Likert, through his wide-ranging research identified the forces accelerating the pressure for high performance in American business organizations. Some of the forces listed by him include growing competition from the industrially developed countries for world markets; resistance to pressure and close supervision and rising trend towards giving the individual more freedom and initiative; significant increase in the educational level of labour force and consequent change in employee attitudes and expectations of participative styles; increasing concern for the mental health and fulfillment of the personality needs of emotionally mature persons in business and government organizations; and increasing need for more complex systems of organizing human efforts to meet the demands of more complex technologies and larger and diverse enterprises. Likert belived that the body of knowledge of social sciences can pave the way to frame a generalized theory of organization and management. He propounds three distinctive concepts pertaining to supervision, management systems, and dynamics of interpersonal relationships.
Supervisory Styles