Abstract
Background: Convincing employees to set aside their self-interests and commit to collective goals is essential for the effective functioning of organisations. It is critical that the impact of different managerial goal-setting styles, and the associated impressions of fair interpersonal treatment in the workplace, is understood from subordinates’ perspective. This might clarify the psychological mechanisms involved in motivating subordinates to commit to organisational goals. Aim: The primary aim of this article is to determine the relationship between managers’ goal-setting styles and subordinates’ goal commitment. The secondary aim is to determine whether this relationship is mediated by interactional justice. Setting: A total of 451 working adults completed an online or paper-and-pen survey. Methods: A mediator model was conducted in structural equation modelling with maximum likelihood estimation and Bollen-Stine bootstrapping, with 5000 bootstrap resamples, to test the hypotheses. Results: The perception that managers are deliberative had the greatest positive direct relationship with subordinates’ goal commitment, followed by the directive style. Subordinates’ perception of managers as complaisant, in turn, were unrelated to goal commitment (amotivational), whereas the perception of managers as hostile had a negative relationship with goal commitment. Informational justice, not interpersonal justice, emerged as the only mediating variable. Conclusion: Managers should be encouraged to actively seek feedback from subordinates on their goal-setting styles. Managers can accordingly adapt their behaviour to effectively motivate subordinates to commit to organisational goals.
Highlights
A motivated workforce is central to the performance and, the competitiveness of any organisation in the global economy (Campbell & Wiernik 2015; Van Iddekinge et al 2018)
The secondary aim of the present study was to determine whether an additional layer of social perception, namely supervisorfocused interactional justice, mediates the relationship between subordinates’ initial impressions of managers’ goal-setting styles and subordinates’ subsequent goal commitment
The size of the correlations between the factors pointed towards the order in which the styles were expected to be related to informational justice, interpersonal justice and goal commitment
Summary
A motivated workforce is central to the performance and, the competitiveness of any organisation in the global economy (Campbell & Wiernik 2015; Van Iddekinge et al 2018). In the study under discussion, is defined as the social exchanges between managers and subordinates when determining the aim of their collective actions (Locke & Latham 2013). Managers were defined as persons in positions of authority who, in part, must motivate subordinates to set aside self-interests and commit to collective goals (Hogan & Sherman 2020). It is critical that the impact of different managerial goal-setting styles, and the associated impressions of fair interpersonal treatment in the workplace, is understood from subordinates’ perspective. This might clarify the psychological mechanisms involved in motivating subordinates to commit to organisational goals
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