Bottom-Up Management: Participative Philosophy and Humanistic Psychology in American Organizational Culture, 1930-1970
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Bottom-Up Management: Participative Philosophy and Humanistic Psychology in American Organizational Culture, 1930-1970 Jenna Feltey Alden Submitted in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2012 © 2012 Jenna Feltey Alden All rights reserved ABSTRACT Bottom-Up Management: Participative Philosophy and Humanistic Psychology in American Organizational Culture, 1930-1970 Jenna Feltey Alden This dissertation examines the rise and fall of participative and humanistic management in American organizational culture. In the years surrounding World War II, an influential network of psychologists and human-relations experts successfully promoted the idea that managers’ involvement of subordinates in decision-making, along with their cultivation of underlings’ authentic self-expression, would boost the effectiveness of organizations, individuals, and the nation as a whole. Four men proved particularly influential in this endeavor: German social psychologist Kurt Lewin (co-founder of the National Training Laboratories), survey pioneer Rensis Likert (founder of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan), humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow (developer of the “hierarchy of needs”), and industrial psychologist Douglas McGregor (author of The Human Side of Enterprise). Each of these men was deeply concerned about the fate of democracy in modern society, which they feared was endangered by both authoritarianism abroad and bureaucratic dehumanization at home. Each insisted that the nurturing of participation and “self-actualization” within organizations could help build an increasingly peaceful order in industry and the world at large. Ultimately, they found their most enthusiastic converts within the corner offices and personnel departments of corporations. The dissertation argues that for roughly two and a half decades after World War II, this network of anti-fascist, pro-democratic theorists and practitioners injected their idealism into corporate culture and ultimately recast popular expectations for the relationship between organizational work and selfhood. These theorists’ ability to make humanistic and participative management palatable to industrial leaders– largely through promises of intertwined psychological and economic growth –offered them significant inroads into mainstream organizational culture and helped shape a humanistic rhetoric of personal growth that still thrives in some corporations today. CONTENTS Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………. ii Introduction……………………………………………………………………………… 1 Chapter 1. The Scientist-Citizen: Kurt Lewin’s Interwar Action Research and Democracy at Work …………………... 26 Chapter 2. Building the Psychological Corporation: Rensis Likert and Interwar Survey Research ………………………………………… 73 Chapter 3. “A Psychology for the Peace Table”: Abraham Maslow, Douglas McGregor, and the Hierarchy of Needs ……………….. 107 Chapter 4. Kurt Lewin’s Wartime Democracy and the Rise of Group Dynamics ……... 145 Chapter 5. Likert Goes to Washington and Michigan: Survey Administration in the New Deal, World War II, and Beyond ………………. 177 Chapter 6. Humanizing Enterprise: Douglas McGregor’s Theory Y in Theory and Practice ……………………………. 220 Chapter 7. “Behind the Executive Mask”: NTL and the Rise of Postwar Corporate Sensitivity Training ……………………… 282 Chapter 8. “How Democratic Can Industry Be?”: Rensis Likert and the Study of Organizational Behavior ………………………….. 345 Chapter 9. Maslow on Management in the 1960s …………………………………….. 389 Chapter 10. The Decline of Humanistic Management Theory and the Return of “Benevolent Autocracy” in the 1970s …………………………………... 438 Bibliography.………………………………………………………………………….. 466 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I extend my gratitude first to the Columbia professors who trained me to be a better thinker, writer, and reader during my years in the program. First, my advisor, Elizabeth Blackmar: When I was accepted into Columbia’s PhD program nearly a decade ago and trying to decide whether or not to attend, a student in the program uttered some life-changing words: “You’ll be working with Betsy Blackmar? The university should build a statue in her honor. She’s the best mentor you’ll ever work with.” This many years later, I’d build a skyscraper in her honor if I could. In guiding this project to fruition, she helped translate diffuse enthusiasms into concrete questions and arguments. She read my prose with a keen eye and propelled it in ever clearer, more engaging directions. Equally important, she demonstrated deep sensitivity during a harrowing period of my family life and instinctively pushed me forward at the right times, in