Alienation Among Managers — The New Epidemic or the Social Scientists' Invention?

Abstract

There has been a long and wide‐ranging literature on the problems of the individual's adjustment to the demands of work organisations. In the 1950s, Argyris and Merton argued that the needs of mature individuals and the properties of modern bureaucracies were incongruent. In a later work, Argyris argued that the larger the organisation, the greater the incongruence and the greater the suppression of individuality. Maslow argued that suppression was inevitable if two variables interacted: increasing size and uncertain environments. Methods of suppression also attracted attention in the 60s; Ziller noted the techniques included formality, mobility, conformity, dominant leaders and a paucity of information sharing.