Abstract
A great number of investigators have been concerned with the lawful relationships between job satisfaction and job performance. The indication through the review of these kinds of studies seem to disclose that they were inconsistent and unsuccessful in the sense that different study produced different result. A major reason for the inconsistency seem to consist in the lack of the theoretical formulation as to employees' work motivation.
The expectancy theory which was proposed by Vroom in 1964 has recently been discussed as a basic paradigm for the studies of human attitudes and behaviors in organizational situations.
The expectancy theory suggests that human effort to perform an act is to be related to the degree to which the act is seen as leading to various outcomes which he values.
In this paper, expectancy theory and ten experimental studies which tested the principles of the theory are summarized and reviewed. These studies are discussed critically in terms of several points such as the lack of discrimination between expectancy and instrumentality. The further extensions and modifications of the expectancy theory are suggested through this review.
Finally, some suggestions for the application of the expectancy theory to practice are discussed.
