Victor Harold Vroom (born August 9, 1932, in
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
, Quebec, Canada) is a business school professor at the
Yale School of Management
The Yale School of Management (also known as Yale SOM) is the graduate business school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. The school awards the Master of Business Administration (MBA), MBA for Executives ...
. He holds a
PhD from
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
and an
MS and
BS from
McGill University
McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...
.
Work
Vroom's primary research was on the
expectancy theory Expectancy theory (or expectancy theory of motivation) proposes that an individual will behave or act in a certain way because they are motivated to select a specific behavior over others due to what they expect the result of that selected behavior ...
of
motivation
Motivation is the reason for which humans and other animals initiate, continue, or terminate a behavior at a given time. Motivational states are commonly understood as forces acting within the agent that create a disposition to engage in goal-dire ...
, which attempts to explain why individuals choose to follow certain courses of action and prefer certain goals or outcomes over others in organizations, particularly in decision-making and leadership. His most well-known books are ''Work and Motivation'', ''Leadership and Decision Making'' and ''The New Leadership''. In this theory, he suggested that motivation is largely influenced by the combination of a person's belief that effort leads to performance, which then leads to specific outcomes, and that such outcomes are valued by the individual. Along with the version of
Lyman Porter and Edward Lawler, Vroom's formulation is generally considered as representing major contributions to expectancy theory, having stood the test of time and historical scrutiny.
Vroom described the valence of a specific outcome as "a monotonically increasing function of the algebraic sum of the products of the valences of all other outcomes and his conceptions of its instrumentality for the attainment of these other outcomes."
The second proposition central to Vroom's theory maintains that "the force on a person to perform an act is monotonically increasing function of the algebraic sum of the products of the valences of all outcomes and the strength of his experiences that the act will be followed by the attainment of these outcomes."
Vroom has also been a consultant to a number of corporations such as
GE and
American Express
American Express Company (Amex) is an American multinational corporation specialized in payment card services headquartered at 200 Vesey Street in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The company was found ...
.
Victor Vroom was appointed Chairman of the Department of Administrative Sciences and associate Director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale in 1972. Currently, Victor lives in Guilford, Connecticut, with his second wife, Julia Francis, and their two sons, Tristan and Trevor..
Bibliography
Articles
*
See also
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Vroom–Yetton decision model
The Vroom–Yetton contingency model is a situational leadership theory of industrial and organizational psychology developed by Victor Vroom, in collaboration with Phillip Yetton (1973) and later with Arthur Jago (1988). The situational theory ar ...
Notes
External links
Chambly County High School & Chambly Academy Alumni Association Profile of VroomVroom's homepage at Yale School of Management
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vroom, Victor
Canadian psychologists
Canadian business theorists
Motivation theorists
1932 births
Living people
American people of Dutch descent
Carnegie Mellon University faculty
University of Michigan alumni
Leadership scholars
McGill University alumni