دانلود رایگان مقاله تنظیم هدف و جهت گیری هدف لابیرنت

The goal setting process is no easy task, but the effort is not only worthwhile, it is also essential for success in today’s global business world. Just as organizations strive to achieve certain goals, individuals are also motivated to strive for and attain goals. In fact, goalsetting is among the mostimportant motivational tools affecting the performance of employees and teams in organizations. More than 1000 studies have tested goal setting theory. What have we learned from this research? First, setting a specific, challenging goal leads to higher performance than setting an easy goal, a vague goal, such as to do one’s best, or no goal. The disadvantage of a vague goal is that it is too idiosyncratic, or ill-defined. The disadvantage of setting no goal is that it leads to a lack of focus and hence individuals wander aimlessly. The second finding is that the higher the goal, the higher the performance. There is a linear relationship between the difficulty of a goal and the resulting performance. Third, participation in decision-making, competition, and knowledge of results only increase performance to the extent that they lead to the setting of a specific, high goal. However, there are four boundary conditions that must be satisfied for these relationships to hold. First, the person must have the ability to attain the goal. The relationship between goal difficulty and performance levels off when individuals reach the limit of their ability. Second, the person must have the situational resources (e.g., financial,technological)to attain the goal. Situational constraints must be minimal to allow people to fully utilize their ability. Third, the person must be committed to attaining the goal. If a person lacks the ability to attain the goal, and/or lacks the resources necessary to do so, goal commitment is unlikely to be high. Worse, perceptions by supervisors that their subordinates lack the resources and hence the ability to attain the goalthey were assigned,isrelated to subsequently abusing subordinates. As for goal commitment, if it does not exist, by definition the goal has been rejected. Finally, an individual mustreceive objective feedback on progress toward goal attainment. Without objective feedback, a person will not know what to start, continue, or stop doing to ensure that the goal is attained. One of the major reasons why video games can be so addictive is because players receive objective feedback immediately after each move. A player is either rewarded or punished after each decision. Of course, there are many situations in the workplace in which this type of feedback is not possible due to the scope and nature of the task.

MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS

Goal setting is a theory that works. Its usefulness for improving performance in organizational settings has been well established. We believe that it is important to distinguish between three types of goals: behavioral, performance, and learning. Behavioral goals should be set for outcomes that are not easily quantifiable (e.g., developing subordinates, behaving ethically) yet are important to an individual’s and an organization’s effectiveness. Performance goals should only be set on tasks that are straightforward for individuals (e.g., waitperson at a fast-food restaurant; a pit crew changing tires during a NASCAR race). Learning goals should be set when individuals have yet to master the task (e.g., mentoring others; crafting a strategic plan). Learning goals focus on the identification and implementation of effective strategies, processes or procedures necessary to perform a task effectively. A growing number of empirical studies show that setting a specific, difficult learning goal on a task that requires the acquisition of knowledge leads to better performance than a specific, difficult performance goal does. The latter interferes with learning process and hence may have a deleterious effect on performance. The causal relationships found for performance goals also apply to learning goals. A specific, difficult learning goal leads to higher performance than a specific, easy learning goal or a ‘‘do your best’’ goal. The higher the learning goal, the higher the performance on a knowledge or skill acquisition task within a person’s ability scope. Four factors affect the strength of the relationship between goals and performance. Managers should take into account how particular variables may enhance or undermine goal effects. Two that apply to performance goals are ability and commitment. We cannot think of any context where situational constraints would not affect the learning goalperformance relationship. For example, individuals need to be given adequate time to learn the strategies to perform a task that is complex for them. One study has shown that individuals with a learning goal spent more time on a complex business simulation than those with a performance or a ‘‘do your best’’ goal. They gathered more information to make decisions, and then performed at a higher level than individuals with either a performance or a ‘‘do your best’’ goal. Itis easy to envision that had they taken less time to complete the simulation or gathered less task-relevant information, their performance would have suffered.