The Porter and Lawler Model of Motivation - Research Proposal Example

Managing people The term motivation is derived from the term ‘Motive’. Motive can be defined as needs, wants, drives or impulses within an individual. Therefore motivation means a process where human needs direct and control a human being. It can also be defined as a process by which human needs direct and control the behavior of human being. It can also be defined as a process which inspires people at work to contribute to the best of their capability for the achievement of organizational objectives. The process of motivation includes motives, behaviors, goals and feedbacks. (Tulsian.P.C.& Pandey.V. 2006). Motivation is an important aspect in the process of directing people in an organization. Motivation aims in influencing the behavior of subordinates for enabling them for a better performance as well as for accomplishing desired results. Motivation always deals with actuating people towards work. Without motivation, people in the organization will not have the urge to maintain and improve their efficiency. Motivation is considered as the core of management (lazar. P.K. 2007). The topic of motivation is large. Human motivation is a set of reasons that will establish a person to act as well as to engage in an exacting action or conduct (Definition of Motivation. 2008). Importance of motivation. Motivation is considered as the core of the management. It is non avoidable in modern business management, It has many importance aspects. Motivation always sets in motion the action of people. It activates human resources by creating the will to work among human beings. Motivation improves efficiency of work performance. This is by bridging the gap between the ability and willingness to work. As a result the quantity and quality of production is increased and the cost of operations is reduced. Moreover motivation ensures achievement of organizational goals. This is through meeting of individual needs through a satisfactory system of rewards and by inspiring people at work to contribute to the best of their capacities. Motivation also creates a friendly relation between the employers and the employees’ through monetary and non monetary incentives. It also leads to stability of the workforce by providing the workforce with job satisfaction. Motivation also facilitates to introduce changes in the organization. This is necessary for overcoming the resistance to change among the employees. . Theories of Motivation: Vroom’s valence expectancy theory:. Vroom formulated his expectancy theory of motivation as a criticism to Herzbergs two factor theory. According to vroom, people will be motivated to do things to achieve some goals to the extent that certain actions on their part will help them to achieve goal Vroom’s model is built around the concept of value, expectancy and force. The basic assumption is that the choice made by the person among alternative course of action is lawfully related to the psychological events occurring contemporaneously with the behavior. Vroom’s concept of force is basically equivalent to motivation and can be shown as: Motivation= Valence X Expectancy. According to Vroom, valence means the strength of an individual’s preference to a particular outcome. Other terms equivalent to valence used in various theories of motivation are incentive, attitude, and expected utility. In order foe the valence to be positive for an individual, he must prefer attending the outcome to not attending it. A valence of zero occurs when the individual is indifferent to wards the outcome. And the valence is negative when the individual prefers not to attend the outcome. Another major input into the valence is the instrumentality of the first level outcome in obtaining the desired second outcome (Mullins.L.J. 2007). For example assume that an individual desires promotion and feels that superior performance is very strong factor in achieving that goal. His first level outcomes are then superior, overall or poor performance. His second level outcome is promotion. This first level outcome of high performance thus acquires a positive valence by virtue of the expected relationship to the preferred second level outcome or promotion. In this case the person the person would be motivated for more superior performance because it is his desire to be promoted. The superior performance which is of first level is instrumental in obtaining the promotion which is the second level (lazar. P.K. 2007). Another factor that determines motivation is expectancy. That is the probability that a particular action will lead to the outcome. Expectancy is different from instrumentality input into valence. Expectancy differs from instrumentality. It relates efforts to first level outcomes where instrumentality relates first and second level outcomes to each other. Thus expectancy is the probability a particular action will lead to a particular first level outcome. The strength of motivation to perform a certain act will depend on the sum of the products of the values for the outcomes and expectancies. One of the main features of this theory is that it recognizes individual difference in work and motivation and suggests that motivation is a complex process as compared to other content theories. It also clarifies the relationship between individual and organizational goals. Vroom’s theory is consistent with the idea that manager’s job is to design an environment for performance. Moreover this theory is also consistent with management by objectives or MBO. But this theory is difficult to research and apply in practice. This is evident by the fact that there have been only a few research studies designs specifically to test this theory. Moreover Vroom depended more on researches conducted before the formulation of his theory. Vroom’s model is a step in the right direction but does not give managers practical help in solving motivational problems. Porter and Lawler model of motivation: This model is built on the base of the expectancy theory of Vroom. It is a complete model and can be applied to study managers. This model is a multivariate model which explains the complex relationship between job attitudes and job preferences. This model encounters some of the simplistic traditional assumptions made about the positive relationship between satisfaction and performance. Porter and Lawler explained their theory as: the emphasis in expectancy theory on rationality and expectations seems to describe best of kinds of cognition that influence managerial performance. The managers operate on the basis of some sort of expectancies which although biased upon previous experience, are forward oriented in a way that does not seems to be easily handled by the concept of habit strength. The various elements of this model are effort, performance, rewards and satisfaction. Based on their research conducted, Porter and Lawler pointed out that these factors. Presumed to affect performance turned out to show relations to performance and those variables presumed to result from performance also typically were related to performance. After the review of related research studies, they concluded that over all the evidence on the relationship between expectancy attitudes, importance attitudes, and performance provides rather impressive support for the model. However this model is more complex than other models. It explains fully the different variables underlying in motivation. In practice also motivation is not a simple cause and effect relationship but it is a complex phenomenon. This model suggests that managers should carefully asses their rewards structures and that through careful planning and clear definition of role requirements. The effort performance reward satisfaction system should be integrated into an entire system of managing (Mullins.L.J. 2007). The Porter and Lawler model of motivation is considered as an excellent model of motivation theory. This model is an extension of the expectancy model developed by another expert, Victor Vroom in 1964. Going along with the lines of the expectancy model, the Porter and Lawler model suggests that the motivation of employees depends upon two factors they are degree of which the employee values certain rewards and the belief of the employees that their efforts will result in obtaining the rewards. Different from the Vroom model, the porter and Lawler model gives suggestions that the abilities of individuals and role perceptions will moderate the relation between performance and efforts. Moreover the Porter and Lawler model gives more emphasis on the perception of employees related to effects of rewards and their relationships with work and satisfaction. .Unlike vroom’s model which is difficult for further research, the Porter and Lawler model, has opened wide scope for further research and debate among the management scientists (Porter-Lawler Expectancy Model. 2008). Reference: Definition of Motivation. 2008. (online). Available: http://www.mumbaispace.com/motivation/definition-of-motivation.htm Lazar.P.K. 2007. Business studies. Thrissur: Excel publishers. Mullins.L.J. Management and organization behaviour. 2007. London:Financial Times Prentice Hall Porter-Lawler Expectancy Model. 2008. (online). Available: http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0232-21621_ITM Tulsian.P.C.& Pandey. V.Business organization and management. 2002. Singapore: Pearson Education. Read More