Management Hall of Fame: Leading Management Gurus
Abraham Maslow - The Hierarchy
of Human Needs (1908-1970)
Key Work
Theory of the "hierarchy of human needs".
Abraham Maslow was one of the first scholars to be associated with the
humanistic approach to management (- as opposed to task-based management).
Maslow categorized human needs into a hierarchy, ascending from the lowest to the highest. Maslow's model
remains a valuable management concept.
The five levels within the hierarchy can be broken down as follows. A person generally must satisfy the lower level before working on the higher
levels
- Survival or physiological needs.
Comprising all the basic animal requirements such as food, water,
shelter, warmth, and sleep.
- Security or safety needs. In physical, social
and financial terms; they are translated into free from physical harm,
having job security or earning a living wage.
- Social needs. Most humans are essentially social beings and
they seek membership of social groups to belong to.
- Ego-status needs. Most Humans seek
respect (self-image or self-esteem) need is satisfied by power, prestige,
knowledge, and self-confidence.
- Self-actualization needs. This translates
into self-realization, self-expression and self-fulfillment. The
desire to maximize a person's skills and talents.
Related work/concepts include Humanistic psychology, Human Potential Movement, Organismic theory, Positive Disintegration, Post-materialism,
and Organizational behavior
Milestones:
- Received his B.A. (1930), his M.A. (1932), and his Ph.D. (1934)
in psychology from University of Wisconsin-Madison.
- He met and studied with Harry Harlow, who was known for his
controversial experiments on rhesus monkeys and attachment behavior.
- A year after graduation, Maslow returned to New York to work
with E. L. Thorndike at Columbia University.
- Maslow taught full time at Brooklyn College. During this
time he met many leading European psychologists, including Alfred
Adler and Erich Fromm.
- In 1951, Maslow became the chairman of the psychology department
at Brandeis University, where he began his theoretical work. There,
he met Kurt Goldstein, who introduced him to the idea of
self-actualization. Later, Maslow developed self-actualization into
an area for research and application.
- Died in 1970, aged 62, after years of ill health.
Related
Books/References:
-
Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality
 . New York: Harper and Row
-
Abraham Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature
 . Viking
Press
-
Abraham Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (1943, originally published in
Psychological Review, 50, 370-396. Available online.)
-
Abraham Maslow, Eupsychian Management (1965, republished as Maslow on Management,
1998)
-
Abraham Maslow, Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance New York: Harper & Row,
1966.
-
Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being (2nd Edition: 1968) -Excerpts
(1955-1957)
- Maslow on Self-Actualizing People -excerpts from Maslow on Management (1998)
- Abraham Maslow Reconsidered: Maslow reconsidered: A review of research on the need hierarchy theory
- Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 15, 212-240
- Mook, D.G. (1987). Motivation: Motivation: The Organization of Action.
London: W.W. Norton & Company Ltd (ISBN 0-393-95474-9)
- The Right to be Human by Edward Hoffman by Edward Hoffman
- The Founders of Humanistic Psychology by Roy Jose DeCarvalho
IIM Executive Education & Management Training
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