Org Behavior

A widely accepted explanation of motivation is Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory. Organization Behavior, Fifteenth Edition states, “expectancy theory: A theory that says the strength of a tendency to act in a certain way depends the on the strength on a expectation that the act will followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of the outcome to the individual.” In other words, an employee’s’ level of motivation to perform highly is based on their perception of the reward they will receive for their effort. There are three key components and relationships in the expectancy theory of motivation in which the theory focuses.

The first relationship is between effort and performance. This relationship explains the effort the individual perceives as needed to lead to a given amount of performance. In applying this relationship to the expectancy theory of motivation, employees have to analyze maximum effort of performance. If the employee believes that their maximum effort will not be recognized in their performance appraisal, this could be one source of low motivation. For an employee to believe that their hard work is not recognized inevitably leads to a low level of effort.

The second relationship is between performance and reward. This relationship explains the amount the individual believes their performance at a certain level will lead to a desired outcome. In this relationship, the employee wants to know that a good performance appraisal will lead to organizational rewards such as bonuses or salary increases. If pay for good performance is solely based on rewards such as seniority, employees will tend to see the performance-reward relationship as not motivating.

The third and final relationship is between rewards and personal goals. This relationship explains the correlation between organizational rewards, an individual’s personal goals, and the desire of those potential rewards. For the employee, they want to know that if they are rewarded that the...