Expectancy-valence Theory Research Articles

The cross-level effect of team safety-specific transformational leadership on workplace safety behavior: The serial mediating role of team safety climate and team safety motivation

Introduction: Workplace safety not only impairs individual health but also affects economic and social development. Method: Based on social learning theory, collective social learning theory, and expectancy-valence theory, using cluster random sampling method, 630 employees from 66 different work teams out of around 800 employees in a domestic petroleum enterprise were selected to participate in the research. The safety-specific transformational leadership, safety climate, safety motivation and workplace safety behavior scales were used. Data were collected in two stages. SPSS22.0 and Mplus7.0 were used to analyze the data to explore the relationship between team safety-specific transformational leadership and workplace safety behavior, as well as the serial mediating effect of team safety climate and team safety motivation. Results: The results showed that: (a) team safety-specific transformational leadership can positively influence safety compliance and safety participation; (b) team safety climate mediates the relationship between team safety-specific transformational leadership and safety compliance and safety participation; (c) team safety motivation mediates the relationship between team safety-specific transformational leadership and safety compliance and safety participation; and (d) team safety climate and team safety motivation play a serial mediating role between team safety-specific transformational leadership and safety compliance and safety participation. Practical Applications: This research has both theoretical and practical significance.

Understanding the underlying motives: Motivation beliefs in the Association of Research Libraries (ARL)

Much can be learned from examining what leaders and followers believe motivates their work and the work of their colleagues. Research indicates a person's actions are inseparable from their beliefs and, given the many workplace decisions made on a daily basis, studying the motivational beliefs that underlie those decisions could reveal a great deal about workplace dynamics. The Motivation Beliefs Inventory (MBI) is a validated survey instrument designed to measure motivation beliefs along four theoretical lines: Reinforcement Theory, Expectancy-Valence Theory, Achievement Motivation Theory, and Self-Determination Theory. While this instrument has been used to measure motivation beliefs in such disparate industries as global consulting and the U.S. military, it has never been applied in an academic or library setting.Thus, this article discusses the results of a study which investigated the motivation beliefs of Association of Research Libraries (ARL) academic librarians in the United States. This study utilized a cross-sectional survey design with a stratified random sample of academic librarians employed by the 102 U.S. ARL member libraries. The findings indicate that ARL librarians' gender identity, race/ethnicity, faculty status, manager/non-manager job duties, educational attainment, and years of experience in academic libraries impact the motivation theories with which their beliefs align.

Predicting hospitality employees' safety performance behaviors in the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study develops and tests a research model to explain and predict how and when organizational safety climate influences hospitality employees' safety performance behaviors by proposing two boundary conditions: communication transparency and safety-related stigma based on expectancy-valence theory. Specifically, we examined if communication transparency intensifies the impact of perceived safety climate on employees' safety motivation that drives safety performance behaviors through prevention work focus and if safety-related stigma attenuates the links between safety motivation and safety performance behaviors. Based on two national samples of 214 South Korean and 240 U.S. foodservice employees, this research found that safety climate was positively associated with safety motivation, prompting safety behaviors with the key mediating mechanism of prevention focus work. However, there were different patterns observed for the moderating roles of communication transparency and stigma for the foodservice employees between South Korea and the United States. Implications of the findings are discussed for hospitality researchers and practitioners.

Corporate Sustainable Development Strategy: Effect of Green Shared Vision on Organization Members' Behavior.

In this study, expectancy–valence theory was used from the perspective of corporate green management to investigate green shared vision (GSV). Moreover, organizational identity theory and psychological ownership theory were combined to propose an integrated conceptual framework. To fill research gaps, an investigation was also conducted with frontline R & D and sales employees to further examine the effect of GSV on organization members’ psychology and behavior. The research results indicate that when under the following circumstances, corporate members can enhance organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE) to improve green management performance, gain the favor of green consumers and achieve sustainable consumption goals. First, enterprises should focus on environmental issues and develop their GSV. Second, enterprises should implement the GSV in different aspects, such as product design, processing, marketing and management. Finally, corporate GSV should be in line with the expectations and values of organization members on environmental issues to motivate their OCBE. Therefore, enterprises must implement their GSV to strengthen the green organizational identity and green product psychological ownership of their members.

The effect of policy instruments on rural households' solid waste separation behavior and the mediation of perceived value using SEM.

