A Motivated Action Theory Account of Goal Orientation.

Top Cited Papers
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Rapid organizational change is increasing the pressure on employees to continually update their skills and adapt their behavior to new organizational realities. Goal orientation is a promising motivational construct that may explain why some individuals adapt to change better. Unfortunately, the current goal orientation literature is in a state of conceptual and methodological disarray. This presentation reviews the goal orientation literature and identifies numerous conceptual ambiguities, including definitional inconsistencies, dimensional inconsistencies, and inconsistencies in the conceptualization of stability. These conceptual ambiguities result in a confusing array of goal orientation measures and manipulations and ultimately an incoherent empirical database. A dynamic self-regulation model of goal orientation, termed motivated action theory, is presented to integrate the various conceptual perspectives and to provide guidelines for future goal orientation research.

This publication has 241 references indexed in Scilit: