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Abstract

Expectancy motivation theory (Vroom, 1964) posits that employees will perform tasks if they are expected to do so, have the ability to do so, the opportunity to do so, and believe that their efforts will be rewarded. While this theoretical framework has been used successfully to explain differences in individual officer behaviour with regard to arrest productivity, it has yet to be tested with officer behaviours that are not easily verified. The present study used expectancy motivation theory to account for officer differences in the amount of time they spent on crime prevention security checks of businesses and residences. The findings suggest that while expectancy motivation theory explains a sizeable amount of variation in officer activities that are easily verified (such as arrests), it is not well suited to explain officer variation in work activities that are not easily verified.

Keywords

expectancy theory police patrol motivation

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Using Expectancy Theory to Explain Officer Security Check Activity

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