
The Expectancy Theory of motivation as developed by Victor Vroom is a process theory of motivation and it finds an important place in the literature of motivational theories. NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EXPECTANCY THEORY The level of belief that the individual employee has that his/her performance will result in achievement of organizational rewards/work outcomes is also important.Īnd thirdly, the perception of the chances by the individual employee that personal effort on his/her will lead to high performance is again important. Secondly, organizational rewards or work outcomes are dependent on the individual performance of the employee. This relationship can also be expressed as the value the employee gives to the work outcomes. to what extent organizational rewards fulfil an employee’s personal goals and how attractive are those rewards to the employee. Therefore, the relationship between organizational rewards or work outcomes and personal goals is important i.e. These personal goals can be fulfilled by organizational rewards or work outcomes. The way in which the Expectancy theory works is as follows: Employees have personal goals which they like to achieve and for this reason they work in organizations. The Expectancy theory provides a sort of a mechanism for finding out motivation through a certain type of calculation. P>O expectancy: our assessment of the probability that our successful performance will lead to certain outcomes. The three elements are important behind choosing one element over another because they are clearly defined: effort-performance expectancy (E>P expectancy) and performance-outcome expectancy (P>O expectancy).Į>P expectancy: our assessment of the probability that our efforts will lead to the required performance level. For example, if someone is mainly motivated by money, he or she might not value offers of additional time off. For the valence to be positive, the person must prefer attaining the outcome to not attaining it. Valence is the importance that the individual places upon the expected outcome. Transparency of the process that decides who gets what outcome.Trust in the people who will take the decisions on who gets what outcome.


supervisor support, or correct information on the job)

He uses the variables Expectancy, Instrumentality and Valence to account for this.Įxpectancy is the belief that increased effort will lead to increased performance i.e. Vroom’s expectancy theory assumes that behavior from conscious choices among the alternatives to minimize pain and maximize pleasure. Vroom’s expectancy theory separates effort, performance and outcomes, while Maslow and Herzberg focus on the relationship between internal needs and the resulting effort expended to fulfil them.
