Book Review: Work and Motivation by Victor Vroom

Work and Motivation by Victor Vroom is a paradigm shifting book that looks at the human motivation within the workplace through both an individual and group based lens. For managers who are seeking methods of improving on worker motivation the book is not one that should be passed up without a thorough read.  It provides keen insight on the potential, nature, and limitations of employee motivation. 

The book attempts to summarize the findings of industrial psychologists and research related to human motivation within the workplace. The work focused on three areas:

1.       The choices made by persons among work roles.

2.       The extent of their satisfaction with their chosen work roles

3.       The level of their performance or effectiveness in their chosen work roles. 

Vroom makes the assertion that there are two types of determinants of attitudes which include 1.) The cognized utility of the attitude toward attaining particular outcomes; and, 2.) The intensity and nature of the affect expected from the outcomes. In essence people will either move toward a particular outcome or avoid a particular outcome based upon how they mentally weight and judge information to make a final decision. It is these decisions and expected outcomes that the expectancy theory is developed.

Expectancy theory makes the assumption that worker motivation is a result of how much a worker wants an outcome (valence), the cognitive belief that a certain behavior will lead to a particular outcome (expectancy) and that performance will lead to the particular outcome (valence). Each employee is seen as having needs and scanning their environment to find pathways that are most convenient and efficient in creating needs fulfillment. 

After reading the work you may also come to the conclusion about how important it is for people who work within groups to have positive relationships with their management team if effective improvements in workplace motivation are going to be realized. It is through both their workgroups as well as management relationships that they make certain decisions to engage or not engage the workplace.

“One of the necessary conditions for exchange of rewards to occur between persons is some degree of interaction between them.” (Vroom, 1964, pp 138). 

It is hard to create expectations and possible rewards unless there is interaction among organizational members. It is through these interactions that employees determine their potential approaches and opportunities to achieve rewards. Thus, the interactions among the work group and the workers interaction with management influence a significant proportion of people’s decisions.

The book is well written and is scientific in its orientation. It not only proposes the cognitive theory of expectancy but also justifies it through leading research of the day. Even though the book is dated it provides an excellent understanding of the concepts of motivation and satisfaction.  Each aspect of his writing is cited with appropriate references. Such a book should be part of every manager’s and business student’s library.

Vroom, V.  (1964). Work and Motivation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. ISBN 0-7879-0030-0

Price: $35

Pages: 336

Blog Ranking: 4.7 (No age penalty as it is a root theorist).

The Components of Employee Motivation and Organizational Success

At the center of any successful organization rests the employees that take the orders, assemble the products, and sell the goods. Before companies can achieve success they should ensure employees are committed and engaged with the organization and its objectives. Where well managed and committed employees are an asset, a poorly managed company with a lack of employee commitment will ultimately lead to decline. Through the development and encouragement of employee effort does the unique synergy exist in   organizations that allow for higher levels of operational savings and environmental capitalization. The components of this motivation are discussed through this article.

Motivation is derived from the word "motivate" which means to push, move, or influence the environment to achieve some objective (Kalimullah et al, 2010). Motivation can also be seen as the process by which behavior obtains a results, attempts to complete an objective and continues to push forward. It still may further be seen as an internal drive that pushes to fulfill some need (Bedeian, 1993).

Employee motivation is one of the main functions of management that is derived through the policies and procedures of an organization (Shadare et al, 2009). Through the need to accomplish some goal or find a path to personal development an employee will scan their work environment to put their skills, knowledge and abilities to the most appropriate use. Such excited employees are seeking ways to make their work more interesting and efficient and therefore organizations should foster the effort in order to make the company more successful (Kalimullah et al, 2010).

Through the capitalization on employee motivation an organization can meet customer demands, lower costs, and change to meet environmental challenges. Organizational effectiveness is the efficient process of turning inputs to outputs (Matthew et al, 2005). The more efficiently the organization is run through motivating processes the more effective is the process of converting the organizational factors into viable products or services. This is accomplished through the minds and bodies of workers that engage in and make micro and macro decisions throughout the process.

The Legitimacy Model views organizational effectiveness as “component preferences for performance and natural limitations on performance from an external environmental perspective” (Zammuto.R.F,
1982). In other words, while reviewing an organization it is possible to determine its effectiveness by understanding employees' preferences for performance and the limitations these employees have in utilizing these pathways. If road blocks are removed employees will put their effort toward those designed pathways that have the most chances of success.

Leadership is an essential component of motivation. Through employee trust of management they will believe that the leadership function of the organization will fulfill their explicit and implicit promises (Baldoni.J, 2005). Thus leadership and trust in management is necessary if employees are to make that decision to put forward effort into the organizational pathways. The leadership function and the labor function raise each other to higher levels of motivation and morality in a synergistic manner that furthers market interests (Rukhmani.K, 2010).

The essential components of employee motivation rely in trust, rewards, decision making, empowerment, information and group expectations (Baldoni.J, 2005; Yazdani,B.O. et al, 2011; Hassan et al, 2011; Adeyinka et al, 2007; Brewer et al, 2000). When these components work in tandem an environment can be more aligned to the needs of the employees and thus produce more meaningful results for the organization. Investors should ensure their management team are working to continually align their organizations to foster these motivational components to meet environmental needs.

Through a review of a number of studies it has been found that a various components contribute to the development of motivation within the organization:

 ...the factors that enhance employee motivation are fair pay, incentives, special allowances, fringe benefits, leadership, encouragement, trust, respect, joint decision making, quality of supervision, adequate working relationships, appreciation, chances for growth, loyalty of organization, identification and fulfillment of their needs, recognition, empowerment, inspiration, importance attached to their job, safe working conditions, training and information availability and communication to perform actions (Manzoor, 2011).

Baldoni, J., (2005). Motivation Secrets. Great Motivation Secrets of Great Leaders. [Online]
Available: http://govleaders.org/motivation_secrets.htm

Kamalian, A., Yaghoubi, N., & Moloudi, J., (2010). Survey of Relationship between Organizational Justice and Empowerment (A Case Study). European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences, 24, 165-171.

Matthew, J., Grawhich, & Barber, L., (2009). Are you Focusing both Employees and Organizational Outcomes. Organizational Health Initiative at Saint Louis University (ohi.slu@edu), 1-5.

Manzoor, Q. (2011). Impact of employees motivation on organizational effectiveness. Business and Management Strategy, 3 (1).

Rukhmani, K., Ramesh, M., & Jayakrishnan, J., (2010). Effect of Leadership Styles on Organizational Effectiveness. European Journal of Social Sciences, 15 (3), 365-369.

Yazdani, B., Yaghoubi, N., & Giri, E., (2011). Factors affecting the Empowerment of Employees. European Journal of Social Sciences, 20 (2), 267-274.

Zammuto, R. (1982). Assessing Organizational Effectiveness. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY.