Course Number: DPS 15121 1702

Course Name: Organisational Behaviour

Student Name: Hardeep Kaur Chauhan

Student Number: 3090107

Professor: Ab Freig

Assignment Title: Assignment 1

Submission Date: July 18th, 2017

Summary of Expectancy Theory

Victor Vroom, a professor of Yale University, United States developed the Expectancy

theory building it on three variables i.e. valence, instrumentality and expectancy. The level of

confidence in an employee to expect desirable outcome for his behavior and actions is

denoted by valence where as expectancy denotes the result anticipated by an employee in

response to his activities. Similarly, instrumentality denotes the education and skills that an

employee has to perform the necessary work to produce the desirable outcome.

Explanation of Theory

Expectancy theory helps the managers to understand why employees are engaged in

certain specific behaviours when they already have series of alternatives available to them.

This theory of expectancy was the outcome of Victor Vrooms work in 1964. As in science

field, Einstein has given E = mc2 relation to understand nature, same way Victor has given a

mathematical model as given below, to understand need of different employees and necessary

actions to motivate employees.

MF = E * I *V

This model includes four parameters as indicated above where MF stands for motivational

force, E for expectancy, I for instrumentality and V for valence.

Here motivational force is the extent to which a person is likely to engage in a certain

course of action. For example, a person could be a programmer in IT (Information

Technology) company and his job is programming. This motivational force depends on

certain conditions that would increase someones motivation. Thus, when these conditions

come into play then that person will engage into certain course of action. As shown above

MF depends upon three parameters, first being expectancy denoted by (E). It concludes that
performance is directly proportional to employee efforts. So, in an organisation there needs to

be a linkage between an increase in effort and higher performance for continuous growth of

organisation.

For example, if a person is working in an IT company and has increased ones efforts

with better and optimized programming skills that will enhance the performance, it indicates

expectancy which means that one is expecting increase in performance with better

programming skills. Only having expectancy does not lead towards motivational force, but

the second parameter i.e. instrumentality has its own role also. Instrumentality (I) leads

towards certain outcomes with increase in performance.

Taking the same scenario of IT company programmer has increased his/her

performance with improved programming skills. The programmer with improved

performance will now be concerned about outcome from improved performance? For

Manager, it is very important to understand, where that programmer want himself to be after

improved performance, what will be the outcome from that increased performance, what is

that specific outcome one is expecting? If one is expecting a salary hike as an outcome and if

one comes to know that these specific efforts (improved programming in this case) one is

putting are not going to give him expected outcome as a salary hike then he will be no longer

engaged in that behaviour and one will start looking for different alternatives. Now one

would want to put more effort to be successful in terms of salary hike but in substitute ways.

In second scenario, if achieving salary hike was not desirable for that programmer and

he/she did not care for salary increase then it might be the situation that he will not put efforts

in improving programming skills even if one knows that improvement in coding skills would

result in increase in ones and organisational performance which is expectancy in this case. If

one believes one can receive a certain salary hike as an outcome but if salary increase in not
desirable for him then one would not have a significant enough motivational force as per the

expectancy theory to engage him/her in that behaviour.

Third crucial factor is valence (V), is something that up to what extent the outcome is

desirable. Therefore, from this expectancy theory couple of things come into play in terms of

organisational setting. The first of which is desirable outcome. If promotions are the

desirable outcome for that programmer instead of salary increase, while he is putting efforts

in terms of improved programming. So, if a programmer is thinking that putting such efforts

are enough to have a promotion as outcome then there will be a motivational force for him.

But lack of linkage between the efforts one is putting and expected outcomes, leads the

organisation towards less motivated but capable manpower.

So, organisation must tailor their promotion policy in this case to the desires of the

employees. But this is not an easy task because this tailoring of promotion policy is desirable

for some employees but for others this may not be desirable. For someone only salary

increase is sufficient in comparison to promotion as they do not bother about promotion.

Application and usefulness of the theory of helping managers motivate their

employees

The managers can use expectancy theory in several innovative ways to motivate their

employees. Some of them are as follows:

The managers could keep track of high performing employees through monthly,

quarterly or yearly performance evaluations according to whatever is suitable to their

organisations. This would help them know which of the employees are best suitable to be

promoted to higher levels offering them more challenging job duties as well as which ones

are the best fit to be transferred to low performing departments within the company for the
growth of the specific department. They could do so through listing job posting within the

companies in such a way that employees are motivated to apply for those jobs.

The employees can also be motivated to perform well by being transparent in their

performance evaluations i.e. by explaining the criteria for evaluation as well as explaining

how past performances of extraordinary employees resulted in distribution of high rewards to

them. The managers can also provide relevant training opportunities to employees to allow

them to master the tasks at hand and decrease mistakes.

In addition to this the employees should be provided with enough resources to

perform well the job at hand because this will create a belief in them that they are capable of

performing the job successfully and thus increasing their motivation. The managers can

understand their employees activities and behaviours using this theory and can thus reward

them from time to time depending on their performance.

As this theory states that employees actions are centred around the desirable

outcome, so increments or rewards in various forms can help employees perform even better

and with increased motivation levels. But the manager need to be careful of not letting one

outcome contradict the other outcome. For example, if an employee is being paid really well

for a job but is not getting any kind of recognition would certainly lower his motivational

level to perform that job.

In addition to this, they can also give rewards which are valued by people or in some

cases even individualise the rewards such as for some people a growing career path is the

main motivational force behind performing high whereas for some only a salary increase is

what they perform for. This way different behaviours of the employees can be tackled using

various reward types.

Conclusion

The expectancy theory suggests that employees have their individual goals which could be

used to motivate them only if they see a direct positive relation between the efforts they put in

and their performance. In addition to this rewards catering to individual preferences can be

used as a strong motivator making their efforts worthwhile. The theory is based on the beliefs

of valence, expectancy and instrumentality which are three fundamental areas that lead to

increase in motivation in an employee.

References

1. Anon, (2017). [online] Available at: http://Management and Motivation, Vroom, V.H.,

Deci, E.L., Penguin 1983 (first published 1970) [Accessed 18 Jul. 2017].
2. Lee, S. (2007). Vroom's expectancy theory and the public library customer motivation

model. Library Review, 56(9), pp.788-796.

3. Wigfield, A. and Eccles, J. (2000). ExpectancyValue Theory of Achievement

Motivation. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25(1), pp.20-30.

4. Frey, B. (2007). Not just for the money. Cheltenham [u.a.]: Elgar, pp.19-35.
5. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/expectancy-theory-workplace-11482.html
6. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/expectancy-theory-workplace-11482.html