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"[A new theory] is discovered, explored for a while, and then usually abandoned when the going gets rough or uninteresting." (Ring, 1967: 120)
McGregor's ideas about Theory X and Theory Y were first articulated in his article, "The Human Side of Enterprise," (McGregor, 1957) and were expanded upon in his book with the same title (McGregor, 1960). More than forty years later, Miner (2003) surveyed subject matter experts (past presidents of the Academy of Management and editors and journal review board members of two prominent publications, AMJ and AMR), to ascertain their familiarity with and their rated importance (theoretical utility and practical relevance) of 73 organizational behavior (broadly defined) theories. Miner (2003) found that McGregor's (1957; 1960/1985; 1966; 1967) (hereafter, for brevity, cited as McGregor, 1960) Theory X and Theory Y was tied for second place as the most well-known theory in organizational behavior out of the universe of 73 theories. However, the impact between X/Y attitudes and job performance has never been empirically substantiated. Yet, McGregor's (1960) assumption that employees perform better under managers who advance self-direction and self-motivation is widelyaccepted and espoused by managers in organizations and management writers.
There are two highly plausible reasons why prior research has not empirically supported McGregor's (1960) Theoiy X and Theoiy Y (or, for brevity, Theoiy XA7) with regard to job performance. First, there has been a failure to distinguish between Theoiy XA7 attitudes and Theoiy XA7 behaviors. The three prior studies that have made this distinction were recently conducted solely to develop construct-valid measures of both XA7 attitudes and XA7 behaviors (Kopelman et al., 2008; Kopelman et ai, 2010; Kopelman el ai, 2012). Second, the methodological approach employed in previous substantive studies examined the incorrect unit of analysis: rather than using an acrossindividual correlational design, a multilevel, multi-source individual/workgroup analysis was needed. The current research is the first inquiry to establish an empirical relationship between McGregor's (1960) Theory XA7 assumptions and job performance using a multilevel, multi-sourced methodology which controls for within-group variance by employing hierarchical linear modeling.
In one of the two prior, unsuccessful attempts to link Theory XA7 attitudes to job performance, Fiman (1973) did not distinguish between XA7 attitudes and XA7 behaviors, and upon examining across-individual data, found a correlation with individual...