Thus, according to expectancy theory, individuals are
motivated when they see a favourable combination of what
is important to them and what they expect as a reward for
their efforts, and they behave accordingly.
Reinforcement Theory
Reinforcement theory is associated with the psychologist B.F.Skinner and other contemporary.He has shown through the experiment that how the consequences of past behavior affect
future actions in a cyclical learning process. He conducted an experiment on a dog. What he did was that he brought food in
front of a dog. When the food came in front of dog his mouth
started to salivate. Every time the food came the mouth
salivated. Now, in his experiment he introduced another
element. The food was presented and as soon as food was
presented the dog was given electric shock. The sequence of event was:
Food → salivation→ shock.
This experiment was repeated number of times. After
sometime it was observed that the dog stopped salivating
whenever the food was presented. The results of the experiment
were that behaviour can be modified. This process may be expressed as follows:
Stimulus →Response → Consequences → Future Response.
(Food) (Salivation) (Electric Shock) (no salivation)
We see that behind the Reinforcement Theory is the
concept of punishment and reward. The application of this
theory is seen when animals are trained to perform certain
actions. You might have seen monkeys being asked to dance
by monkey-man and when monkey performs an act he is given something to eat. Reinforcement Theory is useful in understanding human behaviour as well. Human behaviour
can also be modified through reward and punishment.
If in organizations we want to encourage people to come
on time, then those who come on time have to be encouraged.
Now encouragement isa kind of reward. We have to remember
that rewards have many forms and dimensions. Rewards are
not only in money form. Even a nice word can be reward. In
organization sometimes certificates, badges, mugs etc can be used as rewards for good behaviour.
Similarly punishment has many dimensions in organization.
The severe being thrown out of job and a mild punishment
could be to use word of censure for behaviour that is not
desirable.
Figure 1