The words of Douglas McGregor, one of the fore-fathers of management theory and one of the top business thinkers of all time, cannot and should not be ignored. McGregor's vision of a more humanistic workplace may not have been widely accepted over three decades ago, but technological advancements that McGregor himself anticipated have paradoxically helped companies become more human. Viewing employees not as cogs in the machine but as living beings with individual goals-what McGregor called "the human side of the enterprise"-has proven to provide a remarkable competitive advantage. Now, with the rise of the networked economy, the growing power of frontline workers, and the shift in power from mass producer to individual consumer, authors Gary Heil, Warren Bennis, and Deborah Stephens assert that McGregor's ideas are more important and relevant than ever before. Douglas McGregor, Revisited emphasizes McGregor's lasting influence and updates his thinking with new concepts, fresh strategies, and modern implementation. This timely work traces McGregor's original thinking, which has emerged in current approaches that stress distributed leadership, open-minded appraisal techniques, and employee/customer commitment. Highlighted throughout with gems of wisdom in McGregor's own words, the book describes the value of his theories for today's managers. The authors carefully outline how to put McGregor's thinking into practice in your own business so you can: * Devise a better performance management system * Form and supervise effective management teams * Build cooperation instead of internal competition * Cultivate an intrinsically motivating, values-driven workplace * Create a cause worthy of employee commitment Also featured are examples from a host of companies and leaders who have flourished under McGregor's approach. Authoritative and highly instructive, Douglas McGregor, Revisited offers new generations of managers important lessons from history and from the field. Praise for Douglas McGregor, Revisited "This book revisits in a contemporary manner the most important question facing management today: given what we know about human nature, how should work be managed so as to unleash the vast creative potential of human beings? The evidence is overwhelming that many people either come to an organization or can be appropriately led to exhibit the behavior McGregor characterized as 'Theory Y.' This book provides a 'how-to' approach for developing people at work and for establishing high performance organizations."-Joseph A. Maciariello, Horton Professor of Management Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management, Claremont Graduate University and Claremont McKenna College. Author of Lasting Value: Lessons from a Century of Agility at Lincoln Electric Douglas McGregor's seminal works, The Human Side of the Enterprise and The Professional Manager, debunked Taylorism and described a revolutionary way to manage people. He was the first to apply the findings in behavioral science to the world of business. Based on what had been learned about human behavior, McGregor explored the implications of managing people in a different manner than tradition dictated. The nature of work today makes McGregor's ideas more relevant than ever before. This important book applies his thinking to today's business world, proving again that the human aspect of work is crucial to organizational effectiveness. It also suggests how you can change your thinking and implement his ideas in your own business and workplace.

In Productive Workplaces Revisited, Marvin Weisbord takes the next step in exploring effective strategies for improving workplace productivity through dignity, meaning, and community. Remarkably, in this new edition the author revisits the case studies from the first edition, Productive Workplaces, to show the long-term effects of OD interventions -- twenty-plus years after the fact and provides invaluable insights for practitioner and student alike. In five new chapters, Weisbord reinterprets his systems work in health care and steel-making, describes how “future search,” his method for “getting everybody improving whole systems,” has crossed cultures on five continents, and summarizes his learning from following up cases decades later. This edition also presents in-depth case studies of organizations that have used these techniques to increase output, cut costs, create strategic plans, manage conflict between functions, and more.

What makes a good manager? Though we can probably all point to someone we think of as a good manager, what precisely makes them so good at their job is a complex question – and one central to good business organization. Management scholar Douglas McGregor’s seminal 1960 book The Human Side of Enterprise is perhaps the most influential attempt to answer that question, and provides an excellent example of strong evaluative and reasoning skills in action. Evaluation is all about judging the strength and weakness of positions: a critical evaluation asks how acceptable a line of reasoning is, how adequate, relevant and convincing the evidence is. McGregor sought to find out what makes a good manager by evaluating different management approaches, their assumptions about human behavior, and effects they had. In his view, management approaches could be roughly broken down into two “theories”: Theory X, which held a negative idea of employee motivations; and Theory Y, which made positive assumptions about them. In McGregor’s evaluation, Theory Y produced markedly better results in productivity and other measurable areas. On this basis, McGregor reasoned out a strong, persuasive argument for adopting Theory Y strategies on a grand scale.

