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  • During the past 30 years, managers have been bombarded with two competing approaches to the issues of human being administration and arrangement. The offset, usually called the classical school of organization, emphasizes the need for well-established lines of say-so, clearly defined jobs, and authorization equal to responsibility. The second, often called the participative approach, focuses on the desirability of involving system members in conclusion making then that they volition be more than highly motivated.

    Douglas McGregor, through his well-known “Theory X and Theory Y,” drew a distinction between the assumptions nigh human motivation which underlie these two approaches, to this upshot:

    • Theory X assumes that people dislike work and must exist coerced, controlled, and directed toward organizational goals. Furthermore, well-nigh people adopt to be treated this fashion, then they can avoid responsibility.
    • Theory Y—the integration of goals—emphasizes the average person’s intrinsic interest in his work, his desire to be self-directing and to seek responsibleness, and his capacity to be creative in solving business organization problems.

    It is McGregor’due south conclusion, of course, that the latter arroyo to organization is the more than desirable 1 for managers to follow.1

    McGregor’south position causes confusion for the managers who try to choose between these two conflicting approaches. The classical organizational approach that McGregor associated with Theory Ten does work well in some situations, although, as McGregor himself pointed out, at that place are also some situations where it does non piece of work effectively. At the same time, the approach based on Theory Y, while it has produced good results in some situations, does not ever practice and so. That is, each arroyo is effective in some cases but non in others. Why is this? How can managers resolve the defoliation?

    A New Arroyo

    Recent work by a number of students of management and system may assistance to answer such questions.2
    These studies indicate that there is not i all-time organizational approach; rather, the all-time arroyo depends on the nature of the work to exist done. Enterprises with highly anticipated tasks perform better with organizations characterized by the highly formalized procedures and management hierarchies of the classical approach. With highly uncertain tasks that crave more all-encompassing trouble solving, on the other hand, organizations that are less formalized and emphasize self-control and member participation in decision making are more effective. In essence, according to these newer studies, managers must design and develop organizations so that the organizational characteristics
    fit
    the nature of the task to exist washed.

    While the conclusions of this newer arroyo will make sense to near experienced managers and can convalesce much of the defoliation about which approach to choose, in that location are even so two important questions unanswered:

    one. How does the more formalized and controlling organization affect the motivation of organization members? (McGregor’s most telling criticism of the classical approach was that it did non unleash the potential in an enterprise’s human being resources.)

    2. As important, does a less formalized organization e’er provide a high level of motivation for its members? (This is the implication many managers take fatigued from McGregor’due south work.)

    We have recently been involved in a study that provides surprising answers to these questions and, when taken together with other recent work, suggests a new set of basic assumptions which motion beyond Theory Y into what we call “Contingency Theory: the fit between job, organisation, and people.” These theoretical assumptions emphasize that the appropriate pattern of arrangement is
    contingent
    on the nature of the piece of work to be washed and on the particular needs of the people involved. We should emphasize that we have labeled these assumptions equally a step across Theory Y because of McGregor’south ain recognition that the Theory Y assumptions would probably be supplanted past new knowledge within a short time.3

    The Written report Design

    Our study was conducted in four organizational units. 2 of these performed the relatively certain task of manufacturing standardized containers on high-speed, automated production lines. The other two performed the relatively uncertain piece of work of enquiry and evolution in communications engineering. Each pair of units performing the same kind of job were in the same large company, and each pair had previously been evaluated by that company’s management as containing i highly effective unit and a less effective one. The report pattern is summarized in Exhibit I.

    Exhibit I. Study Design in “Fit” of Organizational Characteristics

    The objective was to explore more fully how the fit between arrangement and task was related to successful operation. That is, does a good fit between organizational characteristics and task requirements increase the motivation of individuals and hence produce more than effective private and organizational performance?

    An especially useful arroyo to answering this question is to recognize that an individual has a strong need to master the world around him, including the task that he faces as a member of a work organization.four
    The accumulated feelings of satisfaction that come from successfully mastering one’southward environment can be called a “sense of competence.” We saw this sense of competence in performing a particular chore as helpful in agreement how a fit betwixt job and organizational characteristics could motivate people toward successful performance.

    Organizational dimensions

    Because the iv study sites had already been evaluated past the corresponding corporate managers as loftier and low performers of tasks, we expected that such differences in performance would exist a preliminary clue to differences in the “fit” of the organizational characteristics to the job to exist done. Only, showtime, we had to define what kinds of organizational characteristics would determine how appropriate the organization was to the particular chore.

    We grouped these organizational characteristics into two sets of factors:

    1. Formal characteristics, which could be used to judge the fit between the kind of chore being worked on and the formal practices of the organization.

    ii. Climate characteristics, or the subjective perceptions and orientations that had developed among the individuals near their organizational setting. (These besides must fit the chore to be performed if the organisation is to be effective.)

    Nosotros measured these attributes through questionnaires and interviews with about 40 managers in each unit to decide the ceremoniousness of the organization to the kind of task being performed. We besides measured the feelings of competence of the people in the organizations so that we could link the appropriateness of the organizational attributes with a sense of competence.

    Major findings

    The master findings of the survey are best highlighted past contrasting the highly successful Akron plant and the high-performing Stockton laboratory. Because each performed very different tasks (the former a relatively certain manufacturing task and the latter a relatively uncertain enquiry task), we expected, as brought out earlier, that there would have to exist major differences betwixt them in organizational characteristics if they were to perform effectively. And this is what we did find. But we also constitute that each of these effective units had a better fit with its particular job than did its less constructive counterpart.

    While our major purpose in this article is to explore how the fit between chore and organizational characteristics is related to motivation, we offset want to explore more fully the organizational characteristics of these units, so the reader will better understand what we hateful by a fit betwixt task and organization and how it can lead to more effective behavior. To do this, nosotros shall place the major emphasis on the contrast betwixt the high-performing units (the Akron institute and Stockton laboratory), merely nosotros shall also compare each of these with its less constructive mate (the Hartford plant and Carmel laboratory respectively).

    Formal characteristics

    Get-go with differences in formal characteristics, we institute that both the Akron and Stockton organizations fit their respective tasks much improve than did their less successful counterparts. In the predictable manufacturing chore environment, Akron had a pattern of formal relationships and duties that was highly structured and precisely defined. Stockton, with its unpredictable research task, had a low degree of construction and much less precision of definition (see Exhibit II).

    Exhibit Two. Differences in Formal Characteristics in High-performing Organizations

    Akron’s pattern of formal rules, procedures, and control systems was and so specific and comprehensive that information technology prompted one manager to remark:

    “We’ve got rules hither for everything from how much powder to use in cleaning the toilet bowls to how to cart a dead torso out of the plant.”

    In dissimilarity, Stockton’s formal rules were and so minimal, loose, and flexible that one scientist, when asked whether he felt the rules ought to exist tightened, said:

    “If a man puts a nut on a screw all day long, you may need more than rules and a chore definition for him. Merely we’re not novices here. We’re professionals and non the kind who need shut supervision. People effectually hither
    exercise
    produce, and produce under relaxed conditions. Why tamper with success?”

    These differences in formal organizational characteristics were well suited to the differences in tasks of the two organizations. Thus:

    • Akron’s highly structured formal practices fit its predictable task because behavior had to be rigidly defined and controlled around the automatic, high-speed production line. In that location was actually only one way to reach the establish’s very routine and programmable job; managers defined it precisely and insisted (through the plant’s formal practices) that each man do what was expected of him.

    On the other hand, Stockton’due south highly unstructured formal practices made just as much sense considering the required activities in the laboratory only could not be rigidly defined in advance. With such an unpredictable, fast-changing task as communications technology research, in that location were numerous approaches to getting the job done well. As a consequence, Stockton managers used a less structured pattern of formal practices that left the scientists in the lab free to respond to the changing task state of affairs.

    • Akron’due south formal practices were very much geared to
      short-term
      and
      manufacturing
      concerns as its task demanded. For example, formal production reports and operating review sessions were daily occurrences, consistent with the fact that the through-put time for their products was typically merely a few hours.

    By contrast, Stockton’s formal practices were geared to
    long-term
    and
    scientific
    concerns, equally its task demanded. Formal reports and reviews were made just quarterly, reflecting the fact that research often does not come up to fruition for three to five years.

    At the 2 less constructive sites (i.eastward., the Hartford constitute and the Carmel laboratory), the formal organizational characteristics did not fit their respective tasks nearly too. For instance, Hartford’due south formal practices were much less structured and controlling than were Akron’s, while Carmel’southward were more than restraining and restricting than were Stockton’due south. A scientist in Carmel commented:

    “There’s something here that keeps you from beingness scientific. It’south hard to put your finger on, only I guess I’d call it ‘Mickey Mouse.’ There are rules and things hither that get in your style regarding doing your job as a researcher.”

