Name : Gavin Heneghan

Student No. R00078607

Title : Porter and Lawler’s Expectancy Theory of Motivation
Due Date : 16th March 2011
Lecturer : Dr. Felix Raekson

1
Contents

Introduction - Motivation............................................................................................................................3
Vroom Expectancy Theory..........................................................................................................................4
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.....................................................................................................................5
Porter and Lawler’s Expectancy Theory of Motivation................................................................................6
Bibliography................................................................................................................................................8

2
Introduction - Motivation

In Newell and Grashina (2004), the term motivation is defined as the process of inducing a
person to function actively in order to achieve certain goals. The influence of motivation on
people's behavior depends on a number of factors. It is very individual and changeable relative to
various stimuli and feedback reactions to people's activities.
By motive we normally mean the factor that causes a person to undertake certain activities, as
well as her internal and external driving force. Motives determine what has to be done and how it
will be done in order to satisfy a person's needs.
Stimulus plays an important role in the process of satisfying needs. Although the usual
understanding of the word stimulus considers it to be a rewarding mechanism, the initial meaning
of the word can be interpreted as either an incentive or a reason for a person's activities. There
are four major types of stimuli to be considered: forcing, material incentive, influence, and self-
actualization.
Theories of motivation started to be developed in the second part of the twentieth century, after
World War II. The question of increasing people's productivity had not previously been of any
concern to large companies because social and economic conditions were such that productivity
was easily achieved by pure material factors. In other words, the demand for a workforce had
been lower than the supply of people willing to find jobs.
In the late 1950s, the need and importance of motivation was first proven by a number of
practical experiments. These experiments led to factors that seriously improved the companies'
abilities to improve productivity without making large investments. Since then many
experiments and investigations have been undertaken in this area.
In 1943 Maslow introduced his study of motivation based on human needs. Vroom introduced
his expectancy theory in 1964, which was later further developed by Porter and Lawlor (1968).
All three of these models will be looked at in this paper.

3
Vroom Expectancy Theory

The Expectancy Theory of Victor Vroom (1964) deals with motivation and management, and
how managers motivate their workforce. The essence of this theory is that actions and behaviors
of individuals are taken based on an objective to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.
Individuals are therefore more likely to be motivated to do certain acts, if they expect that
rewards can be obtained, and that these rewards can be obtained without too much trouble and
pain.

This Theory is often presented as Vroom's VIE Model of Motivation.

The VIE model consists of the following elements:

Valence

Valence is the strength of an individual's preference for obtaining some particular outcome.
Valence will be positive, when the individual prefers to attain some outcome to not attaining it. If
the individual is indifferent, valence will be zero. Great valence will therefore strengthen e.g. an
employee's motivation for attaining a particular outcome, which makes it important for managers
and employers to discover what is valued by the employees. If an extrinsic factor, such as
recognition, is seen as a valuable outcome by an employee, managers may use this information
to motivate his/her employee.

Instrumentality

Instrumentality refers to the individual's believe in that the accomplishment of a given task, will
result in the attainment of some valued reward. If instrumentality is high, an employee believes
that certain actions will result in the attainment of the rewards valued by him/her. Instrumentality
refers to the importance of that e.g. employees see a clear path to rewards and goal attainment,
and that they trust that managers will reward their actions as promised. If recognition is seen as
valuable by an employee, the manager must thus assure that the employee believes that he/she
will get this reward, if the task is accomplished satisfactorily.

Expectancy

Expectancy relates to the confidence that individuals may have in themselves in accomplishing a
certain task or assignment satisfactorily. If the individual does not regard himself as competent
enough to do a certain job, the individual will not see it as feasible to get the desired rewards,
and hence de-motivate the employee.

According to Vroom, the strength of an individual's motivation to perform a certain task can be
calculated using this formula:

Motivation = Valence × Expectancy (Instrumentality).

4
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow (1943) developed the hierarchy of needs, which suggests that individual needs
exist in a hierarchy consisting of physiological needs, security needs, belongingness needs,
esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. Physiological needs are the most basic needs for
food, water, and other factors necessary for survival. Security needs include needs for safety in
one's physical environment, stability, and freedom from emotional distress. Belongingness needs
relate to desires for friendship, love, and acceptance within a given community of individuals.
Esteem needs are those associated with obtaining the respect of one's self and others. Finally,
self-actualization needs are those corresponding to the achievement one's own potential, the
exercising and testing of one's creative capacities, and, in general, to becoming the best person
one can possibly be. Unsatisfied needs motivate behavior; thus, lower-level needs such as the
physiological and security needs must be met before upper-level needs such as belongingness,
esteem, and self-actualization can be motivational.

Applications of the hierarchy of needs to management and the workplace are obvious. According
to the implications of the hierarchy, individuals must have their lower level needs met by, for
example, safe working conditions, adequate pay to take care of one's self and one's family, and
job security before they will be motivated by increased job responsibilities, status, and
challenging work assignments.

As a result, for adequate workplace motivation, it is important that the leadership understands

which needs are active for individual employee motivation. In this regard, Abraham Maslow's
model indicates that basic, low-level needs such as physiological requirements and safety must
be satisfied before higher-level needs such as self-fulfillment are pursued. As depicted in this
hierarchical diagram, sometimes called 'Maslow's Needs Pyramid' or 'Maslow's Needs Triangle',
when a need is satisfied it no longer motivates and the next higher need takes its place.

5
 Porter and Lawler’s Expectancy Theory of Motivation

In Newell and Grashina (2004) they describe how Lyman Porter and Edward Lawler (1968)
further developed Vrooms Expectancy Theory (1964). Their theory of motivation combines the
elements of both expectancy and equity theories. Their model has five variables: effort spent,
perception, performance achieved, reward, and level of satisfaction. According to this model,
the performance achieved is dependent on the efforts expended by the employee, his abilities,
and his character, as well as his perception of his role. The level of effort spent is determined by
the value of the reward and the confidence that this level of effort will actually result in a certain
level of reward. The model acknowledges the relationship between reward and performance
because the person satisfies his needs by gaining rewards for performance achieved.
According to the model shown in Figure 2, the performance achieved by an employee (6)
depends on the effort spent (3), his abilities (4), and his perception of his role (5). The effort
spent depends in turn on the value of the reward (1) and how much a person sees the relationship
between the effort spent and the reward gained—perceived effort/reward probability (2). The
performance achieved (6) can cause intrinsic rewards such as a feeling of achievement (7) as
well as extrinsic rewards such as recognition, career advancement, etc. (8). The employee has a
feeling of satisfaction (10) if the perceived equity of the reward (9) is present.

Figure 2: PORTER-LAWLER PROCESS MODEL OF MOTIVATION

There could be a relationship between the performance achieved and extrinsic rewards when
these rewards reflect opportunities set by management for this employee. There is also a
connection between performance and perceived equity of reward, which brings us back to the
equity theory and the fact that people have their own opinion of the level of the equity of the
reward. The satisfaction represents the result of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards with the

6
consideration of their equity. Satisfaction is a measure of how valuable the reward really is for a
person. This evaluation will influence the person's perception of similar situations in the future.
The important conclusion of the theory was that the resulting work leads to satisfaction and not
the other way around. Satisfaction leads to higher results, as many managers had thought for a
long time.
The theory also had lots of practical applications. For example, based on their model, Porter and
Lawler pointed out that an increase in salary leads to increased productivity only in a case where
people find salary to be important; they also see a clear relationship between increased
performance and productivity and increased salary. Although many managers declare that they
are willing and even attempt to relate the salaries of their employees to their work results, they
still tend to compensate according to the time spent on doing work and pay off their seniority
rather than their ability and effort. Therefore, the model of salary suggested by Lawler consisted
of three comparable components, including one of payments for fulfilling certain professional
responsibilities, equal for all the people of the same position and professional status in the
organization; one that was based on seniority and life cost factors; and one that varied for each
employee based on the results achieved by them in past work periods.

7
Bibliography

Newell, M. and Grashina, M. The Project Management Question and Answer Book. New York,
NY: AMACOM, 2004.

Porter, L. & Lawler, E. Managerial Attitudes and Performace, Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press,
1968

Vroom, V.H., Work and Motivation, Wiley New York, 1964

Maslow, A. H. A Theory of Human Motivation, Psychological Review 50, 370-96, 1943