One of the most pressing issues in current and future human resource management is the inclusion of strengths and life stages within human resource structures. This book examines in a multi-perspective, innovative and participatory way the conditioning factors for persistent stereotyping processes in the context of age and work. Levers for change as well as the circular model for optimizing or implementing life-phase oriented human resource management are presented. The book is valuable for lecturers and students with a focus on corporate and human resources management. It also offers practical assistance for corporate leaders and human resources managers for the implementation of a strength-oriented human resources management.

This book was contributed and edited to meet the ever-increasing demands imposed on public administration. In addition to individuals seeking Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Public Administration, this book is also intended for those interested in some other competitive examinations. This is a genuine effort to present public administration students, scholars, and practitioners with relevant information. Complete values that will enable them to get an in-depth comprehension of administrative theories; each chapter has its peculiarities and incorporates a significant variety of learning aids largely from an Indian administrative perspective. This will allow them to obtain the knowledge required to do their jobs successfully. This book is a compilation of several notes and articles, each of which symbolises a theoretical as well as an actual occurrence in a different section of the globe. The objective was to give modern advancements in organisational theories along with examples centred on particular difficulties.

The Active Society, published in 1968, is the most ambitious book in Amitai Etzioni's remarkable career. In this new collection of essays, Wilson Carey McWilliams brings together scholars in a range of disciplines to analyze the significance and shortcomings of this important work.

The fifth edition of the original, best-selling guide to the ideas of leading management thinkers. The ten additional full-length entries range from classic gurus such as Henry Gantt and the Gilbreth time-and-motion pioneers to the latest thinkers influencing 21st-century business, including Clayton Christensen, master of innovation theory, and Karen Stephenson with her ground-breaking insights into human networks. The lives and work of more than 55 gurus are covered in clear and accessible style, along with penetrating analysis of their ideas and influence on management. Guide to the Management Gurus has sold around the world since its first publication in 1991, and has been translated into more than 15 languages, including Russian, Chinese, Korean and Japanese.

Brief biographical sketches of ten internally acclaimed modern management academicians.

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Educational Leadership and Administration presents the most recent theories, research, terms, concepts, ideas, and histories on educational leadership and school administration as taught in preparation programs and practiced in schools and colleges today. With more than 600 entries, written by more than 200 professors, graduate students, practitioners, and association officials, the two volumes of this encyclopedia represent the most comprehensive knowledge base of educational leadership and school administration that has, as yet, been compiled.

Selected as a Financial Times Best Book of 2013 In Strategy: A History, Sir Lawrence Freedman, one of the world's leading authorities on war and international politics, captures the vast history of strategic thinking, in a consistently engaging and insightful account of how strategy came to pervade every aspect of our lives. The range of Freedman's narrative is extraordinary, moving from the surprisingly advanced strategy practiced in primate groups, to the opposing strategies of Achilles and Odysseus in The Iliad, the strategic advice of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli, the great military innovations of Baron Henri de Jomini and Carl von Clausewitz, the grounding of revolutionary strategy in class struggles by Marx, the insights into corporate strategy found in Peter Drucker and Alfred Sloan, and the contributions of the leading social scientists working on strategy today. The core issue at the heart of strategy, the author notes, is whether it is possible to manipulate and shape our environment rather than simply become the victim of forces beyond one's control. Time and again, Freedman demonstrates that the inherent unpredictability of this environment-subject to chance events, the efforts of opponents, the missteps of friends-provides strategy with its challenge and its drama. Armies or corporations or nations rarely move from one predictable state of affairs to another, but instead feel their way through a series of states, each one not quite what was anticipated, requiring a reappraisal of the original strategy, including its ultimate objective. Thus the picture of strategy that emerges in this book is one that is fluid and flexible, governed by the starting point, not the end point. A brilliant overview of the most prominent strategic theories in history, from David's use of deception against Goliath, to the modern use of game theory in economics, this masterful volume sums up a lifetime of reflection on strategy.