Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey.

“Conversely, research also suggests that setting specific and concrete goals promotes behavioral engagement (Locke and Latham, 2002; Rabinovich et al., 2009).”

“Exploratory, inductive research has led to the development of many well-known theories, such as goal-setting theory (Locke and Latham 2002) and social cognitive theory (Bandura 2001).”

“…and states are associated with physical and mental health, adjustment to stressful life events, and success in work, social relationships, sports, and other personal aspirations (Bandura, 1982; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Duckworkth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007; Loch & Latham, 2002; Snyder, 2000).”

“Earlier work that did look at moderators did so separately for vision and goals (see Lowe, Kroeck, & Sivasubramaniam, 1996 for a meta-analysis of the moderators of vision; see Locke & Latham, 2002 for a review of moderators of goals).”

“A goal can be defined as a desired state or outcome [74].”

“Conceptually, goal setting theory (Locke and Latham 1990a , 2002 ; Latham and Locke 2008) is as applicable for motivating an employee in the public sector as it is to the private.”

“In another extensive meta-analysis conducted more than a decade later, Meyer and colleagues (2002) provide further insight into how such a model may be constructed.”

“Theories on self-regulation stress the importance of goal-selection (i.e., actively determining the goals an individual w nts to or has to pursue, Locke & Latham, 2002) and of using efficient strategies for goal pursuit.”

“Given the evidence that a prespecified short-term goal is more likely to be achieved than a vague long-term goal (Locke & Latham, 2002), the frequent provision of general encouragement may not have had the desired effect.”

“…citizens’ attention is directed towards co-producing activities, since motivations determine how willing people are to reach their goals and what is important to them (Latham, 2007; Locke and Latham, 2002), and which decisions should be made in concrete situations (Tasdoven and Kapucu, 2013).”

“Literature review finding: gaming motives and assemblage of player differences According to the theory of goal-setting and task motivation (Locke & Latham, 2002, 2006), personal relevance of a task reinforces commitment or cognitive motivation, and hence positively influences task performance.”

“The second session introduced elementary principles of goal-setting theory (goal specificity, difficulty, and importance) and guided participants in designing personalized DM goals and action plans.(19) Goals focused primarily on diet and exercise changes, home monitoring of blood glucose and medication effects, and c…”

“Most theories of human-motivation, such as the classic expectancy-value model, hold that people will work hard if they think that doing so will lead to outcomes they value [22] and emphasize the importance of feedback to help people achieve their performance goals [15].”

“On the other hand, as positive feedback highlights the sufficiency of recipients ’ current behavior, it may provide a sense of satisfaction with their current behavior, which can reduce task motivation (Locke & Latham, 2002).”

“Snyder’s model both borrows from and fits neatly into the goals literature pioneered by Locke and Latham (1990, 2002) and Heath, Larrick, and Wu (1999), where goals become viewed as reference points that heavily reward effort in utility terms in approaching a goal but where diminishing returns set…”

“Past research has shown that goals—like the goal to match the diversity of peer groups—are often highly motivating (Locke & Latham, 2002), but individuals relax efforts to achieve desirable outcomes after reaching salient goal thresholds in many settings (Heath, Larrick, & Wu, 1999).”

“This may lead to higher performance, especially when employees pursue a goal that is personally meaningful to them (Locke & Latham, 2002).”

“…(Barrick & Mount, 1991), which could be a further explanation as to why conscientious individuals experience greater levels of job satisfaction especially in light of previous research on motivation, which has demonstrated a link between job performance and job satisfaction (Locke & Latham, 2002).”

“…have been extensively explored in diverse domains including educational and personality psychology (e.g. Bandura, 1997), industrial and organizational psychology (e.g. Locke & Latham, 2002), social psychology (e.g. Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975), and sport and exercise psychology (e.g. Weinberg, 2002).”

“Herein, researchers that adopt these approaches will also have crucial opportunities to explore how SEW goals relate to and build off one another in goal hierarchies or when goal-setting (cf. Kruglanski, Chernikova, Babush, Dugas, & Schumpe, 2015; Locke & Latham, 2002).”

“These have been explored extensively by psychologists (Locke and Latham, 2002; Heath et al., 1999), but they have only recently been studied by economists.”

“Goal establishment is the causal mechanism that triggers all motivated behavior (Locke & Latham, 2002); thus, the first step in training engagement is establishing a goal.”

“Consequently, motivated individuals also need, when necessary, to have confidence in their abilities (i.e., having higher self-efficacy) to adjust their behavioural performance with their stated intentions/goals (Bandura, 1998; Leventhal et al., 1998; Locke & Latham, 2002; Schwarzer, 2008).”

“Behavioral strategies that are commonly employed include selfmonitoring (Helsel, Jakicic, & Otto, 2007; Kirschenbaum, Germann, & Rich, 2005), goal setting (Locke, 2002; Nothwehr & Yang, 2007), reinforcement for goal achievement (Foreyt & Goodrick, 1993; Williamson & Perrin, 1996), stimulus control (Epstein, Paluch, Ki…”

“Because goals increase effort toward the goal-related task (Locke & Latham, 2002), team members with high Goal Priority should have motivation, maintain effort, and persist toward team goals.”

“Goal importance is a significant driver of an individual’s goal commitment (Locke and Latham, 2002), and, as such, aligns one’s feelings and actions to the accomplishment of the specific goal (Hollenbeck and Klein, 1987).”

“For instance, transformational leadership, PSM, and mission valence are all rooted in the motivational influence of organizational goals (Wright, Moynihan, & Pandey, 2012) and goal setting theory suggests that such goals can induce performance (Locke & Latham, 2002).”

“…et al., 2007; McCrea et al., 2008), provide a sense of urgency in response to threats (Chandran & Menon, 2004) and help people focus on concrete goals (Liberman & Trope, 1998) – each of which facilitates progress in response to complex problems (Locke & Latham, 1990; Locke & Latham, 2002).”

“Subsequent empirical findings in goal setting and task motivation research have also found that self-efficacy operates as a moderator between goals and performance (Bass 1985; Bandura 1997; White and Locke 2000; Locke and Latham 2002 ).”

“This works by directing attention and energy toward the target change (Locke & Latham, 2002).”

“…HR practices can enhance team members’ motivation and KSAs in terms of performing team tasks, it is reasonable to assume that the team-oriented HR practices score should be positively related to the team members’ work efforts (e.g., an aspect of work motivation; Locke & Latham, 2002) and KSAs.”

“The INFORM intervention targets front-line managers and has two core components [21] which are based on goal setting [36] and social interaction theories: (1) goal setting activities designed to help managers and their team to: set specific attainable performance goals to improve care aide involvement in formal team c…”

“When these goals come from a legitimate authority (e.g., the school principal), then specific, achievable, yet challenging goals generate great effort (Locke & Latham, 2002).”

“While setting targets and goals can improve performance, doing so in a participative way is well known to be more effective than imposing them by fiat, especially for complex, uncertain tasks that cannot readily be routinised (Locke & Latham, 2002).”

“In some prominent models, conscious choice of behaviors or goals to pursue was conceptualized as a bottleneck – nothing happened without one's awareness and conscious consent (e.g., Bandura 1986; Locke & Latham 2002, p. 705).”

“The Goal setting theory [11] describes how individuals respond to different types of goals, and how setting goals can motivate behavior change.”

“Although the rationale for using feedback varies across these theories, each characterizes feedback as a self-regulation strategy that reveals to people their progress in relation to their goal(s) [7-10].”

“For instance, goal-setting theory has been applied across multiple contexts (Latham & Locke, 2007; Locke & Latham, 1990, 2002, 2006), and it has potential for application to evaluation of the effect of task goals on human– technology interaction.”

“Goal-setting is a well-known strategy in the behavioral and sports science literature for training [1,15].”

“pants cited expertise in Goal Setting Theory [17, 18], Control Theory [19], Self-Regulation Theory [20], SelfEfficacy [21], and various behavior change and learning”

“…the GAFCC gamification design model uses self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), flow theory (Csikszentmihalyi, 1978), goal setting theory (Locke & Latham, 2002), social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954), and behavioral reinforcement theory (Skinner, 1953) as the basic theoretical…”

“Goal-setting theory proposes that setting specific, challenging, and attainable goals can enhance an individual’s motivation and performance (Locke & Latham, 2002).”

“Rich literature (e.g., Fried and Slowik, 2004; Locke and Latham, 2002) on goal-setting theory has provided strong empirical evidence supporting the positive impact of explicit and clear goals on enhanced performance.”

“Neuroscientists have uncovered linkages between words and motor areas (words referring to body action activate the pre-motor cortex [44] and words with “motor associations” activate localized motor areas) suggesting the representations and readiness to act are mutually activating.”

“On the other 370 hand, Nigbur et al. (2010) showed that personal norms, measured by 5 items adapted from Hopper and Nielsen 371 (1991), had a positive direct effect on the intention to participate in a kerbside recycling program.”

“…between work engagement and a broad set of related, though distinct, lines of study, such as job characteristics (e.g. Hackman & Lawler, 1971; Hackman & Oldham, 1976), reward systems, and goal setting (e.g. Locke & Latham, 2002)—all of which, importantly, focus on task-oriented outcomes.”

“Research evidence links meaningful goal pursuit to healthy psychological functioning and positive life outcomes, including subjective well-being (Diener et al. 1999; Koestner et al. 2002) and successful academic and work performance (Eccles and Wigfield 2002; Locke and Latham 2002).”

“To increase focus, effort, and persistence, the youth set goals at the start of the program and revisited them throughout program implementation (Locke & Latham, 2002; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollack, 2001).”

“Similarly, based on goal setting theory (Locke & Latham, 2002), resources and barriers that allow achievement of work and family goals will create a high sense of efficacy for goal attainment and thereby promote high goal engagement.”

“Another important attribute of organizational goals is goal specificity (Locke & Latham, 2002), also known as explicitness (Hollenbeck, Williams, & Klein, 1989), which relates to the completeness of knowledge about what organizational outcomes would fulfill a desired goal (Hirst, 1987).”

“Affect was defined as a cognitive appraisal of one's performance (actions/behavior) in relation to one's goals (Locke & Latham, 2002).”

“…increases performance at least partially through its impact on motivational states (Parker & Ohly, 2008) such as goal setting (Barrick, Mount, & Strauss, 1993; Judge & Ilies, 2002), self-efficacy (Chen, Casper, & Cortina, 2001; Locke & Latham, 2002), and performance expectancies (Gellatly, 1996).”

“Goal-setting theory is one of the well-researched theories in applied psychology (Locke & Bryan, 1967; Locke & Latham, 2002).”

“At first glance our findings may contradict previous research indicating that difficult goals lead to better performance (Locke & Latham, 2002); however, we suggest that even though a goal may be objectively difficult, an individual's motivation can alter their subjective perception of how easy it…”

“This was done to create a feeling of ‘goal-ownership’ (20, 40).”

“It is in essence an approach explaining the need to establish goals as an intrinsic motivation where a relationship exists between goal difficulty, level of performance, and effort involved [55].”