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Motivation is the process that accounts for an individual’s intensity, direction and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal (Robbins and Judge, 2008). Teacher motivation is vital to the growing and evolving field of higher education, yet it is not investigated enough. Need for rapid growth of higher education, issues in compensation, developments in information technology and dearth for teaching and technical skills brought teacher motivation to the center stage. The purpose of this paper is to apply McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y to study teacher motivation in higher education.

An empirical study was conducted through survey method. A questionnaire was designed to elicit responses from randomly selected respondents.

Teachers in higher education were classified under Theory X and Theory Y styles. The relationship between teaching style and specific motivators in the class and on the job, preferred teaching methods and classroom management techniques were investigated.

Application of McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y to understand teacher motivation in higher education provided interesting and new insights.

This study would have implications for teacher-student fit and institution-teacher fit in learning environments.

The nature of a teacher’s way-of-being matters to his/her motivation and performance in classroom. Implications exist for teacher recruitment and teacher training programs in relation to the profile of students and identifying and implementing right methodologies for classroom performance. This study has andragogical implications for classroom teaching, relationship with students and parents and interpersonal relationships among peers and education administrators.

Although McGregor’s Theory X and Y holds significant attention in literature, research on the managerial assumptions and leadership is very scarce. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of a leader’s Theory X and Y managerial assumptions on follower perceptions of transformational leadership behaviors and the moderating role of the leader’s gender in this relationship.

A total of 108 leaders provided ratings of their Theory X and Y managerial assumptions; 398 followers then rated their leaders’ transformational leadership behavior. To test the hypotheses, moderated hierarchical regression analysis was conducted.

The results indicated that a leader’s Theory Y managerial assumptions are positively related to the followers’ ratings of transformational leadership behavior while a leader’s Theory X managerial assumptions are negatively related to the ratings of transformational leadership behavior. Furthermore, the relationship between Theory Y managerial assumptions and ratings of transformational leadership behavior are stronger for female leaders than male leaders.

This study provides important insights for leadership literature by depicting how cognitive mental schemas (i.e. Theory X and Y assumptions) and gender influence their transformational leadership behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of leaders’ Theory X and Y managerial assumptions on subordinates’ attitudes and behaviors.

Military leaders (n=50) completed a questionnaire with Theory X and Y scale and their subordinates (n=150) completed a questionnaire with the scales of satisfaction with leader, affective commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior. The paper used hierarchical linear modeling to test the hypotheses.

The results indicated that the Theory Y management style is significantly and positively associated with subordinates’ satisfaction with the leader, affective commitment, and organizational citizenship behaviors. The Theory X management style had a significantly negative impact on subordinates’ satisfaction with the leader, but no significant impact on affective commitment and organizational citizenship behavior. The findings of the present study suggest that the Theory X and Y managerial assumptions are a worthwhile basis from which to examine several important organizational and individual outcomes.

The sample consisted of military personnel and were predominantly male. This may limit the generalizability of the findings.

The findings of the present study suggest that the Theory X and Y managerial assumptions are a worthwhile basis from which to examine several important organizational and individual outcomes.

Although McGregor's (1960) Theory X and Y have contributed to management and leadership thinking and practice for many years; empirical studies examining the Theory X and Y managerial assumptions in a work environment are very scarce. By examining the effect of leader's Theory X and Y managerial assumptions on follower's attitudes and behaviors, the study provides important insights for leadership literature.

The purpose of this paper is to take a new look at an old idea: since McGregor’s work in the 1960s, it is common knowledge that managers’ implicit theories about their followers can have self-fulfilling consequences. Surprisingly, McGregor’s work has largely remained within the bounds of employee motivation and has not met with a wide response in related fields such as service management. Assuming that managers do not only hold implicit theories of their followers but also of their customers (i.e. implicit customer theories), this paper transfers McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y to the service context. It further derives a framework of possible consistencies and inconsistencies between management styles and service strategies, depending on implicit managerial theories about the average employee and customer.

This conceptual paper integrates a management classic, current empirical findings, and media reports into a new line of thought.

This paper develops and undergirds the thesis that it is conducive to the development of trustful and productive relationships both with customers and followers if managers proceed from confident assumptions about them, thereby activating virtuous circles instead of vicious cycles.

