CLEP Principles of Management Exam Prep

Answer: True. Douglas McGregor was a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management (your editor’s alma mater) who proposed these two theories of human motivation. Theory X assumes workers are inherently lazy and will avoid work if they can, while Theory Y assumes workers can be ambitious if they are properly motivated.

Key Takeaway: McGregor didn’t believe either X or Y was right or wrong, but rather that companies tended to follow one approach or the other with regards to managing their employees. It’s valuable to understand what direction the organizational culture where you are working tends to tilt. Most companies are, of course, somewhere in between.