    Climate characteristics

    As with formal practices, the climate in both high-performing Akron and Stockton suited the respective tasks much better than did the climates at the less successful Hartford and Carmel sites.

    Perception of construction:

    The people in the Akron establish perceived a great deal of structure, with their beliefs tightly controlled and defined. One manager in the plant said:

    “Nosotros tin’t let the lines run unattended. We lose money whenever they practise. So we make sure each human knows his chore, knows when he can take a break, knows how to handle a change in shifts, etc. It’s all spelled out clearly for him the twenty-four hour period he comes to work hither.”

    In contrast, the scientists in the Stockton laboratory perceived very little structure, with their behavior just minimally controlled. Such perceptions encouraged the individualistic and artistic behavior that the uncertain, speedily irresolute research job needed. Scientists in the less successful Carmel laboratory perceived much more than structure in their organization and voiced the feeling that this was “getting in their way” and making it hard to practise effective research.

    Distribution of influence:

    The Akron plant and the Stockton laboratory also differed substantially in how influence was distributed and on the character of superior-subordinate and colleague relations. Akron personnel felt that they had much less influence over decisions in their plant than Stockton’s scientists did in their laboratory. The task at Akron had already been clearly defined and that definition had, in a sense, been incorporated into the automated production menses itself. Therefore, there was less need for individuals to accept a say in decisions apropos the work process.

    Moreover, in Akron, influence was perceived to exist concentrated in the upper levels of the formal structure (a hierarchical or “top-heavy” distribution), while in Stockton influence was perceived to be more than evenly spread out amid more levels of the formal structure (an egalitarian distribution).

    Akron’s members perceived themselves to accept a low degree of freedom vis-à-vis superiors both in choosing the jobs they work on and in handling these jobs on their ain. They also described the type of supervision in the constitute every bit being relatively directive. Stockton’south scientists, on the other hand, felt that they had a not bad deal of freedom vis-à-vis their superiors both in choosing the tasks and projects, and in treatment them in the way that they wanted to. They described supervision in the laboratory as existence very participatory.

    It is interesting to note that the less successful Carmel laboratory had more of its decisions made at the summit. Considering of this, in that location was a definite feeling by the scientists that their detail expertise was not being finer used in choosing projects.

    Relations with others:

    The people at Akron perceived a not bad deal of similarity amid themselves in background, prior work experiences, and approaches for tackling job-related problems. They also perceived the caste of coordination of endeavour among colleagues to be very high. Considering Akron’southward task was so precisely defined and the behavior of its members and then rigidly controlled around the automated lines, it is easy to run into that this pattern too fabricated sense.

    Past contrast, Stockton’southward scientists perceived not only a great many differences among themselves, especially in didactics and background, but also that the coordination of effort among colleagues was relatively low. This was appropriate for a laboratory in which a great variety of disciplines and skills were present and individual projects were important to solve technological problems.

    Time orientation:

    As we would await, Akron’due south individuals were highly oriented toward a relatively short time span and manufacturing goals. They responded to quick feedback concerning the quality and service that the plant was providing. This was essential, given the nature of their task.

    Stockton’south researchers were highly oriented toward a longer fourth dimension span and scientific goals. These orientations meant that they were willing to wait for long-term feedback from a research project that might have years to complete. A scientist in Stockton said:

    “We’re non the kind of people here who demand a pat on the back every day. Nosotros can expect for months if necessary before we get feedback from colleagues and the profession. I’ve been working on one project now for 3 months and I’k still not certain where it’s going to take me. I can alive with that, though.”

    This is precisely the kind of beliefs and mental attitude that spells success on this kind of chore.

    Managerial manner:

    Finally, the individuals in both Akron and Stockton perceived their chief executive to accept a “managerial manner” that expressed more of a concern for the job than for people or relationships, simply this seemed to fit both tasks.

    In Akron, the technology of the task was so ascendant that height managerial behavior which was not focused primarily on the task might have reduced the effectiveness of functioning. On the other hand, although Stockton’due south research task chosen for more individualistic problem-solving behavior, that sort of behavior could have become segmented and uncoordinated, unless the top executive in the lab focused the group’s attention on the overall inquiry job. Given the individualistic bent of the scientists, this was an important force in achieving unity of effort.