This paper links concepts from the organizational domain to the service domain. It implies a normative component in arguing for the productive potential of positive and the destructive potential of negative assumptions about both followers and customers. The value of this idea lies in the potential for positive relational dynamics and better customer and workplace relationships.

This study seeks to explore whether McGregor's Theory X/Y assumptions are related to managers’ communication apprehension (CA) – their degree of comfort when interacting with others.

Surveys measuring Theory X/Y assumptions and CA were administered to 281 full‐time managers from divergent industries across the USA. Hypotheses were tested using correlations.

Moderate scores on the Theory X scale were positively correlated with traitlike CA and CA in interpersonal contexts. Managers’ total and high scores on the Theory Y scale were negatively correlated with traitlike CA and CA in groups, interpersonal conversations, and meetings. Moderate scores on the Theory Y scale were positively correlated with CA in groups. Low scores on the Theory Y scale were positively correlated with traitlike CA and CA in interpersonal and public speaking settings.

This study extends the broad landscape of literature on management communication. Findings deepen our understanding of how managers’ communicative dispositions are linked to their Theory X/Y assumptions.

Since the notion of “management style” can be defined in different ways, I need to make clear at the outset how I propose to use it. It is sometimes meant to refer to no more than the manager's personal mode of behaviour—to the ways in which he conducts his immediate social relations with colleagues and subordinates. How does he give orders, seek advice, bestow praise or blame? There is an abundance of literature devoted to what might be called the tactics of face‐to‐face relationships. Much of it is hardly above the level of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, but some provide insight that is valuable for anyone involved in leadership and authority relations. I shall, however, refer to it only in passing, not because I want to disparage it, but because I want to use the notion of management style in the much broader sense of an over‐all strategy for organisational design. Under this usage, style refers to management in one of its most fundamental dimensions—namely its responsibility for the design and mode of functioning of the organisation through which management hopes to achieve its purposes.

The purpose of this paper is to propose that the Theory X style of management arose from a fundamental attribution error, in which managers assumed that employees’ lack of motivation was a disposition rather than a function of unmotivating work situations.

The paper reviews the nature of work during the industrial revolution from a Job Characteristics Model perspective and compares Theory X and Theory Y perspectives in terms of their emphasis on dispositional or situational influences on behavior.

It was found that factory work performed during the industrial revolution was likely to be deficient in terms of the five core dimensions of the Job Characteristics Model, and would have been unmotivating. Because of the fundamental attribution error, managers would have assumed that workers were unmotivated by nature, but the situation was likely the cause of their lack of motivation.

As illustrated by our findings, management theory development and interpretation can benefit from understanding the historical context within which the theory was developed. Considering both situational and person (i.e. individual differences or traits) effects is particularly important for theory development.

The unique contribution of this paper is to make the connection between the characteristics of work performed during the industrial revolution and consequent inaccurate managerial attributions of worker motivation (i.e. Theory X).

Unlike the effect of management styles on employee attitudes, little is known about the effect of managerial assumptions on workers within the gig economy. The purpose of this paper is to utilize McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y as a framework to discuss two gig economy platforms and how their differing management assumptions affect worker perceptions of themselves as entrepreneurs.

The author utilized qualitative interviews and demographic surveys with 41 contract workers from TaskRabbit, a personal assistant platform, and Kitchensurfing, a “rent-a-chef” service, to examine the impact of differing management assumptions on independent contractor perceptions of themselves as entrepreneurs.

The Theory X management assumptions and correlated behaviors directly contradict the entrepreneurial ethos marketed by the platforms, resulting in a psychological contract violation for workers and negative responses to the platform. In comparison, Theory Y managerial assumptions and correlated behaviors can be utilized to encourage worker innovation, creativity and sense of self as an entrepreneur.

As the gig economy continues to grow, algorithms are likely to take on increased importance as a management tool. Although some have suggested that such algorithms may reduce the impact of a capricious manager, the fact remains that algorithms are created by management. If the gig economy intends to encourage entrepreneurship, additional attention must be paid to how differing management assumptions, and their resulting behaviors and algorithms, affect worker attitudes and experience.

This study represents one of the initial academic investigations into how the Theory X and Theory Y management assumptions and correlated perspectives may be applied to independent contractors within the gig economy. Additionally, this study is among the first to examine how gig worker attitudes toward platform firms, and views of themselves as entrepreneurs, are affected by algorithm-implemented management policies.