ARTICLES

A Kind Word for Theory X: Or Why So Many Newfangled Management Techniques Quickly Fail
Michael P. Bobic
Emmanuel College

William Eric Davis
Community College Southern Nevada

ABSTRACT Forty-three years ago, Douglas McGregor’s The Human Side of Enterprise offered managers a new assumption of management (Theory Y), which would be more effective than what he considered then-current management assumptions (Theory X). While McGregor’s Theory Y model has been widely adopted in management literature as the preferred model, Theory X management still persists in practice. Moreover, many efforts to introduce management initiatives based on Theory Y have failed to reform the workplace or worker attitudes. While most explanations of these failures focus on training, implementation, or sabotage, this article proposes several defects in Theory Y that have contributed to these failures. Theory Y is based upon an incomplete theory of human motivation that erroneously assumes that all people are creative (and want to be creative) in the same way. Important research by Michael Kirton presents a different model of creativity that explains the failure of Theory Y and justifies Theory X as an important managerial theory and strategy. Theory X persists not because of circumstances or the nature of particular jobs, but because different people have personalities that respond to Theory X management better than to Theory Y management.

But if the times and circumstances change, [a leader] will fail for he will not alter his policy. There is no man so prudent that he can accommodate himself to these changes, because no one can go contrary to the way nature has inclined him, and because, having always prospered in pursuing a particular method, he will not be persuaded to depart from it. . . . If he were able to adapt his nature to changing circumstances, however, his