MGT5OBR Assessment 2: Expectancy and Goal Setting Theories

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of two key organizational behavior theories: Expectancy Theory and Goal Setting Theory. The introduction provides a brief overview of both theories, setting the stage for a detailed examination of their core components, strengths, and weaknesses. Expectancy Theory, developed by Vroom and later modified by Porter and Lawler, is dissected, exploring valence, instrumentality, and expectancy as critical factors influencing employee motivation. The essay then moves on to Goal Setting Theory, developed by Locke, discussing its principles, including SMART goals, and its impact on performance. The connection between the two theories is explored, highlighting how they complement each other in driving employee motivation and achieving organizational objectives. The discussion also includes critical considerations of how leadership and management play an important role in the successful application of these theories. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of understanding employee expectations and providing a supportive work environment to enhance job satisfaction and overall organizational effectiveness.

Introduction
The theory of expectancy was designed by Vroom in the year 1963 and in the year 1968, it
was modified by Porter and Lawler. This theory stated that the degree of motivation of an
individual depends on the possible outcome of the job. Also, the goal setting theory refers
to the effects of setting targets for consequent achievement and how the setting of goals
affects the performance of an individual. This essay shall examine the theories of
expectancy and goal setting and at the same time and review the connection between the
two theories. It shall also examine the strengths and weaknesses of both the theories
(Behaviour, 2014).
Expectancy Theory
Expectancy theory is based on motivation and how employees make decisions about
alternative behaviours and degree of endeavour. It focuses on how the employees of an
organization decide on the type of behaviors for performance and the amount of effort to
be exerted in order to derive at a desirable outcome. Vroom’s Expectancy Theory is based
on three components and they are: valence, instrumentality and expectancy. Valence is the
desire for a particular outcome for an individual employee. In an organization, there can be
various outcomes, like pay rise, job security, bonus, promotion etc, but the importance of
each shall differ from one worker to the other. The availability of highly valent outcomes
should be made available to the workers and this becomes a very significant factor in
motivating an employee and moving the organization ahead. The second factor
instrumentality decides the relation between the level of effort and the desirable outcome.
A -1 instrumentality says that the worker does not perceive the effort will yield the desired
result, and +1 means the worker definitely thinks that the effort shall yield the result,

whereas an instrumentality of zero, signifies that the worker does not perceive any relation
between the effort and outcome. It denotes the perception of the employee about the
relationship between the effort and the outcome. The third component of Vroom’s Theory
is expectancy, which signifies the perception of the employee about the scope to which the
individual’s effort will yield a certain level of job performance (Barba-Sanchez & Atienza-
Sahuquillo, 2017). Lyman Porter and Edward Lawler had used the Expectancy Theory of
Victor Vroom as a foundation and had developed their own modified version of the
Expectancy Theory. They made the theory more in-depth and more complex. They identified
nine factors which affect motivation at work. The factors are:
1) Perception about the value of the outcome
2) The expectation that a particular performance shall pave the way for reward
3) Effort
4) Individual capacities
5) Perception of the roles that they are involved in
6) Job performance
7) Intrinsic Rewards and Extrinsic rewards
8) Perception about the equity of the rewards
9) Satisfaction at job
(Lloyd & Mertens, 2018)
This theory is assumed to be a comprehensive model with varied aspects of the relationship
between attitudes of employees at the workplace and the job performance. It has a great
contribution to a better understanding of motivation at work and the intrinsic relationship
between achievement and fulfillment. The Expectancy Theory also does not take into

consideration the emotional state of an individual or also the individual’s experience, skills,
knowledge and personality traits. This theory also does not perform well in a group
environment where more than one individual needs to be motivated for a single project.
Once the management understands the concept of this theory they can utilize it to their
benefit by understanding the gap in skills and provide appropriate training, the exact thing
that they need to keep their employees motivated, and a commitment towards delivering
the reward. Also, the positive side of a well applied theory is the happiness of the
employees and their willingness to participate. Recent research also shows that the decision
making approaches based on the Expectancy Theory is well supported. However, this theory
has proved to be one of the best in understanding an individual’s decision making process.
But, the theory needs to be understood well by the management and the managers and
their active participation, in particular, or else this theory fails to serve its purpose. Another
issue with this theory is the management’s lack of understanding the employee and their
basis of motivation. The rewards offered by the management, might not be valued by the
employees or they may not have enough trust in the management to believe that the
reward is for real (Gaffney, 2018).
Goal Setting Theory
Goal Setting Theory was developed and modified by Edwin A. Locke in the year 1968.
According to this theory, the goal should be measurable and quantifiable and affects the
outcomes through choice, effort, persistence and cognition. Goal Setting Theory involves
specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-targeted goals or shortly known as
SMART. The components of the Goal Setting Theory involve:

1) Goal Difficulty
2) Goal Specificity
3) Goal Acceptance
4) Goal Commitment
In this theory, it is established that employees are more motivated by clear goals and
evaluation and a healthy competition in the workplace is a positive thing (Erik, Courtright,
DeGeest, Seong, & Hong, 2016). According to the theory, handling challenges directly allows
an individual to work hard, develop the required skill sets and achieve the rewards in the
form of positive feedbacks and a sense of accomplishment. This theory has been mainly
applied to short term objectives in organizations since they are more clear and it is thought
to be a difficult proposition to look into the long term. This theory of Edwin Locke has also
been studied and supported by Dr. Gary Latham and confirmed the findings of Edwin Locke,
that setting of goals is inseparably related to workplace performance. In the year 1990,
Edwin Locke and Dr. Latham published their work in “A Theory of Goal Setting & Task
Performance” and came out with five characteristics for the setting of successful goals for
the team or an individual (Hoek, Groeneveld, & Ben, 2016). According to them the features
of a fruitful and meaningful target are:
a) Clarity – When goals are clear, employees have a clear object to target at. General
instructions to the team or individual employee lacks motivation and quantification.
b) Challenge – The target that is to be achieved, needs to be challenging, but the
challenge should not be resilient enough for the employees. Otherwise the target
would be unachievable and demotivate the employees at the same time.

