The Development and Utility of a True Collective Goal Orientation Measure

Abstract

Despite the explosion of interest in goal orientation in teams over the last decade, theory and research on the topic has been hindered due to questions regarding the dimensionality and measurement of the goal orientation construct at the team level. This is especially the case as it concerns collective goal orientation, which is the most complex, but perhaps the most promising conceptualization of team goal orientation. In an effort to address these concerns, we conducted three independent studies to develop a construct valid, four-factor collective goal orientation measure. In this article, we describe these efforts along with our initial attempts to demonstrate the predictive validity of our measure. The results of our studies demonstrate that collective goal orientation can, and should, be measured as four distinct dimensions. In addition, our results indicate that these dimensions have predictive validity on a number of team processes above and beyond composition goal orientation.