Short paper on Orienting New Employees

Orienting New Employees

Assume that you have been asked to design a portion of the orientation program that your organization is using for new employees. In a 2-3 page word document, detail how the three concepts from expectancy theory (expectancies, instrumentality, and valence) can be used to increase the motivation of these new employees. That is, what activities or discussions might be conducted that would increase the likelihood that employees will exert high levels of effort toward achieving work-related goals?

 

I have uploaded a .txt document with imformation from my book chapters, inlcuding only necessary information to complete the paper.

 

APA formatted; double spaced; Citations not needed.

Cognitive Process Theories of Motivation
Few of us would deny that our conscious thoughts play a role in how we
behave. A second group of motivation theories, called cognitive process theories,
recognizes this and argues that motivation is based on a person’s thoughts and
beliefs (or cognitions). These theories are sometimes referred to as process theo-
ries because they attempt to explain the sequence of thoughts and decisions that
energize, direct, and control behavior.
Cognitive motivation theories have direct relevance to HRD. Most HRD
programs include attempts to change employee behavior by influencing their
thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes. Learning, which lies at the heart of HRD, is
often seen as a cognitive process (learning is discussed in Chapter 3). We can
do a better job of designing and implementing HRD programs if we understand
how employees’ thoughts and beliefs affect their behavior. In the following sec-
tion, we briefly review four cognitive theories of motivation: expectancy theory,
goal-setting theory, social learning theory, and equity theory. Each theory has
relevance for the practice of HRD.
Expectancy Theory. Expectancy theory, first proposed by Victor Vroom, assumes
that motivation is a conscious choice process.57 According to this theory, people
choose to put their effort into activities they believe they can perform that will
produce desired outcomes. Expectancy theory argues that decisions about which
activities to engage in are based on the combination of three sets of beliefs: expec-
tancy, instrumentality, and valence.
Expectancy beliefs reflect an individual’s judgment of whether applying (or
increasing) effort to a task will result in its successful accomplishment. Stated
another way, people with high expectancy believe that increased effort will lead
to better performance, but people with low expectancy do not believe that their
efforts, no matter how great, will affect their performance. All things being equal,
people should engage in tasks for which they have high expectancy beliefs.
The second belief, instrumentality, is a judgment about the connection the
individual perceives (if any) between task performance and possible outcomes.
Making an instrumentality judgment entails asking the question, “If I perform
this task successfully, is it likely to get me something I want (or something I
don’t want)?” Instrumentality ranges from strongly positive (the individual is cer-
tain that performing a task will lead to a particular outcome), through zero (the
individual is certain there is no relationship between performing the task and the
occurrence of a particular outcome), to strongly negative (the individual is cer-
tain that performing a certain task will prevent a particular outcome from
occurring).
The third belief important to expectancy theory is valence. Valence refers to the
value the person places on a particular outcome. Valence judgments range from
strongly positive (for highly valued outcomes), through zero (for outcomes the per-
son doesn’t care about), to strongly negative (for outcomes the person finds aversive).
Expectancy theory posits that employees will make these three sets of judg-
ments when deciding which behaviors and tasks to engage in. Specifically, the
theory predicts that employees will choose to put effort into behaviors they
• believe they can perform successfully (high expectancy) and :
• believe are connected (high instrumentality) to outcomes they desire (high
valence) or
• believe will prevent (negative instrumentality) outcomes they want to avoid
(negative valence).
Figure 2-3 graphically depicts this process. For example, suppose the man-
ager of a bus company tries to motivate drivers to drive more safely by offering
safe drivers additional vacation days. Whether this will motivate a driver to drive
more safely depends on whether
1. the driver thinks he or she can improve his or her safety record to the level
desired by the manager (expectancy),
2. the driver believes the manager will give more vacation days if his or her
safety record is improved to the desired level (instrumentality), and
3. the driver values having more vacation days (valence).
Do people behave in the way expectancy theory predicts? Empirical studies
testing the theory have supported its predictions.58 However, methodological
problems in some of these studies may have led to underestimates of the theory’s
predictive ability.59 Expectancy theory may seem complex, and more research is
needed to understand whether the theory accurately represents the behavioral
choices we make.60 Expectancy theory is, however, clearly relevant to HRD. It
offers a way to diagnose performance problems and then suggests how these pro-
blems can be overcome. In addition, expectancy theory has implications for the
design and effectiveness of HRD programs. For example, according to expec-
tancy theory, employees will not be motivated to attend HRD programs and
try to learn from them unless they believe :
1. their efforts will result in learning the new skills or information presented in
the program,
2. attending the program and learning new skills will increase their job perfor-
mance, and
3. doing so will help them obtain desired outcomes or prevent unwanted
outcomes.
Viewing employee behavior from an expectancy theory perspective, super-
visors and HRD professionals can design and market programs in ways to ensure
that employees make the appropriate judgments and, as a result, will be motivated
to attend, learn, and apply what they have learned back on the job. Some ways
to do this include offering incentives such as holding HRD programs in attrac-
tive locations, offering paid time off from work to attend, designing a program
that is interesting and enjoyable, providing proof that the program is effective,
and making success in the program a prerequisite for promotion and other
desirable outcomes.
Summary of Motivation
As we have seen, there are many approaches to explaining and understanding
motivation.87 Each theory we have discussed enhances our understanding of
employee behavior and has at least some research support (with the strongest
support going to goal setting, reinforcement theory, social learning theory, and
expectancy theory). In addition, each approach offers valuable insight into the
design and implementation of HRD programs.
This brief discussion of different approaches to understanding work motiva-
tion is not exhaustive and does not explain the complexity of and interrelation-
ships among theories. Some theories, such as expectancy theory and
reinforcement theory, make many similar predictions.88 In addition, researchers
have attempted to integrate several theories into a larger, more inclusive model
(for example, the Porter-Lawler model, which combines expectancy and equity
theories). One attempt to synthesize multiple motivational models was proposed
by John Wagner and John Hollenbeck.89 Their model can be seen in Figure 2-6.
In this model, four employee work outcomes are of particular interest (these are
the rectangles in the center of the model): employee desire to perform, the effort
employees put forth, employee performance, and employee satisfaction.
Expectancy theory is used as an overarching framework to depict influences on employee moti-
vation and performance. However, the other theories described earlier are also used
to increase our understanding of how this process unfolds.
For example, we previously described valence, instrumentality, and expec-
tancy during our discussion of expectancy theory. However, the various need the-
ories can assist us in understanding valences, that is, what it is that people value or
want. Similarly, both reinforcement theory and social learning theory can provide
guidance in understanding what employees believe will lead to the attainment of
what they want, that is, their instrumentality beliefs. The various forms of reinforce-
ment, as well as the vicarious learning via modeling (suggested by social learning
theory), lead to such instrumentality beliefs. These combine to produce a given
desire to perform on the part of employees. As suggested by expectancy theory,
this then interacts with expectancy (the judgment that one’s efforts will lead to a
successful outcome) to produce a high level of effort. Effort, in turn, must be
accompanied by a sufficient level of ability (described later), as well as accurate
role perceptions. Goal-setting theory is useful here in providing guidance to
employees concerning what needs to be done, at what performance level, and
who has responsibility for doing it. When effort, ability, and accurate role percep-
tions are all present, then high levels of individual performance are predicted to
occur. The final variable in this model, satisfaction, is predicted to follow from
performance, as well as from a perception that rewards have been given out fairly.
Equity theory provides a helpful framework for understanding employees’ percep-
tions of the equity of rewards. Finally, the model portrays return arrows back to
valence, instrumentality, and expectancy. This is meant to portray the dynamic
nature of employee motivation and performance, that is, that motivation and per-
formance can change over time. A highly motivated person can lose motivation
when valence, instrumentality, or expectancy decline. On the other hand, when
one of the aspects of this model improves or increases, then higher levels of moti-
vation, performance, and satisfaction are predicted to occur. We view this model
as a useful diagnostic tool to understand employee motivation, since it effectively
synthesizes and summarizes our discussion of the various motivational theories.