c) Commitment – To be successful, the team or the individual must agree to the goal
and feel committed towards the achievement of the same. But it is not always
necessary that the team has to agree everytime, but if the target is believed to be
achievable, employees shall be committed towards the goal, provided they also feel
that the assignee is trustworthy and the goals are in consistence with the company’s
aspirations.
d) Feedback – The manager should be open to feedbacks and ensure that regular
feedbacks are taken from the team. Regular feedbacks help clarification of people’s
expectations and adjust the complications in the goal.
e) Task Complexity – It should be ensured that the complexity of the task should not be
staggering for the employees. Care should be taken to ensure that the employees do
not push themselves so hard to achieve the goals, so as not to lose sight of the actual
goal.
This is a very helpful theory when it comes to driving plans and learning about the different
aspects through feedback. Each employee has certain goals to achieve and certain tasks
assigned. It also notes that specific goals are required to monitor the progress of the
organization as a whole or a particular project. However, this theory has its own share of
weaknesses, which prevents the practice of this in many situations. Setting a goal is
perceived as creating pressure and thus is avoided. Achievement driven people might look
at it as an opportunity to thrive, whereas others might see it as a cause of stress and fear.
Setting up of specific goals is a time consuming process and also a channelled vision towards
specific goals can lead to missing of prevalent opportunities (Locke & Latham, 2015).

Connection between Expectancy Theory and Goal Setting Theory
Expectancy Theory and Goal Setting Theory are two different aspects of achieving the
organization’s target, but both the theories are not exclusive of each other. Expectancy
Theory in its own is a complex notion since each action may lead to varied outcomes. Out of
these outcomes, some employees may want some and some others don’t. For example, an
individual may work hard to get promotion and put in extra hours and gets very little time to
spend with family, and the outcome of this hard work is promotion and monetary benefits.
In another scenario, another person works hard but does not put in extra hours so that he
gets enough time for the family. Thus the motivation varies from one person to another.
Thus, the expectancy theory is difficult when it comes to application, however, it provides
the managers with varied useful guidance. It insists that managers should understand that
each employee works for different reasons and these reasons may keep on changing over
time for the same individual. Goal Setting Theory, on the other hand gets along closely with
expectancy theory, if the goals are attached to rewards that a particular individual covets or
values. Expectancy Theory also means that you keep motivating people by managing their
expectations (UKEssays, 2018). Several researches over the years have shown that Goal
Setting Theory validate the point that higher the level of expectancy, then higher the level of
performance, which has a direct correlation to the Expectancy Theory. But again, it has also
been pointed out that when expectations are low but the level of goals is high, even then
performance would be higher. Both the theories emphasize the importance of the
employees and their cognition of the decisions taken. At this point, it is important to note
that, the Expectancy Theory has a negative linear relation between levels of difficulty and
level of performance of an individual whereas the Goal Setting Theory has a positive linear

relation between the same (Morgenroth, Ryan, & Peters, 2015). An employee who is not
satisfied with his job description is not expected to perform at a high level. However, here
comes the benefit of Expectation Theory where the management needs to identify or have a
one-on-one discussion with the employee to understand his expectations. This expectation
analysis shall help the management to understand the employees need, desire, basis of
motivation and his driving force for performance. Motivation is the underlying force behind
the various performance levels and ultimately job satisfaction. Job dissatisfaction could be
the result of various scenarios like low pay, work-life balance, poor leadership, lack of
specific and clear goals, vague job description, lack of growth opportunities or may be an
unsupportive manager. All the others can be addressed in the case where there is a strong
leadership and empathetic manager. But the question is, would the Expectancy Theory hold
good, when there is poor leadership or unsupportive line manager? The answer is No. Job
satisfaction is an important aspect where employees voluntarily exercise sufficient effort to
achieve a target. This job satisfaction can either be an inherent quality of the employee,
though this is not sustainable in the long run, or it has to be dealt by the leadership, a good
leadership, where they know the expectations of the employees and can handle the team
accordingly. A bad leadership does not focus on the employees and thus leads to job
dissatisfaction and unmotivated employees at the end of the day. It is evident that for the
theories to be successful, the managers or leadership is equally important as the employees,
because it is the managers that deal with the employees and their expectations (Kianto,
Vanhala, & Heilmann, 2016).

Conclusion
The essay critically analyses both Expectancy Theory and Goal Setting Theory to understand
the strengths, weaknesses and the benefits of both the theories. However, one cannot
assert that one theory works better than the other. Ultimately, the onus of success lies with
the employees as well as the leadership. In order to apply any one of the theories or rather
a combination of the theories, the management needs to study the employee and their
expectations and needs, and then advance to apply the theory in practice. Some employees
might get motivated by the idea of a challenging goal and some may be motivated by
monetary incentives and some other might look for work-life balance and a smooth flow of
work. Thus, it is for the managers to decide how to go about applying these theories in the
real world.
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