XYX THEORIES

Theory X

With Theory X assumptions, management's role is to coerce and control employees.

- People have an inherent dislike for work and will avoid it whenever possible.

- People must be coerced, controlled, directed, or threatened with punishment in order to get them to achieve the organizational objectives.

- People prefer to be directed, do not want responsibility, and have little or no ambition.

- People seek security above all else.

Theory Y

With Theory Y assumptions, management's role is to develop the potential in employees and help them to release that potential towards common goals.

- Work is as natural as play and rest.

- People will exercise self-direction if they are committed to the objectives (they are NOT lazy).

- Commitment to objectives is a function of the rewards associated with their achievement.

- People learn to accept and seek responsibility.

- Creativity, ingenuity, and imagination are widely distributed among the population. People are capable of using these abilities to solve an organizational problem.

- People have potential.

Theory Z

Theory Z is a form of management in which workers are involved in the work process on the factory floor. Schedules, division of labor, work assignments, and other aspects of the labor process are given over to workers to do as they see best. Investment policies, wages, fringe benefits and kind of product are not given over to workers to decide; only how best to do that decided by top management.