Vroom’s expectancy theory was originally developed by Victor H. Vroom, a Canadian psychologist, in 1964. Attacking Herzberg’s two-factor theory, Vroom offered an expectancy approach to the understanding of motivation. According to him, a person’s motivation towards an action at any time would be determined by an individual’s perception that a certain type of action would lead to a specific outcome and his personal preference for this outcome. Vroom’s expectancy theory consisted of two related models – the valence model and the force model. The valence model attempts to capture the perceived attractiveness, or valence, of an outcome by aggregating the attractiveness of all associated resultant outcomes. The force model of expectancy theory attempts to capture motivational force to act by associating the expectancy of resultant outcomes and their individual valences. These two models gave Vroom the opening to build his expectancy theory to the level that it is today most Continue reading
Human Resource Concepts
Major Criteria to Assess the Performance of Employees
The starting point for the performance appraisal process is identifying specific performance goals. An appraisal system probably cannot effectively serve every desired purpose, so management should select the specific goals it believes to be most important and realistically achievable. For example, some firms may want to stress employee development, whereas other organizations may want to focus on pay adjustments. Too many performance appraisal systems fail because management expects too much from one method and does not determine specifically what it wants the system to accomplish. The next step in this ongoing cycle continues with establishing performance criteria (standards) and communicating these performance expectations to those concerned. Then the work is performed and the supervisor appraises the performance. At the end of the appraisal period, the appraiser and the employee together review work performance and evaluate it against established performance standards. This review helps determine how well employees have met these Continue reading
Factors Influencing International Compensation
Recently, the dilemma between sector and cultural predictors of compensation policies has become a public concern, and is extremely important in the background of internationalization. Even some well-known cultural traditions at working styles of many countries, examples like the Industry Wide Bargaining of Germany, the Lifetime Employment of Japan and the Wide-range Social Safety Net of France, now are facing the threats of being damaged owing to the big pressures from economic globalization. As a result, multinational employers are facing unprecedented challenges when choosing a job due to the pressures of economic globalization and market economy. The growth of global economy plays a major role in general business, especially in the areas of human resource management. It has been at the agenda of company leaders to chase the qualification of global mind-sets by which they used to meet the challenges brought by the trend of globalization of economy and create Continue reading
Variable Compensation Program – Types, Pros and Cons
Performance Related Pay is a kind of a payment system which relates the wages and salaries with the performance of an employee. It includes incentive payments, merit pay, etc. Performance Related Pay is also known as Variable Compensation. Variable compensation programs are customized in such an order that, as said before, the performance of the employees depicts their incomes. It does not depend on his/her designation in an organization. These programs are designed to motivate individuals and groups that contribute effectively, as they differentiate between performers and non-performers. Many companies believe that a variable compensation program enhances productivity and motivates employees. The American Management Association, based on a study of 83 companies, concluded that grievances had dropped by 83%. absenteeism by 84% and lost – time by 64%, after variable pay programs were introduced in these firms. Variable compensation is also one of the employee involvement programs. Such programs make Continue reading
Wage Determination Process
Wages can be expressed in two ways. When they are expressed in terms of money paid to the worker they are called nominal wages. But when they are expressed in terms of their purchasing power with reference to some base year they are called real wages. These wages are arrived at by making adjustment in the nominal wages for the rise or fall in the cost of living. How do we measure changes in the cost of living, or changes in the prices that consumers pay? The measuring rod is the consumer price index number. This index number is intended to show over a period of time the average percentage change in the prices paid by the consumers belonging to the population group proposed to be covered by the index for a fixed list of goods and services consumed by them. The average percentage change, measured by the index, is Continue reading
Significance of Human Resources in International Business Arena
As the success of domestic business depends on its human resources, the success of a multinational company depends on international human resource management. Human resources managers are kind of people managers of any business organization, and are responsible for managing a wide range of employees. The human resource manager in a multi-national company with divisions or subsidiaries in foreign countries has all the normal HR responsibilities plus a brace of additional tasks that are specific to offshore operations of his department. He is literally responsible for international human resource management. International human resource management functions cover many different activities related to a business organization’s employees and contractors. The first and most important is the staffing needs of the company whether staff members are company employees or outside contractors. Other functions include recruiting and training employees, ensuring that they are performing at expected levels or better, handling performance issues and making Continue reading