Victor Harold Vroom

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Victor Harold Vroom (born August 9, 1932 in Montreal ) is a Canadian business psychologist . He is a professor at the Yale School of Management .

Life

Childhood and youth

Victor Harald Vroom grew up as the youngest of three brothers in Montreal, Canada. His father worked for the Northern Electric Company in Canada and his mother was from South Africa, where her parents had tried the mining business after Vroom's grandfather retired from the British Army.

At a young age he had a particular interest in music, especially those of the big band era such as Benny Goodman , Artie Shaw and Charlie Parker . So he learned the clarinet and saxophone . At 15 he played with the band Blue Knights and planned another career as a professional musician. At the age of 17, just graduating from high school , he tried the United States, but was unable to get a work permit or join a music band.

His father had provided for him as for his brothers, a university career, but he possessed after the entry into the early retirement no longer have the necessary financial resources. So he first got him a job at the Royal Bank of Canada , but Vroom turned it down. Instead, he enrolled at Sir Williams College (now Concordia University ) because there was no high numerus clausus and, more importantly, cheap tuition fees . So he came to study psychology.

Education

Although psychology was not his main goal at first and he was still dreaming of a musical life, he became more and more interested in studying and also had good grades. After just one year he moved to the renowned McGill University , where he took courses from Donald Hebb , who had just presented his main work in the field of organizational psychology, The Organization of Behavior . He was able to earn the increased tuition fees as a musician.

He received his bachelor's degree in 1953 and his master's degree in 1955. He specialized in industrial psychology and was mentored by Edward Webster . In the first year he was shaped by the work of Joseph Tiffin , Charles Lawshe and Jay Otis . In 1954 he attended the International Congress of Applied Psychology in Montreal, where he met Rensis Likert's and Carroll Shartle's work, which led him to do a semester abroad at the University of Michigan . There he studied under Ted Newcomb , Doc Cartwright , Dan Katz , Jack French and Helen Pea .

In Michigan he worked at the Survey Research Center, which was essentially shaped by the idea of Kurt Lewin , who had died a year earlier . Another great influence was Norman Maier and his book Industrial Psychology . His dissertation Some Personality Determinants of the Effects of Participation was finally published in 1958 and received a prize from the Ford Foundation at Yale University . It was published as a book by Prentice Hall in 1960.

As an assistant professor

After completing his doctorate, he worked for two years at the Survey Research Center and as a lecturer in the Department of Psychology. He then went to the University of Pennsylvania , where he taught industrial psychology as an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology. There he also wrote his Work and Motivation , which was published in 1964 .

In 1963 he moved to the Graduate School of Industrial Administration (GSIA) at Carnegie Mellon University . There he taught prospective and experienced managers in corporate psychology, but was also able to continue his research.

Until 1972 he stayed at Carnegie with a sabbatical year at the University of California , where he wrote Leadership and Decision-Making with Phil Yetton . He sold the Vroom-Yetton decision model based on this research to the project management company Kepner-Tregoe . During this time he wrote his books Motivation in Management , the editors' publications Methods of Organizational Research (1967) and Management and Motivation (1970) together with his former student Ed Deci .

At Yale University

In 1972 he moved to Yale University , where he tried to direct the fate of the institute as chairman of the Department of Administrative Sciences, which was in a great financial crisis. In research he worked closely with Art Jago . Through his three-year management position, he was able to co-found the School of Organization and Management (now the Yale School of Management), which began operations in September 1976.

In 1977, a routine examination revealed lung cancer that had spread to both lungs. The operation went well, in fact it was a harmless sarcoid and he was soon enjoying the disease.

He spent the 1980s at Yale, where he and Jago, who now taught and researched at the University of Houston , revised his decision-making model. He published the joint research results in 1988 in The New Leadership, his last major major work. For this purpose, the software company Leadership Software was founded by Vroom and Jago, which also made the model available to companies as a computer program. The title of the program was Managing Participation in Programs (MPO).

