Category: Expectancy Model

If we were to question – who can the altruistic behavior of individuals be analyzed using the expectancy theory, we realize that it is not sufficient to give a satisfying answer. It would really fall short in explaining the altruistic behavior – the general expectancy model is in many ways akin to Adam Smith’s idea that individuals work for their own self-interest. In order to explain these altruistic behaviors, one would need to consider the concept of – “Moral Maturity”. Moral maturity is simply a measure of a person’s cognitive moral development. This concept would help us explain the behavior of individuals that are seen to be altruistic, fair and equitable in nature. The morally mature people are seen to act and behave on what is seen as “universally ethical principles” while the immature ones are seen to behave in an egocentric behavior.

If we analyze the impact of culture on Motivation; it would be interesting to note that as the theories have been developed by Americans, they would need to be altered to cultures other than American. Cultures like the Japanese put a lot of emphasis on reducing uncertainty, while the Americans would put self-actualization at the pinnacle. The Greeks put a lot of emphasis on security. The Expectancy theory may hold very well to cultures that have individualism as an important value, but would not be successful in explaining the collective cultures where regards are closely tied to group or team efforts.

In any case a manager would need to understand the context of application of the motivational theories beyond just routinely following the theory into practice.

If one is to carefully think about the source of what could lead to a not so motivated performance and then map it over the expectancy model of motivation, we realize 3 possible causes for these motivational problems:

Let’s take an extension of the sales person’s scenario – where he/she believes that the relation doesn’t exist between the performance and rewards, i.e. the person doesn’t believe that an increased sale doesn’t result in over al higher commission – this could be simply solved in a session which highlights the relation using graphs or numbers!

Research has indicated the theory is pretty accurate in predicting job satisfaction. But this theory is inherently a bit complex and hence makes it a bit difficult to test the model!

Perspectives of individuals could be that regardless of the amount of additional effort put forth, there wouldn’t be any improvement in performance, and since the performance has no relationship with the reward, there could be no meaning in putting in the additional effort. It is essentially the person’s belief about the relation between the constructs that is important (it is not the actual nature of the relation that matter!). What the individual believes in is the relation is what would motivate the individual to work.

It would however be interesting how this expectation about the relation would act in the business world when in a volatile environment like today.

Companies and Managers could use the expectancy theory to design motivation programs. The performance plans and evaluation systems could be designed to enhance a person’s belief that effort would lead to better performance and that the better performance would lead to a pay increase and other reward. Valance and Expectancy play a major role in establishing priorities for employees when they pursue multiple goals.

It is the idea of valance that people place on various rewards that varies – an individual could choose salary over other benefits while another could choose benefits over salary! Every individual doesn’t place the same value on each reward.

While the equity theory focused on the social exchange process; the expectancy theory as the name suggests is based on the perception of individuals and how it acts as a motivation in the work environment.

The theory of Expectancy was proposed by Vroom and the basic outline includes the understanding that individuals desire certain outcomes of behavior and performance (similar to rewards and consequences of behavior) and that they believe that there is a relationship between the effort they put in and the performance they achieve and the outcomes they receive.

To understand this further it would be useful to understand the 3 important terms that are used in this theory: