Porter and Lawler Model of Motivation Explained

By Tara Minh · Updated Oct 11, 2026

The Porter and Lawler model is a motivation theory that extends Vroom's expectancy theory. It says effort depends on the value of a reward and the perceived chance that effort will earn it, performance depends on effort plus ability and role clarity, and satisfaction comes from rewards judged fair. Its signature claim: performance drives satisfaction, not the other way round.

Most managers run on the opposite belief. Make people happy, the thinking goes, and they'll work harder. The Porter and Lawler model flips that sequence, and the flip changes how you design goals, rewards, and feedback.

Key Facts

• Lyman Porter and Edward Lawler set out their model in the 1968 book Managerial Attitudes and Performance (Open Library record).
• Lawler and Porter published a related paper, "The Effect of Performance on Job Satisfaction," in Industrial Relations, volume 7, issue 1, pages 20 to 28 (Wiley, DOI 10.1111/j.1468-232X.1967.tb01060.x).
• The model has nine variables, and it builds on Vroom's expectancy theory by adding ability, role perceptions, rewards, and perceived fairness.
• Core claim: good performance leads to rewards, and rewards that feel fair lead to satisfaction. Satisfaction is an outcome of the loop, not its starting point.

What is the Porter and Lawler model?

Vroom's expectancy theory stops at motivation. It tells you whether someone is willing to try. It doesn't say what happens next: whether trying turns into results, whether results turn into rewards, and whether those rewards leave the person feeling good about the job.

Porter and Lawler picked up the story there. They treated motivation as one stage in a cycle that runs from effort to performance to reward to satisfaction, and then loops back to shape the next round of effort. That cycle is why the model is often drawn as a diagram with arrows and feedback lines instead of a single formula.

The model also rejects a simple assumption that many managers still hold, which is that satisfied workers are productive workers. In their framing, performance comes first. People who do well, and get rewards they see as fair, end up satisfied. Satisfaction then feeds back into how much they value similar rewards next time.

The nine variables of the model

Here are the building blocks. The numbering follows the way the model is usually drawn, and each variable connects to the next.

Value of reward and perceived effort-reward probability

These two variables are Vroom's contribution, carried over. Together they produce effort. If a reward matters little to someone, or they don't believe effort will earn it, they won't push. If you've read about instrumentality and valence in expectancy theory, you've seen the same logic.

Effort, abilities, and role perceptions

Here is where Porter and Lawler broke from simpler models. Effort alone doesn't produce performance. Two other things sit between them:

• Abilities and traits. A hard worker without the needed skills still underdelivers. Training, hiring, and coaching all work on this variable.
• Role perceptions. Someone can work flat out on the wrong thing. If a rep believes the job is to close many small deals while the company wants fewer, larger accounts, their effort gets spent in the wrong direction.

So performance depends on effort, ability, and role clarity together. Weak on any one, and the output suffers even when motivation is high.

Performance and rewards

Performance triggers rewards, and the model splits them in two:

• Intrinsic rewards come from the work itself: a sense of accomplishment, learning, autonomy. They follow quickly and the person controls them.
• Extrinsic rewards come from the organization: pay, bonuses, promotion, status, praise. These depend on someone else making a decision.

The model notes that rewards tied directly to performance matter most. A bonus handed out evenly to everyone, whatever they delivered, severs the link the model depends on.

Perceived equitable rewards and satisfaction

Satisfaction isn't produced by the reward alone. It comes from comparing what a person received with what they believe they should have received. If actual rewards meet or exceed that fair level, they feel satisfied. If rewards fall short, dissatisfaction follows, even when the absolute reward is decent.

This is where the model overlaps with Adams' equity theory. A raise of the same size can delight one person and insult another, depending on their sense of what was fair.

Why performance drives satisfaction

This is the model's most quoted idea, and it's worth slowing down on.

The traditional view runs: satisfied employees perform better. Porter and Lawler argued the main arrow points the other way. Strong performance earns rewards. Fair rewards produce satisfaction. And satisfaction then affects how much the person values and expects rewards next time, which feeds into effort.

Lawler and Porter explored this direction in their 1967 paper "The Effect of Performance on Job Satisfaction," cited in the Key Facts above. The practical takeaway doesn't depend on any single dataset, though. It's a design principle: if you want a satisfied team, build the conditions that let people perform and make sure good performance is visibly rewarded.

A few implications follow:

1. Perks don't fix a performance problem. A better coffee machine may please people. It won't change the effort-to-reward chain.
2. Satisfaction surveys lag. They tell you how the cycle went last quarter, not what to change this quarter.
3. Unrewarded excellence is costly. If strong work goes unrecognized, the satisfaction step fails and the whole loop weakens.

Be careful not to flip into the opposite error, though. The model doesn't say satisfaction is irrelevant. It says satisfaction is better treated as a result you earn through good design than a lever you pull directly.

Porter and Lawler vs. other motivation theories

The model sits among several frameworks that answer different questions. Pick the one that matches the problem you're trying to diagnose.

A simple way to remember it: Vroom asks "will they try?", Adams asks "is it fair?", Herzberg asks "what kind of factor is this?", and Porter and Lawler ask "what happens after they try, and how does it change what they do next?"

How to apply the model: step by step

Use the nine variables as a checklist. Work through them for one person or one team at a time.

1. Pick one performance outcome. Be specific. "Close rate on qualified demos" works better than "do well."
2. Check role perceptions first. Ask the person to describe what good looks like in their own words. If their answer differs from yours, fix that before anything else. It's the cheapest gap to close.
3. Check abilities. Compare the skills the outcome needs with the skills the person has. Plan training, pairing, or a role adjustment for any gap.
4. Check the value of the reward. Ask what they'd find worth working for. Pay, a development opportunity, a bigger project, and flexibility all land differently.
5. Check the effort-reward probability. Do they believe strong work will actually be rewarded? Look for broken promises, moved goalposts, and delayed payouts.
6. Tie rewards to performance. Make the link visible and quick. Say what was rewarded and why.
7. Balance intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Give people work with meaning and room to decide, and back it with fair external rewards. Self-determination theory explains why the internal side matters.
8. Check perceived fairness. Ask whether the outcome felt fair. The answer is your satisfaction reading, and it shapes the next cycle.
9. Close the loop. Use what you hear to adjust goals, rewards, or support before the next round.

Template: motivation diagnostic

Copy this table into a doc or one-on-one note. Score each row from 1 (weak) to 5 (strong), then write one action for any row scoring 3 or below.

Read the table from the top. The first low score is usually where the chain breaks, and fixing later rows won't help until it's repaired.

Examples by business function

The same logic shows up everywhere. These are illustrative scenarios, not case studies.

Do's and don'ts

Limitations

The model is richer than expectancy theory, and that richness has a cost.

• It's hard to test as a whole. Many variables are internal beliefs, and the model has many moving parts.
• It still assumes rational calculation. People don't always weigh effort and reward the way the diagram suggests.
• Fairness is subjective. Two people see the same outcome and judge it differently, which makes the "perceived equitable rewards" step tricky to manage.
• It says less about group dynamics. Team norms, trust, and culture sit outside the core diagram. For work design, the job characteristics model adds detail on how the work itself motivates.

Use it as a diagnostic map, not a prediction engine.

Best practices

• Run the diagnostic with the person, not about them. Their answers on role perceptions and fairness are the data.
• Fix upstream gaps first: role clarity, then skills, then rewards.
• Keep the effort-to-reward link short. Slow rewards weaken it; consistent patterns of reinforcement strengthen it.
• Set expectations carefully. High expectations, communicated clearly, shape how people see their own role, a pattern the Pygmalion effect describes.
• Check fairness after every reward cycle, not just at annual reviews.

The Porter and Lawler model gives leaders a way to see motivation as a loop instead of a single moment. Start with clear roles and real skills, tie rewards to results, check that they feel fair, and let what you learn shape the next round.

For related reading, see Vroom's expectancy theory, Adams' equity theory, and goal-setting theory.