Based on expectancy valence theory, people's behavior is affected by their self-perception and the external environment. In rural China, policy instruments as robust external environment factors have a strong effect on waste separation behavior (WSB). The purpose of the paper is to explore the influencing mechanism of policy instruments (infrastructure and information) on perceived value (perceived benefit and perceived cost) and waste separation behaviors. The data were collected from 689 rural households of Shaanxi province in China, and analyzed by using structural equation model (SEM). According to the results, the mediation effect proves that policy instruments not only can affect WSB directly but also can affect it indirectly through the perceived value. Specifically, information and infrastructure influence the perceived benefit positively and the perceived cost negatively, and information and infrastructure have an indirect effect on WSB through the mediation effect of the perceived cost. Second, policy instruments have a stronger effect on rural people's waste separation behavior than perceived value. Specifically, infrastructure has the most important impact on waste separation behavior, followed by information and then perceived cost. Third, the perceived cost is significantly negatively related to WSB, and perceived benefit has a positive effect but is statistically insignificant. It has a practical implication for the government. Providing sufficient infrastructure and launching effective information activities could improve the perceived benefit including biospheric, egoistic, social-altruistic, and reputation; and reduce the perceived cost of time, physical, learning, and money, which could then induce rural households to engage in WSB.

The impact of trust, security, and privacy on individual's use of the internet for online shopping and social media: a multi-cultural study

This paper examines through the lens of expectancy-valence theory the impact of trust, privacy, and security on the decision to use the internet for online shopping and social media. It also investigates the moderating impact of Hofstede's cultural dimensions on the hypothesised relationships. The comparative analysis of 302 surveys from users in the USA and Qatar revealed that trust in internet technology and trust in vendors are the strongest two factors in making decisions to use the internet for online shopping and social media. The results indicated that the cultural dimensions moderated the hypothesised relationships. Surprisingly, Qataris respondents, compared to US respondents, were more influenced by privacy concerns when making decisions to use the internet for online shopping or social media. Implications for researchers and practitioners are reported.

The impact of trust, security, and privacy on individual’s use of the internet for online shopping and social media: a multi-cultural study

This paper examines through the lens of expectancy-valence theory the impact of trust, privacy, and security on the decision to use the internet for online shopping and social media. It also investigates the moderating impact of Hofstede's cultural dimensions on the hypothesised relationships. The comparative analysis of 302 surveys from users in the USA and Qatar revealed that trust in internet technology and trust in vendors are the strongest two factors in making decisions to use the internet for online shopping and social media. The results indicated that the cultural dimensions moderated the hypothesised relationships. Surprisingly, Qataris respondents, compared to US respondents, were more influenced by privacy concerns when making decisions to use the internet for online shopping or social media. Implications for researchers and practitioners are reported.

Does privacy matter to millennials? The case for personal cloud

ABSTRACTTo date, there is little research on the extent to which privacy, security, and trust influence consumer technology-use decisions based on generation. We, therefore, examine, through the lens of the expectancy-valence theory, the extent to which privacy, security, and trust influence the decision to use personal cloud computing among millennials. We also examine the moderating effect of innovativeness on these relationships. Our structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis of 371 millennials shows that privacy is irrelevant for millennials when making decisions to use personal cloud and that individuals with high innovativeness tend to disregard security when making an adoption decision.

Creation and Initial Validation of the Motivation Beliefs Inventory Measuring Leaders’ Beliefs about Employee Motivation Using Four Motivation Theories

This article describes the development and validation of the Motivation Beliefs Inventory (MBI), a new instrument for measuring leaders’ motivation beliefs. For decades, organizational scholars and a small number of motivation researchers have urged leaders to examine their beliefs related to employee motivation. Answering this challenge was difficult, however, given the lack of instruments designed to measure motivation beliefs at all, much less beliefs from a range of prevalent theories. Using principal components and parallel analyses, the 20-item Motivation Beliefs Inventory (MBI) was created to measure motivation beliefs along four theoretical lines: reinforcement theory; expectancy-valence theory; achievement motivation theory; and self-determination theory. The instrument was validated in two studies involving large samples of businesspeople (n=1322 and 712). Validity and reliability analyses revealed the instrument demonstrates acceptable psychometric properties. Four subscales, each representing a single theory, were confirmed and demonstrated alpha coefficients as follows: reinforcement theory, .77; expectancy-valence theory, .71; achievement motivation theory, .82; self-determination theory, .77. The entire Motivation Beliefs Inventory produced a strong alpha coefficient of .77. The creation of a new instrument like the MBI opens fresh possibilities for both practitioners and scholars. While workplace practitioners now have the ability to measure a leader’s beliefs about motivation, researchers can use the instrument to test for differences in these beliefs among leaders in different occupations, companies, industries, and countries. Given the link between leader beliefs and behavior, the article concludes with a discussion about belief strength, and the challenges and opportunities of empirically investigating leaders’ beliefs about what motivates employees.

