased commitment, improved morale and job satisfaction, and desperate increases in productivity.

Theory Z stresses the demand to assist workers become generalists, rather than specialists. It views chore rotations and continual grooming equally a means of increasing employees' knowledge of the visitor and its processes while edifice a diverseness of skills and abilities. Since workers are given much more than fourth dimension to receive training, rotate through jobs, and master the intricacies of the company's operations, promotions tend to be slower. The rationale for the drawn-out time frame is that it helps develop a more than dedicated, loyal, and permanent workforce, which benefits the company; the employees, meanwhile, accept the opportunity to fully develop their careers at ane company. When employees rise to a higher level of management, it is expected that they volition employ Theory Z to "bring up," train, and develop other employees in a similar manner.

Ouchi's Theory Z makes sure assumptions about workers. One assumption is that they seek to build cooperative and intimate working relationships with their coworkers. In other words, employees have a strong desire for affiliation. Another assumption is that workers expect reciprocity and support from the company. According to Theory Z, people want to maintain a work-life residual, and they value a working surroundings in which things similar family, culture, and traditions are considered to be but as important equally the work itself. Under Theory Z management, not only do workers take a sense of cohesion with their beau workers, they besides develop a sense of order, discipline, and a moral obligation to work hard. Finally, Theory Z assumes that given the right management support, workers tin can be trusted to do their jobs to their utmost ability and look afterwards for their ain and others' well-being.

Theory Z also makes assumptions nigh company civilisation. If a visitor wants to realize the benefits described in a higher place, it demand to have the following:

• A strong company philosophy and culture: The company philosophy and civilisation demand to exist understood and embodied by all employees, and employees demand to believe in the work they're doing.
• Long-term staff evolution and employment: The organization and direction team need to have measures and programs in identify to develop employees. Employment is commonly long-term, and promotion is steady and measured. This leads to loyalty from team members.
• Consensus in decisions: Employees are encouraged and expected to take part in organizational decisions.
• Generalist employees: Considering employees have a greater responsibleness in making decisions and empathize all aspects of the organization, they ought to be generalists. Yet, employees are however expected to take specialized career responsibilities.
• Concern for the happiness and well-existence of workers: The organization shows sincere concern for the wellness and happiness of its employees and their families. Information technology takes measures and creates programs to help foster this happiness and well-being.
• Informal control with formalized measures: Employees are empowered to perform tasks the fashion they see fit, and management is quite hands-off. Nonetheless, there should be formalized measures in place to assess work quality and performance.
• Individual responsibility: The organization recognizes the individual contributions only always within the context of the squad as a whole.

Theory Z is non the last word on direction, yet, as it does take its limitations. Information technology tin exist hard for organizations and employees to make life-time employment commitments. Also, participative decision-making may not always exist feasible or successful due to the nature of the piece of work or the willingness of the workers. Slow promotions, group decision-making, and life-time employment may not be a adept fit with companies operating in cultural, social, and economic environments where those piece of work practices are not the norm.

Cheque Your Understanding

Answer the question(s) below to see how well you empathise the topics covered to a higher place. This short quiz does not count toward your form in the class, and you tin can retake information technology an unlimited number of times.

Employ this quiz to bank check your understanding and decide whether to (i) study the previous section further or (two) motility on to the next department.

brownellhimently.blogspot.com

Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wmopen-introbusiness/chapter/reading-douglas-mcgregors-theory-x-and-theory-y-2/

Share :