Learning Objectives:
After reading this module, you are expected:
1. To know the contributions of the 3 eras of behavioral approach.
2. To appreciate the implications to management Theory X & Y.
3. To know the application of the hierarchy of needs.
4. To know the hygiene approach to motivation.
5. To imagine the concept of apocalyptic liberation.
1. Backdrop and Context of Developments in Management Approaches
During the 1920’s and 1930’s, the U.S. and other industrialized nations experienced radical social and cultural changes. Mass production triggered a Second Industrial Revolution in U.S. Assembly lines were releasing a flood of inexpensive goods -- cars, appliances, and clothing - into an increasingly consumer society.
The overall standard of living in U.S. rose. Working conditions in many industries improved. As productivity increased dramatically, the average work week declined from seventy hours to less than fifty. Factories were hard-pressed to satisfy consumer demand. Thus, factories eagerly tried to attract workers from he farms to the cities by making industrial employment more appealing than it was during Taylor’s tenure at Midvale Steel.
During the Great Depression, the Federal government began to play a more influential role in people’s lives. By the time Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) took office in 1933, the national economy was hovering on the brink of collapse. To provide employment, the government undertook temporary public work projects – constructing dams, roads, public buildings, and laying out national parks. It also created government agencies such as Social
Security Administration, to assist the aged, the unemployed, and the disabled.
In one of the era’s most dramatic changes, unskilled workers increased their ability to influence management decisions by forming powerful unions. During the 1930’s, Congress passed laws increasing union powers by deterring management from restricting union activities, legalized collective bargaining, and required management to bargain with unions. As a result, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) were formed.
In 1937, the autoworkers and steelworkers won their first big contracts. Eventually, professionals and skilled workers, as well as unskilled workers, united for better pay, increased benefits, and improved working conditions.
Following the Depression and World War II, a new wave of optimism swept the American economy, organized labor enjoyed its greatest success from the 1950’s through the 1970’s.
Against this backdrop of change and reform, managers were forced to recognize the human aspect of their task. They were now leading workers who did not appear to exhibit what traditional management theorists had thought was rational behavior. That is, workers weren’t always performing up to their physiological capabilities, as Taylor had predicted rational people would do.
Nor were effective managers consistently following Fayol’s fourteen principles. By exploring these consistencies, those who favored behavioral viewpoint of management gained recognition.
2. Three Eras of Behavioral Approach
The First Era --1920’s when Hawthorne research inspired what we now call Human Relations Movement.
The Second Era -- post-World War II period when theorists focused on human needs and motivation.
The Third Era -- occurring now, as we search for integrative concepts that satisfy the dual necessities of meeting employee needs and improving productivity.
3. The First Era – Human Relations Movement
The human relations movement (HRM) focused on individuals working in group environment. Managers and employees were studied in terms of group dynamics.
Early contributors to HRM concluded that by improving workers’ satisfaction with their jobs, companies could improve their performance. Thus, managers were encouraged to be more
cooperative with workers, to upgrade the social environment at work, and to reinforce the self-images of the individual employees.
The management theorists of the human relations movement are:
1. Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) He examined the effects of different types of leaderships and wrote extensively on group behavior. He is remembered more for his 3-step process of change -- Defreezing, Introduction of change, Refreezing.
2. Chester I. Barnard (1886-1961) He advocated conciliatory management relations that enhanced cooperation between employees and supervisors.
3. Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933) She is considered one of the founders of the human relations movements. She felt that managers were responsible for motivating employees to pursue organizational goals enthusiastically, not simply to obey orders. She rejected the notion that managers should be groomed to give orders. Instead, managers should be trained to work with employees toward the attainment of common objectives.
Follett laid the ground work for studies in group dynamics, conflict management, and political process in organizations.
Later theorists would build on her work to contribute to advancements in industrial psychology and sociology.
4. George Elton Mayo (1880-1949) In association with F. J. Roethlisberger and W. J.
Dickson, Elton Mayo pioneered experimental research on human behavior in work settings.
Mayo and a Harvard University research team conducted a series of experiments at the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric Company in Illinois. Begun in 1924 to determine the effects of illumination on employee productivity, the experiment spanned several years.