A multidimensional measure of work valences

Work valence is derived from expectancy-valence theory and the literature on children's vocational development and is presumed to be a general appraisal of work that emerges during the childhood period. Work valence serves to promote and inhibit the motivation and tasks associated with vocational development. A measure of work valence, composed of perceptions about future work experiences and affects, is developed and tested employing samples of high school and university students. Multi-group confirmatory factor models demonstrated that the Work Valence Scale (WVS) conformed to a hierarchical measurement model and may be employed to yield a general work valence construct or more specific positive and negative work valences. The WVS demonstrated metric invariance across the high school and university years. Criterion validity tests demonstrated that the general work valence was positively associated with work approach motivation and in-depth career exploration and negatively associated with work avoidance. Discriminant validity tests demonstrated that the positive and negative work valences and affectivities were only weakly correlated with general measures of affectivity.

The Impact of Target Setting on Managerial Motivation & Performance

This empirical study examines managerial perceptions of elements of the relationship between target setting system (TSS) and managers' attitudes and behaviour. On the basis of the Expectancy-Valence (E-V) theory of motivation, a model is developed and a number of propositions are advanced about the interactive effect of participation, target attainability, target specificity and commitment on managerial motivation and performance. Using a partial least squares (PLS) methodology, the perceptions of 69 middle managers in an Eastern European financial institution are analysed. The results generally support the model. They show that participation tends to affect the perceived attainability of targets directly, as well as indirectly, through the perceived specificity of targets. Target attainability has a significant influence on managers' motivation and subsequent performance. Furthermore, managerial perceptions of the specificity and attainability of targets appear to contribute to target commitment, which has a positive and significant effect on managers' performance. Overall, the study's findings are consistent with the conclusions of goal setting theory about the motivational potential of challenging yet attainable performance targets, as well as with the literature on the benefits of participation in the target setting process, and have important implications for the way targets are set within the performance measurement, evaluation and reward system (PMERS).

Regulatory Focus Theory: Implications for the Study of Emotions at Work

Previous theory and research have shown that people have two distinct self-regulatory foci. When promotion focused, people are motivated by growth and development needs in which they attempt to bring their actual selves (their behaviors and self-conceptions) in alignment with their ideal selves (self-standards based on wishes and aspirations of how they would like to be). When prevention focused, people are responsive to security needs in which they try to match their actual selves with their ought selves (self-standards based on felt duties and responsibilities). Strategically, eagerness or ensuring gains predominate for promotion-focused persons, whereas vigilance or ensuring nonlosses predominate for prevention-focused persons. People's regulatory focus influences the nature and magnitude of their emotional experience. Promotion-focused people's emotions vary along a cheerful-dejected dimension, whereas prevention-focused people's emotions vary along a quiescent-agitated dimension. We consider the implications of the relationship between regulatory focus and emotions for such topics as person/organization fit, goal-setting theory, expectancy-valence theory, behavioral decision theory, and employee resistance to organizational change. Possible antecedents of employees' regulatory focus also are discussed.

Women's career development: Can theoretically derived variables predict persistence in engineering majors?

Factors related to persistence in engineering, particularly for women, were examined in 278 upper level undergraduate women and men who, as entering students, enrolled in the college of engineering at a large midwestern university. An overall model of persistence was created by integrating constructs derived from a number of theories relevant to women's career behavior, including self-efficacy theory, expectancy-valence theory, interest congruence theory, and influences on women's career development. Hierarchical logistic regression revealed that ability, self-efficacy, support-barriers, and interest congruence each added significantly to the model predicting persistence, which correctly identified 92.6% of persisters and 62.3% of nonpersisters. Gender and expectancy-valence variables were not significant predictors, nor were any of the 2-way interactions with gender. Implications for future research and interventions are discussed.

Expectancy, valence, and motivational force functions in goal-setting research: An empirical test.

Expectancy-valence (EV) theory has often been used as a model for understanding goal setting. The authors attempt to further distinguish within-person from across-persons uses of EV theory concepts in the goal-setting literature and present a within-person empirical test. The key element of the approach examined here is that an assigned goal's initial effect is on the patterns formed across levels of potential task performance by a person's judgments of expectancy, valence, and motivational force (i.e., performance-expectancy, performance-valence, and performance-motivational force functions). By examining these functions, the authors make available more detailed information regarding the motivational effects of assigned goals

Inequities in organizations, salesperson motivation and job satisfaction

This paper examines the effects of perceived inequities involving organizational rewards and favoritism on salesperson work motivation and job satisfaction. A set of hypothesis is proposed on the bases of equity/inequity theory and expectancy-valence theory literature in sales management and organizational psychology. These hypothesis are tested with data collected from a sales population. Findings indicate that salespersons' perceptions of various inequities can produce strong negative influence on their motivation to perform and on job satisfaction. Managerial implications of these findings are also discussed.

MOTIVATION AS A FACTOR AFFECTING MALES PARTICIPATION IN PHYSICAL ACTIVITY DURING LEISURE TIME

ABSTRACT In this paper, the authors present part of the results of an extensive study which attempted to identify factors affecting or related to physical activity during leisure time. The main aim of this part of the study was to pinpoint motivational factors which influence adult males to participate in physical activity. 482 males, mean age 29, participated in the study, and were presented a list of 33 sport activities. Two indicators of the degree of physical activity which served as dependent variables, were the extent and the level of physical activity. The subject of motivation for participation in physical activity during leisure time was approached from two main viewpoints: that which identifies main dimensions of attitude and that which is based on the Expectancy-Valence Theory. The findings show that the most important motivational factors regarding the population in this study are 1) physical activity as supplying tension and excitement which stems from fast movement, changes in direction of m...

Values, expectations, and the prediction of social action: An expectancy-valence analysis

Two studies were conducted to test hypotheses about the relationship of values to action within the context of expectancy-valence theory. In these studies, university students who had previously completed the Rokeach Value Survey answered questionnaires that related to social movement organizations and that contained attitude items, expectancy items, and measures of willingness to assist these organizations. It was predicted that (1) value rankings from the Rokeach Value Survey will be systematically related to attitudes toward social movement organizations; (2) both attitudes and outcome expectancies (subjects' estimates of how helpful their action will be) will be correlated with measures of willingness to act on behalf of an organization; and (3) attitudes and expectancies will jointly account for more of the variance in action measures than either attitudes or expectancies can account for independently. Results showed that hypotheses were consistently supported across two measures of action, two contrasting organizations, hypothetical and actual commitments to act, and two subject samples. These results extend the scope of the expectancy-valence approach by incorporating general values (conceived as motives) into the analysis, and they have practical implications for social movement strategies.

Perceived Organizational Climate and the Process of Salesperson Motivation

The author examines how organizational climate contributes to salespersons’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to perform. On the basis of expectancy-valence theory of motivation, specific relationships between organizational climate and motivational components are tested using a sample of insurance salespersons. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.

Unemployment and depressive affect: A motivational and attributional analysis.

It was hypothesized on the basis of expectancy-valence theory that the negative affect that follows failure to obtain employment will be stronger among those individuals who are more strongly motivated to seek employment than among those who are less motivated. This hypothesis was tested by administering a questionnaire to a sample of 212 unemployed youth contacted through helping agencies in Adelaide, South Australia. Consistent with the hypothesis, the results showed that subjects who indicated in their ratings that they were highly motivated to get a job also provided higher ratings of depressive affect. Those subjects with higher levels of depressive affect were less likely to blame themselves for their unemployment and more likely to blame external difficulties, such as the current economic situation. They also provided higher ratings of the valence or perceived attractiveness of work itself. Their retrospective ratings concerning how confident they were of getting a job on leaving school and how much they needed and tried for a job also tended to be higher than those of the less depressed subjects. Results are discussed in relation to the expectancy-valence approach, Beck's theory of depression, the helplessness theory of depression, and recent discussions of cognitive-effect linkages that employ attribution concepts.

Unemployment and depressive affect: a motivational and attributional analysis.

It was hypothesized on the basis of expectancy-valence theory that the negative affect that follows failure to obtain employment will be stronger among those individuals who are more strongly motivated to seek employment than among those who are less motivated. This hypothesis was tested by administering a questionnaire to a sample of 212 unemployed youth contacted through helping agencies in Adelaide, South Australia. Consistent with the hypothesis, the results showed that subjects who indicated in their ratings that they were highly motivated to get a job also provided higher ratings of depressive affect. Those subjects with higher levels of depressive affect were less likely to blame themselves for their unemployment and more likely to blame external difficulties, such as the current economic situation. They also provided higher ratings of the valence or perceived attractiveness of work itself. Their retrospective ratings concerning how confident they were of getting a job on leaving school and how much they needed and tried for a job also tended to be higher than those of the less depressed subjects. Results are discussed in relation to the expectancy-valence approach, Beck's theory of depression, the helplessness theory of depression, and recent discussions of cognitive-effect linkages that employ attribution concepts.