Rensis Likert
| Rensis Likert | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 5, 1903 Cheyenne, Wyoming |
| Died | September 3, 1981 (aged 78) Ann Arbor, Michigan |
| Cause of death | bladder cancer |
| Resting place | Forest Hill Cemetery |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of Michigan, Columbia University |
| Employer | University of Michigan |
| Known for | Likert Scale, Likert’s Management Systems, Linking pin model |
| Spouse(s) | Jane Gibson |
| Parents | George Herbert Likert, Cora A. |
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This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. (April 2011) |
Rensis Likert (pron.: /ˈlɪkərt/ LIK-ərt) (5 August 1903–3 September 1981) was an American educator and organizational psychologist best known for his research on management styles. He is also famous for developing the Likert Scale, a psychometric scale commonly involved in research using questionnaires and the linking pin model. Likert was known for his support of interdisciplinary collaborations and emphasis on using social science research to effect positive change.[1]
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Personal life [edit]
Rensis Likert was born to George Herbert Likert and Cornelia Adrianne (Cora) (née Zonne) Likert in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where his father was an engineer with the Union Pacific Railroad. After training to be an engineer, the younger Likert was working as an intern with Union Pacific Railroad during the watershed 1922 strike. The lack of communication between the two parties made a profound impression on him and caused him to study organizations and their behavior for the rest of his life.
Likert received his B.A. in economics from the University of Michigan in 1926. The social sciences of the 1920s were highly experimental and incorporated many aspects of modern psychology. In 1932 Likert received a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University. In his thesis, he devised a survey scale Likert Scale for measuring attitudes and showed that it captured more information than competing methods. The 5-point Likert Scale would eventually become Likert's best-known work.
Likert died, 3 September 1981 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the age of 78; leaving behind his wife of 53 years, Jane Gibson (3 June 1902 - 29 November 1997). Both are interred in the Forest Hill Cemetery in Ann Arbor.[2]
Professional achievements [edit]
Rensis Likert was a founder of the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research and was the director from its inception in 1946 until 1970, when he retired and founded Rensis Likert Associates to consult for numerous corporations. He also helped find what is now known as the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp). During his tenure, Rensis Likert devoted particular attention to research on organizations. During the 1960s and 1970s, his books on management theory were extremely popular in Japan and their impact can be seen across modern Japanese organizations. He did research on major corporations around the world, and his studies have accurately predicted the subsequent performance of the corporations.
Likert in World War II [edit]
During World War II, Likert, as the Director of the Division of Program Surveys in the United States Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Agricultural Economics (B.A.E.), ran surveys first for U.S.D.A. but as the war progressed the Division ran surveys for many different governmental agencies including the Office of War Information, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve Board and in 1944-45, the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey. In 1944, he developed the first national geographic sampling frame. Likert, although not at a university at the time, was actively recruiting other social psychologists into his expanding government survey shop during the war. Likert was later asked to head a Surveys Division in the new U.S.D.A. Office of Facts and Figures. He turned this down to set up the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan. This became the Institute for Social research when Dorwin Cartwright moved the Center for Group Dynamics from MIT to the University of Michigan.
The Survey Division of the B.A.E. and the Polling Division, originally meant to work together, started to compete as competition arose for a tight budget. Each also differed in style of organizational management; Likert’s Survey Division was filled with academics and an academic culture, while the Polling Division was filled with a business-like culture. Because of differing values, each group thought they had a lot to teach the other group. The Polling Division was dominated by the use of closed questionnaires that could be easily processed and analyzed. Likert, on the other hand, advocated for open-ended questions, even though his famous Likert Scale is composed of closed-ended questions. In the Department of Agriculture, he inherited the open question style from professionals who were interviewing recruits. The open questions (or as Likert liked to call them: “fixed questions”) or the free answer technique differed from the Polling Divisions closed questions.[3]
Likert Scale [edit]
Likert developed the Likert scale in 1932, and used it to identify the extent of a person’s beliefs, attitudes, or feelings towards some objects. The traditional Likert scale asks people the extent to which they agree or disagree with a statement on a 5-point scale. The scale ranges from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.”[4]
Management systems [edit]
Likert's Management Systems are management styles developed by Rensis Likert in the 1950s. He outlined four systems of management to describe the relationship, involvement, and roles of managers and subordinates in industrial settings. The four management systems are: 1) Exploitative Authoritative 2) Benevolent Authoritative 3) Consultative System 4) Participative System
Books [edit]
The following are books that Rensis Likert authored, or contributed to:[5]
- New Ways of Managing Conflict 1976 (with Jane Gibson Likert)
- Human Organization : Its Management and Value (1967)
- New Patterns of Management (1961)
Co-editor:
- Some applications of Behavioural Research (1957)
References [edit]
- ^ ISR: 60th Anniversary Timeline." Institute for Social Research. Web. 07 Dec. 2011. <http://www.isr.umich.edu/home/anniversary/timeline.html>
- ^ "In Memoriam: Rensis Likert, 1903-1981". Leslie Kish (1982). The American Statistician, Vol. 36, No. 2: pp. 124–12
- ^ Strong Arguments and Weak Evidence: The Open/Closed Questioning Controversy of the 1940s, Jean M. Converse, The Public Opinion Quarterly , Vol. 48, No. 1 (Spring, 1984), pp. 267-282
- ^ Frey, Lawrence R., Botan, Carl H., & Kreps, Gary L. (2000). Investigating Communication: An Introduction to Research Methods (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
- ^ Rensis Likert Biography (2005). Retrieved November 2, 2011, from http://www.bookrags.com/biography/rensis-likert-soc/
- Brewer, J. D. (1968). Review of The Human Organization. American Sociological Review, 33(5), 825-826
- Effrat, A. (1968). Review: Democratizing and Producing. Science, 162(3859), 1260-1261.
- Hall, J. W. (1972). A Comparison of Halpin and Croft's Organizational Climates and Likert and Likert's Organizational Systems. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17(4), 586-590.
- Huczynski, A.A. and Buchanan, D.A. (2007). Organizational Behaviour. 6th Edition, Pearson Education.
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