In this fieldwork, Mayo was initially concerned with scientific management, but his results showed that human relations and behavior were far more crucial considerations for management.
The Hawthorne Studies have become famous for enduring contributions to management thought.
Elton Mayo & Hawthorne Studies
The Relay Assembly Test Room. The first significant experiment by Elton Mayo and his team at the Western Electric Hawthorne plant concerned employees, all women, in the Relay Assembly test Room. One group was subjected to changes in lighting and different methods of altering the intensity of the illumination. The other group experienced no change in work conditions. Researchers monitored other environmental factors and then followed work results closely. Mayo hypothesized that changes in illumination would yield one lighting condition that created the best productivity. His experiments clearly reflected the scientific management idea of finding the “one best method” of controlling the work environment.
However, no matter what the researchers did, productivity increased among the test groups. Even more startling, it increased in the control group. Even when all conditions were set back to normal, productivity increased. Mayo considered is research a failure until he interviewed
workers. His findings centered on effects of research intervention and on human relations.
Test Room employees found working there more enjoyable during the experiments because they felt they were involved in something important. Management had changed during tests. Allowing more freedom, and employees found they had a much better relationship with their supervisors and could work without fear. They also became closer as a work group because of the enhanced social contact. The researchers concluded that human factors influenced productivity, and over several years, they conducted more research in other areas of the Hawthorne plant.
The Bank Wiring Room. A piece-rate work system was observed in the Bank Wiring Observation Room. Once again, control and study groups were formed and observations were made about human relations. Researchers found that faster workers were pressured by their peers to slow down instead of working as hard as they could. In effect, the work group set the pace and
enforced standards rather than management or individuals, who had the legal right to work as hard as they wanted to. Social pressure dominated behavior.
The researchers drew several conclusions from the Hawthorne Studies. First, recognition and attention to individual workers motivated them to work harder. Second, group dynamics influenced work substantially. Third, and perhaps most important, intervention by researchers created a perception by workers, real or not, that they were doing something of value. The act of intervention and its impact is now called the Hawthorne Effect .
The implications of Mayo’s work are far reaching. After the Hawthorne Studies, organizations were viewed as social systems with both formal and informal patterns of authority and communications.
Mayo was the first to suggest that managers needed interpersonal skills for counseling employees, diagnosing personal and group needs, balancing, technical needs f or productivity with human needs for job satisfaction.
These conclusions seem perfectly reasonable today. But in the context of industrial society, at the time, many thought that the research findings of Mayo, Roethlisberger, Dickson, and other colleagues were irrational. Those were the days when collective bargaining and safety regulations were not yet recognized, when standard workday was more than 10 hours and children worked alongside with adults. Factories were dimmed and cavernous. Employees were considered little more than productive units like machines. But machines were treated better because they were expensive.
4. The Second Era – Human Needs and Motivation
The second era was dominated by a professor (McGregor) and his student (Maslow). But it is the latter who immortalized his mentor. Both have emerged as management gurus.
Their behavioral research emphasized motivation -- the concept of behavioral change or result of influence that alters an individual’s performance.
The research focused on personal needs of employees and how they influenced performance. Contributions to motivation theory immediately after World War II inspired greater
efforts to understand individual behavior in work environments. This focus led to a field of study called Organizational Behavior.
4.1. Douglas McGregor (1906-1964) brought fresh perspective to management. He challenged leaders to think of subordinates as responsible, capable, and creative.
McGregor felt throughout history leaders have treated subordinates as irresponsible and lazy. He called this approach to management as Theory X.
Theory X managers tend to be autocratic control-oriented, and distrustful. Theory X assumptions lead managers to view human nature pessimistically.
In contrast, McGregor identified a second perspective -- Theory X -- that reverses these assumptions on human nature. Theory X managers view subordinates
optimistically as individuals who want the challenge of work, prefer self-control, and are capable of responsible, independent judgment.
McGregor’s Assumptions on Theory X and Theory Y Theory X
* Most human beings dislike work and avoid it when ever possible;
* They must be forced, threatened, and directly controlled in order to achieve organizational goals.