the right ways. Thank you to Casey Blake, who not only offered invaluable feedback about this project, but helped guide my professional destiny in a critical moment. As a cultural and intellectual historian, he inspired me to carve ambitious connections between people and their ideas. As a pedagogue, he introduced me to a new realm of teaching—that of secondary education—and encouraged me to apply for a job at a school called Bard High School Early College Queens that was just starting up. He thought it might be a perfect fit for me. (Casey, how did you know?) His friendship and mentorship have been life-changing. Thanks to Sarah Phillips, who thoughtfully advised the seminar paper out of which this dissertation was born, and had faith that a 50-page paper could evolve into something bigger that mattered. Thanks to the many other Columbia professors who devoted their time to guiding this ii project and my teaching: Courtney Bender, Alan Brinkley, Mary Marshall Clark, Victoria DeGrazia, Andrew Delbanco, Eric Foner, and Steve Mintz. And thanks to the remaining members of my wonderfully insightful dissertation defense committee: Kim Phillips-Fein, Louis Hyman, and Richard John. They far exceeded my expectations of what a defense committee could offer. I extend my gratitude to the donors and institutions that provided support for this work. Invaluable support came from the Baker Library of the Harvard Business School (and the Alfred D. Chandler Jr. Travel Fellowship that funded my time there); the Hagley Library (thanks particularly to Roger Horowitz); the Shawn family; the JR Kantor Research Fellowship of the Archives of American Psychology (where David Baker and Cathy Faye could not have offered more generous guidance); and the John E. Rovensky Fellowship in US Business and Economic History. Thanks to the network of archivists and librarians at the aforementioned institutions and the Bentley Library of the University of Michigan, the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library of Columbia University, Case Western University, and the General Mills Corporation. Finally, thanks to the many scholars of the Business History Conference who embraced me and my project without hesitation, beginning with their feedback at the Newcomen Doctoral Colloquium and continuing through future meetings and correspondences. Ken Lipartito, Jennifer Delton, and Christopher McKenna generously talked to me at length about the craft of business history. Pamela Laird became a mentor to me within the Business History Conference community, impressing me always with her wisdom, humility, and kindness. This project would have been an entirely different beast without the generous assistance of many people in the National Training Laboratories network. Alan Klein put me in touch with dozens of insightful veterans of the organization and even arranged for me to participate in a iii five-day T-group in Bethel, Maine (an experience about which I will someday write a confessional memoir, rest assured). The following people welcomed me into their homes and offices for insightful and engaging oral history interviews, often on multiple occasions: Edith and Charlie Seashore, Barry Oshry, Ai-Lin Chin, Nancy Coan, Lee Butler, Warner Burke, Chris Argyris, and Ed Schein. Thanks to the staff of NTL’s current office in Arlington, Virginia, who patiently tolerated my sprawling files and photocopies. Thanks to David Bradford for sending along critical research materials I didn’t know existed. Finally, thanks to Jerry Berlin and his wife Naomi, who left a profound impression on me intellectually and personally during the dozens of hours I spent in their home, eating bagels and laughing while scribbling pages of notes. I had the fortune of forming some of my most meaningful friendships while in the Columbia PhD program, and can say with sincerity that I couldn’t have done this without them. Megan, I knew from that first day within our fledgling cohort that we would be friends, but over time you became my family. I can’t imagine the past eight years without your laughter, your wit, your insights. Julie, my partner in teaching, editing, therapeutic half-marathon training, and now a whole other frontier…You were my life coach first and then, now, a beloved sister. Thanks to my other partners in cocktails, picnics, and the occasional gossip session: Beth, Valerie, Emma, Amy O., Theresa. While I often wondered if I was crazy to become a fulltime history teacher at Bard High School Early College while also trying to complete a dissertation, I now see it as the best decision I ever made. Thanks to my terrific students for reminding me why I care about all this stuff in the first place. Thanks to my supportive administration, particularly Val Thomson and Pat Sharpe, for remaining committed to the idea the teaching and scholarship can