    All these differences in climate characteristics in the 2 high performers are summarized in Exhibit 3.

    Exhibit Iii. Differences in “Climate” Characteristics in High-performing Organizations

    Every bit with formal attributes, the less effective Hartford and Carmel sites had organization climates that showed a perceptibly lower degree of fit with their respective tasks. For instance, the Hartford plant had an egalitarian distribution of influence, perceptions of a low degree of structure, and a more participatory blazon of supervision. The Carmel laboratory had a somewhat top-heavy distribution of influence, perceptions of high structure, and a more than directive blazon of supervision.

    Competence Motivation

    Considering of the difference in organizational characteristics at Akron and Stockton, the ii sites were strikingly unlike places in which to work. Simply these organizations had two very important things in mutual. First, each organization fit very well the requirements of its task. 2nd, although the behavior in the ii organizations was different, the result in both cases was effective task performance.

    Since, as we indicated earlier, our primary business organisation in this study was to link the fit between organization and job with individual motivation to perform finer, we devised a 2-part examination to measure the sense of competence motivation of the individuals at both sites. Thus:

    The
    first
    role asked a participant to write creative and imaginative stories in response to six cryptic pictures.

    The
    2nd
    asked him to write a creative and imaginative story about what he would be doing, thinking, and feeling “tomorrow” on his job. This is called a “projective” test because it is assumed that the respondent projects into his stories his ain attitudes, thoughts, feelings, needs, and wants, all of which can be measured from the stories.5

    The results indicated that the individuals in Akron and Stockton showed significantly more feelings of competence than did their counterparts in the lower-fit Hartford and Carmel organizations.half-dozen
    We found that the organization-task fit is simultaneously linked to and interdependent with both private motivation and effective unit performance. (This interdependency is illustrated in Showroom IV.)

    Exhibit IV. Basic Contingent Relationships

    Putting the conclusions in this form raises the question of cause and effect. Does effective unit of measurement performance result from the job-organization fit or from higher motivation, or perhaps from both? Does college sense of competence motivation effect from effective unit performance or from fit?

    Our answer to these questions is that nosotros do not call back there are whatsoever single cause-and-consequence relationships, simply that these factors are mutually interrelated. This has of import implications for management theory and exercise.

    Contingency Theory

    Returning to McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y assumptions, we can now question the validity of some of his conclusions. While Theory Y might help to explain the findings in the two laboratories, we clearly need something other than Theory 10 or Y assumptions to explain the findings in the plants.

    For example, the managers at Akron worked in a formalized system setting with relatively trivial participation in conclusion making, and yet they were highly motivated. Co-ordinate to Theory X, people would work difficult in such a setting only because they were coerced to do and so. According to Theory Y, they should have been involved in decision making and been self-directed to feel so motivated. Nothing in our information indicates that either set up of assumptions was valid at Akron.

    Conversely, the managers at Hartford, the low-performing establish, were in a less formalized arrangement with more participation in conclusion making, and withal they were not as highly motivated similar the Akron managers. The Theory Y assumptions would suggest that they should have been more motivated.

    A way out of such paradoxes is to country a new set of assumptions, the Contingency Theory, that seems to explain the findings at all four sites:

    i. Human beings bring varying patterns of needs and motives into the work arrangement, but one cardinal need is to achieve a sense of competence.

    ii. The sense of competence motive, while it exists in all human beings, may exist fulfilled in different means past different people depending on how this need interacts with the strengths of the individuals’ other needs—such equally those for power, independence, construction, achievement, and amalgamation.

    three. Competence motivation is almost likely to exist fulfilled when at that place is a fit between chore and organization.

    4. Sense of competence continues to motivate even when a competence goal is accomplished; once one goal is reached, a new, higher 1 is set.

    While the central thrust of these points is clear from the preceding discussion of the study, some elaboration can be made. First, the thought that different people have dissimilar needs is well understood past psychologists. Nonetheless, all besides often, managers presume that all people have similar needs. Lest nosotros be accused of the aforementioned error, nosotros are saying only that all people have a need to feel competent; in this
    i
    mode they are like. But in many other dimensions of personality, individuals differ, and these differences volition determine how a detail person achieves a sense of competence.

    Thus, for case, the people in the Akron constitute seemed to be very dissimilar from those in the Stockton laboratory in their underlying attitudes toward dubiety, authority, and relationships with their peers. And because they had unlike need patterns along these dimensions, both groups were highly motivated by achieving competence from quite different activities and settings.

    While there is a demand to further investigate how people who work in unlike settings differ in their psychological makeup, one important implication of the Contingency Theory is that nosotros must not only seek a fit between system and task, only too between chore and people and between people and organization.

    A further point which requires elaboration is that one’due south sense of competence never really comes to rest. Rather, the real satisfaction of this demand is in the successful performance itself, with no diminishing of the motivation as one goal is reached. Since feelings of competence are thus reinforced by successful operation, they tin be a more than consistent and reliable motivator than salary and benefits.

    Implications for managers

    The major managerial implication of the Contingency Theory seems to rest in the job-organization-people fit. Although this interrelationship is complex, the best possibility for managerial action probably is in tailoring the system to fit the task and the people. If such a fit is achieved, both effective unit performance and a higher sense of competence motivation seem to event.

    Managers can start this procedure by considering how certain the task is, how oftentimes feedback about task operation is bachelor, and what goals are implicit in the task. The answers to these questions volition guide their decisions about the design of the direction bureaucracy, the specificity of chore assignments, and the utilization of rewards and control procedures. Selective use of training programs and a general emphasis on appropriate direction styles will move them toward a task-organisation fit.

    The problem of achieving a fit amidst job, organization, and people is something we know less about. Equally we have already suggested, we need further investigation of what personality characteristics fit various tasks and organizations. Fifty-fifty with our limited knowledge, however, there are indications that people will gradually gravitate into organizations that fit their particular personalities. Managers tin assistance this procedure past condign more aware of what psychological needs seem to all-time fit the tasks available and the organizational setting, and by trying to shape personnel selection criteria to have account of these needs.

    In arguing for an approach which emphasizes the fit among task, system, and people, we are putting to rest the question of which organizational approach—the classical or the participative—is best. In its place nosotros are raising a new question: What organizational arroyo is most appropriate given the task and the people involved?

    For many enterprises, given the new needs of younger employees for more autonomy, and the rapid rates of social and technological change, information technology may well be that the more than participative arroyo is the nigh appropriate. Merely there will still exist many situations in which the more controlled and formalized organization is desirable. Such an arrangement demand not be coercive or punitive. If it makes sense to the individuals involved, given their needs and their jobs, they will find it rewarding and motivating.

    Concluding Notation

    The reader volition recognize that the complexity we accept described is not of our own making. The basic deficiency with earlier approaches is that they did non recognize the variability in tasks and people which produces this complexity. The strength of the contingency approach we accept outlined is that it begins to provide a mode of thinking about this complication, rather than ignoring it. While our knowledge in this expanse is nonetheless growing, we are certain that any adequate theory of motivation and organization volition have to take account of the contingent relationship between task, organization, and people.

    1. Douglas McGregor,
    The Human Side of Enterprise
    (New York, McGraw-Loma Book Company, Inc., 1960), pp. 34–35 and pp. 47–48.

    2. See for example Paul R. Lawrence and Jay Due west. Lorsch,
    Organization and Environment
    (Boston, Harvard Business School, Partition of Research, 1967); Joan Woodward,
    Industrial Arrangement: Theory & Practice
    (New York, Oxford University Printing, Inc., 1965); Tom Burns and G.Grand. Stalker,
    The Management of Innovation
    (London, Tavistock Publications, 1961); Harold J. Leavitt, “Unhuman Organizations,” HBR July–August 1962, p. xc.

    3. McGregor, op. cit., p. 245.

    4. See Robert W. White, “Ego and Reality in Psychoanalytic Theory,”
    Psychological Problems,
    Vol. Iii, No. 3 (New York, International Universities Press, 1963).

    5. For a more than detailed clarification of this survey, see John J. Morse,
    Internal Organizational Patterning and Sense of Competence Motivation
    (Boston, Harvard Business organisation Schoolhouse, unpublished doctoral dissertation, 1969).

    6. Differences between the two container plants are significant at .001 and between the inquiry laboratories at .01 (ane-tailed probability).

    A version of this article appeared in the May 1970 issue of
    Harvard Concern Review.