* Most people are lazy, prefer to be directed, shun responsibility, have little ambition, and want security.
* Th3e average human being avoids leading and wants to be led.
Theory Y
* Work is natural, and most people prefer the physical and mental effort of working.
* Commitment to objective is also a natural state for most individuals, particularly when rewards are associated with achievement.
* Human beings can exercise self-control, prefer self-direction, and have the capacity for innovation and creativity.
* Under most reasonable circumstances, the majority of people will accept responsibility, many individuals seek leadership rather than the security of being led.
In other words, Theory X is based on a set of assumptions that employees are lazy, unambitious, and must be coerced to work; hence, a managerial approach based on fear tactics.
Theory Y, on the other hand, is based on a set of assumptions that employees are generally responsible, want to have meaningful work, and are cap[able of self-direction;
hence, a managerial approach based on conciliatory, consultative, participative approach.
4.2. Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) based his theory of human behavior on the idea that individuals work to satisfy human needs, including simple physiological needs, such as food, and complex psychological needs such as self-esteem.
Maslow observed that a fulfilled need did little to motivate an employee. For example, a person who has sufficient food to eat cannot be easily enticed to do something for a reward of food. In contrast, a person with an unfulfilled need could be persuaded to work to satisfy that need. Thus, a hungry person might work hard for food. Maslow called this the deficit principle.
The deficit principle is a crucial aspect of Maslow’s theory of motivation based on human needs that suggests an unsatisfied needs becomes a focal motivator, while a satisfied need no longer influences an individual’s behavior.
Maslow suggested that managers be alert for unmet needs and then create rewards to satisfy them.
Maslow formulated a progression principle -- a concept that successively higher-order needs in his hierarchy of needs are not active motivators until lower-order needs are fulfilled. In other words, successively higher-level needs are activated once lower-level needs are met.
In Maslow’s view lover-level needs that go unfulfilled tend to take the precedence in an employee’s mind over higher-level needs.
For example, for someone who is hungry, the need for food will far outweigh the need for self-respect. This particular aspect of Maslow’s work is controversial because many people ignore lower-level needs such as safety and security to satisfy higher-order needs such as the social need for love.
McGregor’s Assumptions on Theory X and Theory Y
The basic human needs placed by Maslow in an ascending order of importance and shown in Figure are these:
1. Physiological needs. These are the basic needs for sustaining human life itself, such as food, water, warmth, shelter, and sleep. Maslow took the position that until these needs are satisfied to the degree necessary to maintain life, other needs will not motivate people.
2. Security, or safety, needs. These are the needs to be free of physical danger and the fear of loss of a job, property, food, or shelter.
3. Affiliation, or acceptance, needs. Since people are social beings, they need to belong, to be accepted by others.
4. Esteem needs. According to Maslow, once people begin to satisfy their need to belong, they tend to want to be held in esteem both by themselves and by others.
This kind of need produces such satisfaction as power, prestige, status, and self-confidence.
5. Need for self-actualization. Maslow regards this as the highest need in his hierarchy. It is the desire to become the highests need in his hierarchy. It is the desire to become what one is capable of becoming to maximize one’s potential and to accomplish something.
The Motivation-Hygiene Approach to Motivation
Maslow’s need approach has been considerably modified by Frederick Herzberg and his associates. Their research purports to find a two-factory theory of motivation. In one group of needs are such things as company policy and administration, supervision, working conditions, interpersonal relations, salary, status, job security, and personal life. These were found by Herzberg and his associates to be only dissatisfiers and not motivators. In other words, if they exist in a work environment in high quantity and quality, they yield no dissatisfaction. Their existence does not motivate in the sense of yielding satisfaction; their lack of existence would, however result in dissatisfaction. They were consequently referred to as “hygiene” factors.
