Douglas McGregor on Science
Browse 3 quotations attributed to Douglas McGregor, catalogued under Science, with dates where available.
This page displays 3 quotations attributed to Douglas McGregor and filed under "Science" in QuoteLineage. The selection is ordered by stored importance and quality scores, not citation counts. A topic label describes how an entry is catalogued; it does not establish the theme's importance in the author's work.
Attributed to Douglas McGregor, entry #192871: "Classical organization theory suffers from "ethnocentrism": It ignores the significance of the political, social, and economic milieu in shaping organizations and influencing mana…"
Attributed to Douglas McGregor, entry #242585: "Every managerial act rests on assumptions, generalizations, and hypotheses — that is to say, on theory. Our assumptions are frequently implicit, sometimes quite unconscious, often…"
3 Quotes by Douglas McGregor on Science
"Classical organization theory suffers from "ethnocentrism": It ignores the significance of the political, social, and economic milieu in shaping organizations and influencing managerial practice."
"Every managerial act rests on assumptions, generalizations, and hypotheses — that is to say, on theory. Our assumptions are frequently implicit, sometimes quite unconscious, often conflicting; nevertheless, they determine our predictions that if we do a, b will occur. Theory and practice are inseparable."
"Human behavior is predictable, but, as in physical science, accurate prediction hinges on the correctness of underlying theoretical assumptions. There is, in fact, no prediction without theory; all managerial decisions and actions rest on assumptions about behavior. If we adopt the posture of the ostrich with respect to our assumptions under the mistaken idea that we are thus “being ‘practical,” or that “management is an art,” our progress with respect to the human side of enterprise will indeed be slow. Only as we examine and test our theoretical assumptions can we hope to make them more adequate, to remove inconsistencies, and thus to improve our ability to predict."