Goal Setting Theory

519 Words3 Pages
In contrast to content theories, process theories are much more based around giving us a decision making role in choosing our motivators and how to pursue them. An example of a process theory is goal setting theory (Locke and Latham, 1990). The theory is based around four main aspects which goals need to be in order to be motivators. Goal must be challenging, specific, with active participation in the goal setting process and knowledge of results of past performance (feedback). Setting goals around these principles is said to increase the output gained. Some of these principles were supported by Matsui (1983) who found that when people were given feedback showing their performance was below their target, they would increase their effort to try and meet the goal. Locke and Latham (2002) also found that performance was best towards goals when they were difficult and challenging. These two findings early on indicate the importance of the four principles of goal setting theory on an individual level and highlight how necessary they are. Effective goal setting can also have positive impacts upon the organization. Terpstra (1994) in a review found that organizations that effectively used goal setting have a greater profit and profit growth than those that didn’t. This adds to the findings which show the use of goal setting theory at an individual level, by also showing it across an organization. Such findings though do not provide concrete evidence that the use of goal setting caused the profits to increase, it could be the case that more wealthy organizations have more money to spend on things such as goal setting in the first place, but this was said to be unlikely. Furthermore, Latham and Kline (1974) found that crews where goals were set had higher production and lower absentees than no goals. Such findings highlight the effects goal setting can have upon an
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