Process Theories

I.    The Vroom Model—A Contingency View

Vroom looks at effective motivation as a result of three factors:

•    The goals that a person wants to achieve
•    These might include a higher salary, promotion, job security and more interesting work. Each individual may have a different arrangement of goals. Vroom lays emphasis on what goals the employee sees as important.
    
Relationship Between Productivity And Personal Goal Attainment

•    Each person has a perception on how productivity is related to personal goal attainment. If a person sees high productivity as leading to achievement of personal goals, then high productivity will be desired. If not, not much value will be attached on productivity by that person. Here it is the employees perception that counts.

•    Extent to which a person can influence his/her own productivity
•    If an individual believes that there is little or nothing he can do to influence his output, then he may not attempt to do so.

II.    Productivity and Satisfaction—Porter & Lawler Model

Basing their work on the assumption that a relationship existed between satisfaction and productivity, Lawler and Porter developed their model of managerial motivation. Their model is based on the assumption that rewards cause satisfaction and that sometimes performance produces rewards. They hypothesized that satisfaction and performance are linked by rewards. They see good performance leading to rewards which lead to satisfaction. According to them satisfaction performance leads to rewards which are either intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic rewards are given to the individual by himself for good performance and they include feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction of higher level needs. Extrinsic rewards are given by the organization and include pay, promotions, status, job security etc. and they mainly satisfy lower level needs. This means that at times extrinsic rewards are not related to performance. To be considered a reward the individual must value it positively so both the individual worker and the organization are responsible for motivation. But despite the organization's influence the greater responsibility for motivation lies with the individual. Therefore his motivation or satisfaction depends on his performance as it is affected by the value he places on rewards, the probability that effort will result in rewards, his efforts, his abilities, his traits and his role perception.