In accordance with the article on Victor Vroom, his “Expectancy Theory” has become a highly influential component of management and leadership in the 21st century. It has been praised for its focus on the needs and requirements of employees and how their performance can be improved with the development and provision of suitable rewards, rewards that inevitably inspire and motivate individuals towards success and further development in the future. I picked the expectancy theory as it gives managers the autonomy to change the motivation and performance levels of employees and shows how change and inspiration can be used to improve working conditions (Guru, 2015).
The perceived value of work in conjunction with the likelihood for a reward and the desire for a reward are all key, major components of the Expectancy Theory and as stipulated, can be used by managers to inspire higher performance levels. I observe this in my day-to-day interactions with employees and managers and I am provided with the motivation to improve working conditions simply by exposure to the Expectancy Theory. I also believe that the theory should be more widely applied in numerous organizations and can be used as a replacement for current, more conventional models of management, which are too stringent and harsh on employees (Schmidt, 2015).
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"Analysis and Application of the Expectancy Theory in the 21st Century".
There are also, a number of applications of the Expectancy Theory that can highlight its effectiveness in alleviating issues associated with employees and the performance of organizations globally. There are three identifiable applications of the Expectancy Theory that will be extensively analyzed in this paper. The first application is its use in large call centers and customer service roles across global organizations. In the case of large call centers, there are many situations where employees are under valued and over time, provide a lower level of performance particularly when they are exposed to angry customers and are only being managed by one supervisor. The Expectancy Theory can assist customer service consultants in providing a better service to customers and also managers with respect to employees by encouraging the use of provisional rewards to inspire employees (Schmidt, 2015). The use of targets and in particular, the key concept of instrumentality (which forms a key part of the Expectancy Theory), can inspire consultants to continue providing a sustained level of performance and also with the belief that their continued efforts will be rewarded. Room for improvement with respect to this application focuses on promoting value within the customer service industry and reassuring employees that what they are doing, despite some negativity, is influential and highly rewarding (Guru, 2015).
The second application is in more ordered and structured settings where protocols are strictly adhered to and employees become accustomed to little change. By introducing incentives for high performance and in particular, change initiatives, employees can understand that there is some value in their work despite the organization’s resilience to change and little praise of their work. For example, in the military, members are forced to service a long period of time away from their family and the service fails to provide suitable incentives to retain personnel. The Expectancy Theory, despite encouraging value and inspiration in the work of employees in structured organizations, can improve further by using innovation and encouraging supervisors to provide rewards that are different from simply granting leave or patting a colleague on the back. The Expectancy Theory fails to improve the image of structured organizations such as the military (Guru, 2015).
The third application of the “Expectancy Theory” is in situations where independence is key and employees are not heavily supervised. It can effectively encourage supervisors to take a stronger stance towards supervising and managing their respective employees. The theory can provide employees, who are overly independent, with an incentive to continue working without too much intervention. For example, scientists will often lack direction from their managers or little incentive to perform higher, particularly when their work is highly challenging and relies on small breakthroughs (Schmidt, 2015). By adding value to their work such as promotions or rewards for work that may not involve breakthroughs, scientists can be inspired to persist with certain assignments or projects. Limited guidelines and instruction on how the Expectancy Theory can be applied in these situations makes it difficult for suitable rewards to be introduced and in fact, this is pertinent in most situations involving independence and under valued employees (Schmidt, 2015).
There are a number of additional challenges of using the theory in today’s global/virtual environment including a general reluctance to take on change and new concepts, which have never been used before. There are organizations, which are heavily resistant to change and this prevents such ideologies as the “Expectancy Theory” from being effective and having a greater impact on employees. Other additional challenges include limited knowledge on the Expectancy Theory and also the expectation that it will be as ineffective as other theories that have been introduced in large organizations (Guru, 2015).
The field of management has however changed as a result of the Expectancy Theory and managers and organizations are starting to appreciate the work and performance of their employees and are trying to find alternative ways to further inspire higher levels of performance. Furthermore, the needs and requirements of employees are intrinsically highlighted via the Expectancy Theory (Guru, 2015). The theory has not evolved since its development and is quite resistant to changes in the world. This is positive in nature as it is particularly beneficial to current employees in the 21st century.
