Maslow, Mayo, and McGregor

Abraham Maslow, Elton Mayo, Douglas McGregor, and Chester Barnard are four theorists of numerous that assisted in building upon the formation of what is known as modern organizational theory. Modern organizational theory places emphasis on the examination of organizational behavior, use of varied methods, interdisciplinary research, as well as tries to reach generalizations applicable towards various types of organizations. Such a theory differs from other schools of thought like neoclassical and classical. Modern organizational theorists often attempt to minimize the influence of their views, beliefs, and values. Instead of the common assumption that management systems are apolitical, actual effort is put on separating values from evidence or facts. Therefore, the modern school of thought is therefore the most applicable for pubic and/or nonprofit organizations. This essay will explain why and the contributions of the aforementioned theorists.
Elton Mayo discovered during his journey in understanding the ‘human side of enterprise’ that many people like working in groups. This is what he detailed as the power of natural groups (Stoyanov & Diderich, 2017). Essentially, certain social aspects have a higher priority than functional organizational structures. Mayo also highlighted the need for reciprocal communication, meaning two-way communication (Stoyanov & Diderich, 2017).
This is a very important aspect to highlight because thanks to Mayo’s work one can understand the need for communication in an organization. Businesses rely on communication to create and maintain success and therefore profits. If communication only exists top down from chief executive to work and does not include vice versa, there can be decreased job satisfaction and diminished loyalty on the part of the worker. This is later touched on by one of the other theorists. Finally, Mayo stated the creation of high quality leadership is needed to improve that ever-important communication aspect, by defining goals, ensuing coherent and effective decision-making (Stoyanov & Diderich, 2017).
Without these fundamentals, one cannot understand the structure of an organization from an interpersonal perspective. Classic schools of thought on organization management and behavior often believe in a top-down perspective. However, modern thinking introduces the notion of giving a voice to the worker. This can be beneficial to an organization in several ways. But the two most important is creating job satisfaction for the worker and creating loyalty therefore, promoting a more effective means of goal achieving throughout the organization.
Abraham Maslow introduced Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in his essay, “A Theory of Human Motivation”. These needs are positioned in a pyramid with the lowest being physiological needs, then safety needs, social belonging, esteem, and self-actualization, followed by self-transcendence (Maslow, 2013). Although these needs are not necessarily to be met in that order, it makes sense for physiological to be at the bottom because good health is what is needed to have the energy and motivation to do anything related to job performance. When Maslow created this pyramid, he had in mind the basic needs of people and meeting these needs to allow for cultivation of the self and identity, which can lend to the more advanced processes needed within a successful organization.
His work is important because it allows for an understanding of what may motivate people to behave a certain way. For example, if workers within an organization are placed in a team setting, some may behave a certain way due to the need for social belonging. While others are more interested in self-actualization and therefore behave accordingly. Understanding motivation plays a key role in management of organizations and companies because it allows for an assessment of what fuels specific behaviors.
This kind of thinking is crucial in discovering how to effectively implement goals within any organization or business. This makes communication easier and removes a lot of the perceived obstacles because it permits analysis and assessment of motivators and ways to ensure communication and compliance in workers. Maslow and Mayo’s work although not universally agreed upon, are major contributions to understanding the human aspect of enterprise. Because, the human aspect is often complex and requires constant assessment and examination.
The next theorist, Chester Barnard, who contributed to organization theory at a time when it was too abstract and mechanistic. “The early subtleties of F. W. Taylor’s scientific management had mainly given way to a ‘machine model,’ while the abstract principles of administration advanced by Henri Fayol and others failed to engage the issues as Barnard experienced them” (Williamson, 1995, p. 4). Chester Barnard saw that the approach to understanding organizations and the processes within them meant tackling and understanding things on a different level. Instead of aiming to understand pathology of an organization, he aimed to understand physiology and anatomy. This made for an innovative and refreshing perspective on the human contribution of organization theory.
By separating the orthodoxy from the rationality, he was able bring that much more of an understanding of complex processes than those with classical and neoclassical schools of thought. “Barnard was able to separate orthodoxy from rationality and employed the latter. Specifically, Barnard brought a powerful rationality and employed the latter…brought a powerful rationality orientation to the study of formal organization” (Williamson, 1995, p. 5). Barnard made room within his theoretical perspective, to include the social attributes and cognitive limitations of people, tying together the other work of the theorists discussed. For things to reach a certain level of understanding, there must be a thorough exploration of the ‘big picture’ that is organization and the people that exist within it.
Like his contemporary Abraham Maslow, Douglas Murray McGregor made significant contributions to the development of management and motivational theory (Heil, McGregor, Stephens, & Bennis, 2000). In Human Side of Enterprise, he presented his Theory X and Theory Y. This posited that managers according to their personal assumptions over behavior and human nature, determined their management styles and treatment of their employees (Heil, McGregor, Stephens, & Bennis, 2000). Although his way of thinking is not as innovative and has some flaws to it, his belief that employees’ motivations are tied to integration/control, direction and self-control, and authority allows for a potential opening for exploring and explaining human behavior within the context of organizations.
Theory X is an authoritarian style where the emphasis is on “productivity, on the concept of a fair day's work, on the evils of feather-bedding and restriction of output, on rewards for performance … [it] reflects an underlying belief that management must counteract an inherent human tendency to avoid work”. Theory X is the style that predominated in business after the mechanistic system of scientific management had swept everything before it in the first few decades of the 20th century. Theory Y is a participative style of management which “assumes that people will exercise self-direction and self-control in the achievement of organizational objectives to the degree that they are committed to those objectives”. It is management's main task in such a system to maximize that commitment (Hindle, 2006).
Laying down the foundation from which other theorists would later attempt to expand or diminish these concepts, these theorists all contributed to the notion that understanding human nature, human motivation, can lead to effective cultivation of organization theory. Organizations are operated by people and therefore there is a need to understand why people behave a certain way and what evidence suggests why these behaviors persist. By McGregor providing the outline to delve deeper in motivation and effects of certain leadership styles, other researchers aimed to understand other topics like diversity and certain leadership styles like servant leadership.
Modern organizational theorists offer a better, clearer look into the motivations and behaviors of those within an organization. Previous schools of thought used simple common sense or anecdotal evidence to create assumptions based on social or economic values. By removing the partiality of these assumptions, one can explore and delve further into the reality of existing and working within an organization or business. By modern theorists using statistical information like quantitative approaches and customer surveys, such research methods allow for a more accurate representation of reality that was not readily available back in the classical and neoclassical perspectives. By modern theorists constructing their theories on a foundation of interdisciplinary perspective, this broadened their viewpoints allows for further development of organization management, behavior, and other complex processes.
That is why I believe, in my personal opinion, that modern organizational theory is a better fit when looking within the context of nonprofit and public organizations. This has to do with the need to improve processes within these organizations to accomplish goals and improve communication. One cannot do that with the kind of theories and level of understanding available in classical and neoclassical perspectives. Human nature and human behavior should be factored into organization theory. Humans run organizations and therefore their behavior and their motivations must be part of understanding how an organization is formed and run.

References
Heil, G., McGregor, D., Stephens, D. C., & Bennis, W. G. (2000). Douglas McGregor, revisited: Managing the human side of the enterprise. New York: Wiley.
Hindle, T. (2006). Theories X and Y | The Economist. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/node/12370445
Maslow, A. H. (2013). A theory of human motivation. Lanham: Start Publishing LLC.
Stoyanov, S., & Diderich, M. (2017). The Human Side of Enterprise. CRC Press.
Williamson, O. E. (1995). Organization Theory: From Chester Barnard to the Present and Beyond. New York: Oxford University Press.