Based on McGregor’s (1960) 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. Per McGregor’s (1960) cosmology, managers with more Y-type attitudes would enact behaviors which reflect these fundamental assumptions. Accordingly it is posited:
Hypothesis 1: Manager X/Y attitudes are positively related to manager X/Y behaviors.
McGregor’s (1960) third assertion was the most powerful one. In essence, he argued that a manager’s cosmology (i.e., assumptions about people at work) was potentially a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thus, the manager who adopted practices consistent with Theory X would find that employees had little motivation or interest in the work performed—caring only about their (typically meager) paychecks. The manager would then turn to a colleague and complain that “you cannot get good help nowadays”— completely unaware that the lamented low level of employee motivation was engineered by the manager him/herself. This supreme irony made Theory X/Y intriguing, if not compelling. If a manager’s cosmology is positive and rooted in assumptions that employees can enjoy work and make meaningful contributions, then employees would fulfill these assumptions. Thus, it is predicted.
Hypothesis 2: Manager X/Y attitudes are positively related to subordinate performance.
Importantly, McGregor (1957; 1960) concluded that there was a vast untapped potential for employee motivation and achievement which managers could obtain with more accurate assumptions about people at work. In his words: “We are becoming quite certain that, under proper conditions, unimagined resources of creative human energy could be available in the organizational setting” (McGregor, 1957: 22). McGregor (1960) postulated that if managers enacted practices consistent with Theory Y behaviors, employee motivation would increase, thereby increasing employee job performance. Hence it is predicted:
Hypothesis 3: Manager X/Y behaviors are positively related to subordinate performance.
A manager’s X/Y attitudes should be a precursor of and be aligned with X/Y behaviors which, in turn, should directly affect subordinate performance. Thus, manager X/Y behaviors should mediate the relationship between manager X/Y attitudes and subordinate performance. Therefore, it is predicted:
Hypothesis 4: Manager X/Y behaviors mediate the relationship between manager X/Y attitudes and subordinate performance.
Performance is both an individual- and group-level phenomenon, the two facets being interdependent. From McGregor’s (1960) perspective, managerial attitudes will affect the larger organization by influencing shared norms and knowledge bases that affect workgroup performance. The manager’s attitudes toward work will set the overall climate for the work group (Chen et al., 2007). Therefore it is posited:
Hypothesis 5: Manager X/Y attitudes are positively related to an overall assessment of workgroup performance as provided by the manager.
Consistent with McGregor’s (1960) cosmology, a manager of a workgroup will behave in a similar fashion toward most workers and thereby influence overall workgroup performance. Group performance can be attributed to group factors including shared group behaviors and the norms of team members regarding work (DeChurch and Mesmer-Magnus, 2010). Therefore, it would be expected that the manager’s X/Y behaviors would positively affect the group’s shared behavioral processes and lead to higher levels of group performance. Accordingly, it is predicted:
Hypothesis 6: Manager X/Y behaviors are positively related to an overall assessment of workgroup performance as assessed by the manager.
Likewise, manager X/Y attitudes should lead to the enactment of aligned manager X/Y behaviors, which directly affect workgroup performance. Therefore, it is posited that
manager X/Y behaviors will mediate the relationship between manager X/Y attitudes and workgroup performance. More formally stated:
Hypothesis 7: Manager X/Y behaviors mediate the relationship between manager X/Y attitudes and an overall assessment of workgroup performance as assessed by the manager.
However, despite the appeal of McGregor’s (1960) Theory X/Y, as noted above, no evidentiary support has been found pertinent to McGregor’s (1960) theorizing and job performance. The present research seeks to make that connection by using multisourced data and employing a multilevel design which incorporates the three requisite elements—manager X/Y attitudes, manager X/Y behaviors, and individual level and workgroup level measures of performance. Additionally, employee attitudes regarding work need to be considered part of a meso-organizational model (cf., Ostroff and Bowen, 2000). Employee attitudes toward work affect how managers’ behaviors are perceived by the employee (Fiman, 1973) along with the quality of the relationship between the manager and the employee (Sahin, 2012). In the present research, employee attitudes towards work were controlled for, thereby isolating the effects of manager X/Y behaviors on performance.
Motivating People Using Theory X and Theory (Source: Motivating People Using Theory X and Theory , 2018.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjvWicDVv_Y
Reference List
Chen, G., B. L. Kirkman, R. Kanfer, D. Allen, and B. Rosen. 2007. “A Multilevel Study of Leadership, Empowerment, and Performance in Teams.” Journal of Applied Psychology 92: 331-346.
DeChurch, L. A. and J. R. Mesmer-Magnus. 2010. “The Cognitive Underpinnings of Effective Teamwork: A Meta-Analysis.” Journal of Applied Psychology 95: 32-53.
Fiman, B. G. 1973. “An Investigation of the Relationships among Supervisory Attitudes, Behaviors, and Outputs: An Examination of McGregor’s Theory Y.” Personnel Psychology 26: 95-105.
McGregor, D. M. 1957. “Human Side of Enterprise.” Management Review 46: 622-628
McGregor, D. M.. 1960. The Human Side of Enterprise. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
McGregor, D. M. 1967. The Professional Manager. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Ostroff, C. and D. E. Bowen. 2000. “Moving HR to a Higher Level: HR Practices and Organizational Effectiveness.” Chapter in Multilevel Theory, Research, and Methods in Organizations. Ed. K. J. Klein and S. W. J. Kozlowski. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Sahin, F. 2012. “The Mediating Effect of Leader-Member Exchange on the Relationship between Theory X and Y Management Styles and Affective Commitment: A Multilevel Analysis.” Journal of Management and Organization 18: 159-174.
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A great blog article Malshani. To add further to your content, according to the context of the operation a manager could choose to use either X or Y theory. Nevertheless, Schermerhorn (2010), points out that in contrast to theory X, managers with theory Y assumptions tend to behave in participative ways that allow subordinates more job involvement, freedom and, responsibility (Schermerhorn, 2010). Therefore, a good leader would choose Y theory over X theory as it facilitates employee engagement and empowerment.
ReplyDeleteThanks Afzal for the compliment my blog, and adding further to your comment, Employee engagement refers to the personal relationship of an employee with the work environment and the employee’s positive attitude toward employers, while having a high level of perceived empowerment in the workplace (Nieberding, 2014).
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