Famous psychologist Victor H. Varoom was one of the leading exponents of this theory of motivation. Varoom was of the view that people are motivated to do things to reach a goal if they believe in the worth of the goal and if they believe that what they do helps in achieving that.
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In other words, people’s motivation towards doing anything is determined by the value they place on the outcome of their effort and also by the confidence they have their efforts are going to help in the achievement of the goal. Varoom has indicated that:
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Where force is the strength of a person’s motivation, valence is the strength of an individual’s preference for an outcome, and expectancy is the probability that a particular action will lead to a desired outcome.
When a person is indifferent about achieving certain, goal, a valence of zero occurs, and there is a negative valence when the person would rather not achieve the goal. The result of both would be not motivation.
Similarly a person would have no motivation to achieve a goal if the expectancy were zero or negative. Thus, force exerted to do something depends both on valence and expectancy.
According to Koontz and Weibrich, “one of the great attractions of the theory is that it recognizes the importance of various individual needs and motivation”. It thus avoids some of the simplistic features of the Maslow and Herzberg approaches. It does seem more realistic.
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The expectancy theory is completely consistent with the system of managing by objectives. The organizations can be benefited if expectations of the employees are integrated with the organizational goals.
Thus, the managers should carefully assess their reward structures, do careful planning, practice management by objectives and have clear definition of duties and responsibilities.