Leading an Organization
Vroom’s expectancy theory
Employees always have a tendency of working hard to attain the level the respective organizations they work for expect of them so that they give a positive and a desirable outcome. This underscores the relationship that exists between employee expectation and outcome. It therefore implies that employees have to be motivated to give the desired outcome. Effort, performance, and outcome are the three main aspects of motivation. Effort has got much to do with encouraging employees to believe that when they put concerted effort in whatever duty they do, their performance will ultimately improve (Illuminations, 2002).
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The theory therefore outlines processes that an individual goes through in making choices.
The theory was first proposed by Victor Vroom of the Yale University’s School of Management. The theory was initially tailored for organizational behavior study. As opposed to Maslow and Herzberg’s motivational theories that concentrated much on needs, Vroom’s expectancy theory focuses on outcomes. Maslow and Herzberg theories illuminate the relationship between internal needs and the resulting efforts expended to fulfill them. Vroom, on the contrary, separates effort, which is impacted by motivation, performance, and outcomes. Vroom postulates that there has to be some sort of linkage between effort, performance, and outcome, for an individual to be motivated.
Vroom dismissed earlier assertion by scientists that the relationship between people’s behavior at work and their goal is simple and underscored that employee’s performance is based on individual factors that include their personality, skills, knowledge, experience and abilities. He further asserted that the level of confidence in skills required for a given work, amount of support expected from superiors and subordinates, quality of materials and equipment, and availability of requisite information can contribute to an employee’s expectancy perceptions (Vroom, 1964).
Valence, expectancy, and instrumentality are some of the fundamental variables of Vroom’s expectancy theory. Valence literally means the outcome gotten from any value. It is all about employee’s emotional inclination with respect to outcomes/rewards. Employees may be so engrossed with prospects of getting extrinsic rewards like money, promotion, free time, and benefits as well as intrinsic factors like getting job satisfaction (Alderfer, 1972). It is the responsibility of an organization to discover what their employees appreciate. For valence to be positive, it is imperative that employees strive not to attain the outcome. Individuals will naturally yearn to get outcomes associated with various levels of performance. Such individuals will most likely pursue performance levels that generate greatest rewards (Vroom, 1964).
Expectancy is the belief that employees embody that they are capable of completing certain actions. Different people have different expectations and levels of confidence about what they are capable of doing. Expectancy is all about the strength of an individual’s belief about whether they can or cannot effectively perform a given task. An employee will most likely show interest in a given work responsibility if he believes he can perform it.
Expectancy of performance is normally given in terms of probabilities that range from zero to 1.0. Zero denotes incapability to perform a given task where as 1.0 implies certainty on ability to perform a given task. It is incumbent that an organization’s management provides resources, training, and supervision that the employees need to effectively...
