Theory X is an idea advanced by Dr. Douglas McGregor which theorizes that the workforce is antagonistic to the idea of work and must be supervised and manipulated in order to be productive. Dr. McGregor also postulated the opposing Theory Y, which stated the opposite and summarized that employees are actually self-motivated and need little [...]

Matrix organizational structures emerged in the 1970’s as an effort to restructure inefficient organizational structures to support the more efficient project-based management.  Until then, big organizations had tendency to operate in "silos", rational divisions where basically separated groups of workers would report to a line manager or functional manager.
Functional Organizational Structure
Big organizations used [...]

Theory X: Money makes the world go ‘round
While watching the documentary Office Tigers , the story of the American owned business in India, I was consistently reminded of my recent reading of Douglas McGregor’s Human Side of Enterprise . This is obviously one very Theory X company .
A key concept in a Theory X [...]

Among the numerous types of organization management structures, the functional organizational structure finds its place.  An organization needs structure for achieving common goals – the functional model is structured hierarchically with a strong concept of subordination.  Most companies in the modern era rely upon this functional/hierarchical model (cf: Matrix organizational structure ).
In the functional organization, [...]

Strong matrix organizations were unheard of earlier than the 1970’s, as almost every large business operated in a functional organizational structure according to a "silo" model.   In this older structure, workers functioned in isolated groupings, subordinate to functional managers.  Picture, if you will, multiple columns drawn on a page; each column representation is led by [...]