Shortly thereafter, there was a change in leadership at Yale. Benno C. Schmidt Jr. became president of Yale University in 1986 and held this post until 1992. During this time he canceled many academic programs and ensured, among other things, that the School of Organization and Management achieved its status as one of the best schools in the country for management theory lost. In addition, proceedings against him and Iago hindered further publication activities. Kepner-Tregoe sued the two of them for intellectual property infringement because their software was based on results Vroom had worked on for the company. In addition, he had violated the license conditions set out in the contract by teaching his theories to people from further management, as he was only licensed to teach Bachelor and Master courses. In 1994, Leadership Software was fined $ 219,855.21 in damages and had to pay all legal fees. The procedure was confirmed at the second instance in 1999.

research

Victor Vroom's major works Work and Motivation as well as Leadership and Decision Making and The New Leadership . These are considered standard works of industrial and organizational psychology. Work and Motivation was completely revised and reissued in 1982 and 1992. His main theories are the valence instrumentality expectation theory , in which he examines why a person performs a certain action and the Vroom-Yetton decision model, which he developed together with Philip Yetton and Art Jago. In the 1980s in particular, the model caught on, but some errors were also discovered. So he revised the model together with Art Jago. So it became the Vroom-Yetton-Jago decision model, which is still used in management theory today.

Works

  • Some Personality Determinants of the Effects of Participation . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1960. Reprinted New York, NY: Garland Publishing Company, 1987.
  • The Productivity of Work Grows . With FC Mann and BP Indic. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, 1963.
  • Work and motivation . New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons, 1964. Reprinted Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing Company, 1982.
  • The Productivity of Work Grows . Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, 1963.
  • Motivation in management. New York, NY: American Foundation for Management Research, 1965.
  • Methods of Organizational Research . Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967. Reissued as Organizational Design and Research, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1968.
  • Management and motivation . Together with Ed. Delci. London, England: Penguin Books, 1970.
  • Leadership and Decision-Making . With Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973.
  • The New Leadership: Managing Participation in Organizations. With Art Jago, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1988.

Awards

  • Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Management, 2014
  • Distinguished Scholarly Contribution Award , Academy of Management , 2004
  • Literati Award , 2003 and 2004
  • Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award, Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology , 1998
  • Fellow , American Psychological Association
  • Fellow, American Psychological Society
  • Fellow, The Academy of Management
  • Excellence in Teaching Award, Yale SOM Alumni Association, 1994
  • President, Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1980-1981
  • James McKeen Cattell Award, American Psychological Association, 1970
  • Fulbright lecturer in United Kingdom, 1967–1968
  • McKinsey Foundation Research Design Competition Winner, 1967
  • Ford Foundation Faculty Fellowship, 1961–1962
  • Ford Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Competition Winner, 1958–1959

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Victor Harald Vroom: Improvising and Muddling Through. In: Wayback Machine. Yale School of Management, August 28, 2006, accessed May 20, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit .: KEPNER-TREGOE, INC., Plaintiff-Appellee, v. LEADERSHIP SOFTWARE, INC., Defendant Appellant. tape 12 , February 2, 1994, p. 527 ( google.com [accessed May 20, 2018]).
  3. ↑ KEPNER-TREGOE, INC., Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Victor H. VROOM, Defendant Appellant. In: FindLaw's United States Second Circuit case and opinions. Retrieved May 20, 2018 (American English).
  4. ↑ Vroom-Yetton-Jago decision model. In: www.centeredlearning.de. Retrieved May 20, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Gerhard Reber: Leadership: Does it move or is it moved? In: Helmut Kasper (ed.): Realizing strategies - mobilizing organizations: The latest management knowledge from the PGM MBA . Linde Verlag GmbH, 2012, ISBN 978-3-7094-0213-9 , pp. 179–197 ( google.de [accessed on May 20, 2018]).
  6. ^ Alistair Craven: An interview with Victor H. Vroom. In: http://first.emeraldinsight.com . Retrieved May 20, 2018 .
  7. ^ Professor Victor Vroom Honored with Lifetime Achievement Award . In: Yale School of Management . March 11, 2014 ( yale.edu [accessed May 20, 2018]).
personal data
SURNAME Vroom, Victor Harold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian business psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Montreal