Leadership concepts

Expectancy theory has been proposed by Victor Vroom who has focused on the outcomes instead of focusing on the needs. It has been said by Vroom that for motivation, an individual needs to link effort, performance and motivation and three variables have been proposed by Vroom that are called valence, expectancy and instrumentality by him.

The belief that increased efforts leads to increase in performance is known as expectancy. If an individual will work harder, he will be better but there are three things that affect the level of expectancy an individual hold. An individual should have the right resources that are available to him, he should posses the right skills needed to perform the job and he should have the support necessary to complete the job.  (Arrod.co.uk., n.d.).

The belief that one will perform well and a valued outcome will be received is called instrumentality and this is affected by certain factors such as the clear understanding of the link between performance and outcomes. Moreover, it is also important to hold trust on the person who takes the decisions and also the transparency of the process that decides the outcome. The importance that an individual places on the expected outcome is

The individuals change their level of effort with respect to the value that is placed by them on the outcome that they receive from the process. If any of these is perceived true, any increase in efforts will not increase ones performance nether will increased performance increase the rewards and this is mainly because one does not value the rewards.

It is thus, suggested by Vroom that the individuals will not be motivated and even if an organization is able to achieve two out of three, the employees will still not be motivated because all three are needed for motivation. People also compare outcomes for themselves with the other people and this is known as the equity theory and on the basis of the outcome; the people change their level of effort they put in to make the others perceive it as fair. Expectancy theory basically works on the perceptions of the people but even if the organization thinks that they are providing all the motivational tools to the employees there might still be some employees who might deny this fact.

The motivation of an employee depends on the fact whether the reward that is being offered to him is valued by him or not. Therefore, it is not just about self-interest but also about the associations that people makes towards the outcomes that are expected by them. (Leat, 2001).

In the given scenario, the expectancy theory of motivation can be applied in a way that since the employees of supervisor A are not doing well with the new production process, the reason behind this should be found out.

People who have mastered the new process are unwilling to put efforts while some are not concerned about achieving the goals and on inquiring the reasons, the management came to know that the new process needed a lot of dexterity that they were incapable of while some said that it was not worth putting in their efforts to reach the organizational goals as there were no prominent increase in the salaries of the people who met the goals and even if they get the bonus, the amount is not worth the efforts they are putting in.

This means that the employees are not putting in effort because they are not motivated and because of this, no improvements in their performance can be seen.

Reference
Arrod.co.uk. (n.d.). Expectancy theory of motivation. July 11th, 2010. Retrieved from:             http://www.arrod.co.uk/archive/concept_vroom.php

Leat,M. (2001). Exploring Employee Relations. Butterworth-Heinemann.