In the second group, Herzberg listed certain satisfiers -- and therefore motivators -- all related to job content. They included achievement, recognition, challenging work, advancement, and growth in the job. Their existence will yield feelings of satisfaction or no satisfaction (not dissatisfaction). As we can see from figure, the factors identified by Herzberg are similar to those suggested by Maslow.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
The first group of factors Herzberg called maintenance or hygiene factors. Their presence will not motivate people in an organization; yet they must be present, or dissatisfaction
will arise. The second group, or the job content factors, he found to be the real motivators because they have the potential; of yielding a sense of satisfaction. Clearly, if this theory of motivation is sound, managers must give considerable attention to upgrading job content.
Comparison of Maslow’s and Herzberg’s Theories of Motivation
Need for self-actualizat
ion
Esteem needs
Affiliations or acceptance needs
Security or safety needs
Physiological needs
Source: Koontz, Weihrich, Essentials of Management, p. 324
4.3. Apocalyptic liberation is that state of life beyond the level of self-fulfillment. It is that stage in life when a person in “unbound” from the demands of work whether as business owner or professional manager. His goals are service to, or betterment of society, humanity, the environment, or other “causes,” or simply
inner peace and happiness. (Emmanuel T. Santos, Wharton, 1992.)
5. Third Era – integrative Concepts of Organizational Behavior
To begin with, an integrationist is a theorist who integrates concepts of several schools of management thought to suggest improved management practices.
Early human relations research was value-laden and more philosophical than practical.
Classical theories, though practical, went to the opposite extreme and ignored the human side of enterprise.
Behavioral scientists who followed McGregor and Maslow expanded their ideas and attempted to integrate human behavior concepts with the practical necessities of managing organization. These are the integrationists – Victor Vroom, Lyman Porter, Edward Lawler, etc. They took McGregor’s ideas, applied Maslow’s need concepts, and studied how organizations can use scientific techniques to achieve results.
They have proposed methods of instituting, systematic change in organizations, resolving conflict, achieving objectives through motivated individuals, and improving group dynamics for greater productivity.
The central theme of integration is that understanding human behavior is the key to effective management, but that management practices must still be based on scientifically sound concepts.
More recently, integrative approaches have focused on national trends in productivity and how organizations can improve their performance.
5.1. Theory Z
McGregor’s use of “X” and “Y” as identifiers for management style has been expanded to include Theory Z, which has become a convenient label for Japanese management philosophy. Theory Z refers to Japanese management practices of consensus decision-making, quality circles, and employee participation to enhance productivity. Theory Z captures the essence of Japanese management techniques as practiced by excellent firms in U.S.
William Ouchi introduced Theory Z in 1981 to describe American adaptation of Japanese organizational behavior. His theory is based on a comparison of management in Japanese organizations called J – type firms with management in American firms --called A – type enterprises.
Contrasts Between American and Japanese Organizations American -- Type A
Mobile employees. Employees seek opportunities, advancement, and career changes by moving between employers and organizations.
Personal Decision Making. Americans tend to rely on individual judgment and prefer to make decisions unilaterally, either as managers or as individuals controlling their own destiny.
Individual Responsibility. Americans prefer taking personal initiatives and shouldering responsibilities as individuals rather than in groups.
Rapid Advancement. Employees gain economically and socially from rapid advancement, with a premium on success as measured by promotions.
Specialization in Careers. American organizations are founded on specialization of skills and labor; employees create intensity in career choices and follow specialized career paths.
Explicit Control Mechanisms. Western nations emphasize explicit standards and controls for work and evaluation; employees expect explicit control mechanism and guidelines.
Focused Concern for Employees. American firms tend to view employees in their roles at work, paying less attention to the “complete” profile of the individual: family, social issues, personal health, and general well-being.
Japanese -- Type J
Lifetime Employment. Japanese workers tend to make a lifetime commitment to their organizations and, in turn, organizations assume responsibility for lifetime employees.
Collective Decision Making. Employees and managers seek consensus on decisions and endorse collective decision-making processes.
Group Responsibilities. Japanese prefer group processes and accept group responsibilities through conciliatory communications; group rewards are not uncommon.
Slow and Systematic Advancement. Employees rise slowly through established ranks;
when opportunities arise for promotion, loyalty and harmonious behavior are considered.
when opportunities arise for promotion, loyalty and harmonious behavior are considered.