Toward a stewardship theory of management

Recent thinking about top management has been influenced by alternative models of man.(1) Economic approaches to governance such as agency theory tend to assume some form of homo-economicus, which depict subordinates as individualistic. opportunistic, and self-serving. Alternatively, sociological and psychological approaches to governance such as stewardship theory depict subordinates as collectivists, pro-organizational. and trustworthy. Through this research, we attempt to reconcile the differences between these assumptions by proposing a: model based upon the subordinate's psychological attributes and the organization's situational characteristics.