Science & invention / Business & brands
Douglas McGregor
1906–1964 · management theorist, psychologist
Management theorist of Theory X and Theory Y, born in Detroit into the family that ran the McGregor Institute, a mission for homeless men, and a graduate of today's Wayne State.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Massachusetts
aged 58- Birth name
- Douglas Murray McGregor
- Detroit years
- 1906–1932
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
McGregor was born in Detroit in 1906. His family ran the McGregor Institute, which began as the Mission for Homeless Men and offered Detroit's homeless both religious services and help finding work; he worked there as a high school student, and his uncle was the Detroit philanthropist Tracy W. McGregor. He left college in Detroit to work at a gas station in Buffalo, New York, where he became a regional manager by 1930, and came back when the institute received a grant from the city's Department of Public Works, finishing his bachelor's degree at what is now Wayne State University in 1932. He earned a Harvard doctorate in psychology in 1935, taught at MIT, led Antioch College from 1948 to 1954 and returned to MIT's Sloan School. His book The Human Side of Enterprise (1960) contrasted Theory X, which assumes workers must be driven, with Theory Y, which trusts them to direct themselves.
Highlights
- The Human Side of Enterprise (1960): Theory X and Theory Y
- President of Antioch College, 1948–1954
- Professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management
- Bachelor's degree from today's Wayne State University, 1932
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · 1920s–1932
Wayne State University (then Wayne University)
He began and, after a spell in Buffalo, finished his bachelor's degree here (then the College of the City of Detroit).