Faculty Profiles

Victor H. Vroom, M.Ps.Sc., Ph.D.

Professor, School of Management, Yale University 

BearingPoint Professor of Management & Professor of Psychology

Professor Vroom is an authority on the psychological analysis of behavior in organizations, particularly on leadership and decision making. His 1964 book, Work and Motivation, is regarded as landmark in that field, and his books dealing with leadership, Leadership and Decision Making and The New Leadership, are widely cited as breakthroughs in the study of organizational behavior. A native of Canada, Professor Vroom has consulted to over 50 major corporations, including Bell Labs, GTE, American Express, and General Electric.

Link to profile at Yale

Achievements and Honors

• Distinguished Scholarly Contribution Award from Academy of Management, 2004
  2004 Literati Award - Best article in 2003
• Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award, Society of Industrial and OrganizationalPsychology, 1998
• Fellow, American Psychological Association
• Fellow, American Psychological Society
• Fellow, The Academy of Management
• Excellence in Teaching Award from the 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

Books

• Work and Motivation, Revised Edition, Jossey-Bass Classics, 1995
• Management and Motivation (with E. Deci), Penguin Books, Second Edition, 1992
• The New Leadership: Managing Participation in Organizations(with A. Jago), Prentice Hall, 1988; German Edition, 1991; Spanish Edition, 1991; Korean Edition, 1994
• Some Personality Determinants of the Effects of Participation, Prentice Hall, 1960, Reprinted 1987, Garland Publishing Company
• Leadership and Decision Making (with P. Yetton), University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973

Recent Book Chapters

• "Teaching the Managers of Tomorrow" in R. Sternberg, ed., Career Paths in Psychology, APA Books, 2nd Edition, 2006
• "Normative Models of Decision Making and Leadership," in S. Rogelberg, ed., Encyclopedia of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Sage, 2006
• "On the Origins of Expectancy Theory," in K. Smith and M. Hitt, Great Minds in Management: The Process of Theory Development. Oxford University Press, 239-258, 2005
• "Decision Making: The Vroom/Yetton/Jago Models," in G. Goethals, G. Sorenson, and J.M. Burns, The Encyclopedia of Leadership, McGraw-Hill, Vol. 1, 322-325, 2004
• Situational Factors in Leadership, in Chowdry S, ed., Organizations 21C:, Financial Times/Prentice Hall, 2003
• Leadership Style: Managing the Decision Making Process, in Rimar S., ed., The Yale Management Guide for Physicians, Wiley, 2001
• Selected Articles
  "On the Synergy Between Research and Teaching," Journal of Management Education, Vol. 31, 365-375, 2007
• "The Role of the Situation in Leadership"  (with A.G. Jago), American Psychologist, Vol. 62, No. 1, 17-24, 2007
• "Educating Managers in Decision Making and Leadership," Management Decision, Vol. 41, No. 10, 968-978, 2003
• "The Person Versus the Situation in Leadership," Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 13, 301-323, 2002
• "Leadership and the Decision Making Process," Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 28, 82-94, 2000

Education

• PhD University of Michigan, 1958
• MPs.Sc. McGill University, 1955
• B.Sc. McGill University, 1953

This video is courtesy of Harvard Center for Public Leadership.

This discussion on intelligence leadership features the contrasting views of professors Victor Vroom, BearingPoint Professor of Management and Professor of Psychology at Yale University and Robert Sternberg, IBM Professor of Psychology and Education, Professor of Management, and Director of the PACE Center at Yale University (Sternberg now serves as the Dean of Arts & Sciences at Tufts University).