Self-set Goals Research Articles

Self-leadership practices and beliefs in nonprofit organizations: differences between leaders and non-leaders

PurposeSelf-leadership theory predicts that specific self-leadership practices will enable individuals to better accomplish their goals. However, little is known about the role that these practices play in conventional leadership (leading or influencing others). This study compares leaders to non-leaders (N = 318) in nonprofits and examines both the extent to which self-leadership practices are employed and the strength of beliefs concerning their importance.Design/methodology/approachOnline survey of two groups: leaders and non-leaders of nonprofit organizations.FindingsLeaders practiced self-goal setting (d = 0.47) and self-observation (d = 0.45) more than non-leaders. Non-leaders practiced more self-reward (d = 0.33) and self-punishment (d = 0.37) than leaders. The only differences in belief concerning the importance of the self-leadership practices were due to leaders believing self-goal setting (d = 0.46) and self-observation (d = 0.36) were more important than non-leaders did.Research limitations/implicationsIf self-leadership practices contribute to leadership effectiveness or emergence, this study indicates that goal setting and self-observation (monitoring progress toward goals) may contribute positively to the leadership of others, whereas self-reward and self-punishment may contribute negatively.Practical implicationsSelf-leadership may not be as important to the leadership of others as is often claimed or implied.Originality/valueThis is the first study to look at how self-leadership practices differ between leaders and non-leaders.

Daily use of self-leadership strategies and employee work engagement while working from home and the office

Employees’ work engagement may vary by work location (office vs. home office), assuming that working at home requires greater self-regulation. Hence, self-leadership may play an important role when employees work at home. The present study investigates whether employees use self-leadership strategies (self-goal setting, self‐reward, self‐punishment, self‐cueing, and visualization of successful performance) more often on home days than on office days. We also examine how these strategies are related to daily work engagement, and whether they are more effective for promoting work engagement depending on the work location. One hundred and one employees completed daily questionnaires on office and home days, resulting in 514 observations. Multilevel analyses revealed that employees reported higher use of self-goal setting, self-reward, and visualization on home days than on office days. Furthermore, we found that applying these strategies was positively related to day-specific work engagement. Nevertheless, self-cueing had no effect and self-punishment was detrimental to work engagement. Moreover, we found no support for the idea that the effectiveness of self-leadership strategies for promoting work engagement depends on the work location. These findings contribute to our understanding of self-leadership strategies promoting work engagement on home and office days.

Why we do what we do matters for how we feel: Links among autonomous goal regulation, need fulfillment, and well-being in daily life.

Reasons for pursuing self-set goals have been linked to well-being. The present article examines the link between autonomous goal regulation (the why of goal pursuit) and well-being, considering the role of the basic psychological needs, effort, and goal progress. Three studies were conducted using experience sampling methods in which German-speaking participants (Study 1: N = 207, Study 2: N = 717, Study 3: N = 703) completed 1-4 daily questionnaires over 21 consecutive days. Multilevel structural equation models were used to capture the structure of autonomous goal regulation and need fulfillment on the within-person (moment-to-moment/day-to-day), the between-goal, and the between-person levels. Additionally, the links among the degree of relative autonomous goal regulation, need fulfillment, and well-being were investigated on all three levels. Relative autonomous goal regulation was consistently linked to need fulfillment, which in turn was associated with well-being on the within-person level. On the between-goal and between-person levels, results differed slightly between the three studies but overall suggested similar results as on the within-person level. These findings highlight the central role of the why of goal pursuit for individual's daily well-being. Understanding the link between individual goals and well-being in everyday life may be an important step in helping individuals make better choices about their goals, which in turn could improve their overall well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Digital Behavior Change Intervention Designs for Habit Formation: Systematic Review.

With the development of emerging technologies, digital behavior change interventions (DBCIs) help to maintain regular physical activity in daily life. To comprehensively understand the design implementations of habit formation techniques in current DBCIs, a systematic review was conducted to investigate the implementations of behavior change techniques, types of habit formation techniques, and design strategies in current DBCIs. The process of this review followed the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Item for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines. A total of 4 databases were systematically searched from 2012 to 2022, which included Web of Science, Scopus, ACM Digital Library, and PubMed. The inclusion criteria encompassed studies that used digital tools for physical activity, examined behavior change intervention techniques, and were written in English. A total of 41 identified research articles were included in this review. The results show that the most applied behavior change techniques were the self-monitoring of behavior, goal setting, and prompts and cues. Moreover, habit formation techniques were identified and developed based on intentions, cues, and positive reinforcement. Commonly used methods included automatic monitoring, descriptive feedback, general guidelines, self-set goals, time-based cues, and virtual rewards. A total of 32 commonly design strategies of habit formation techniques were summarized and mapped to the proposed conceptual framework, which was categorized into target-mediated (generalization and personalization) and technology-mediated interactions (explicitness and implicitness). Most of the existing studies use the explicit interaction, aligning with the personalized habit formation techniques in the design strategies of DBCIs. However, implicit interaction design strategies are lacking in the reviewed studies. The proposed conceptual framework and potential solutions can serve as guidelines for designing strategies aimed at habit formation within DBCIs.

Self-goal setting and career sustainability research from China explores roles of career crafting and perceived organizational goal clarity

PurposeThis paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.Design/methodology/approachThis briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.FindingsA study of teachers in Chinese schools examined the antecedents of career sustainability with a focus more on proactive behavior from employees than internal traits, or the company’s organizational goals. Their research showed that self-goal setting has a positive influence on career sustainability and also that career crafting mediates the relationship. The effect is stronger when perceived organizational clarity is high.Originality/valueThe briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Self-Set Goals: Autistic Adults Facilitating Their Self-Determination Through Digitally Mediated Social Stories

Self-Set Goals: Autistic Adults Facilitating Their Self-Determination Through Digitally Mediated Social Stories

Self-leadership: qualitative leadership research using deductive pattern matching approach

PurposeThe contemporary business environment steered by forces of globalization, digitization and automation can only be navigated by a resilient workforce. This requires inculcating self-leadership (SL) traits in individuals, which will allow them to exercise self-direction and self-motivation required to survive high-strain situations. The SL characteristics most significantly reflected by Musk are self-goal setting, authenticity and responsibility. Least evidence was found for positive self-talk and self-cueing. This study aims to add to the repertoire of leadership studies, furnishing important implications for academia and practice.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, the authors explore the dimensionality of SL through a systematic literature review. The authors also take the case of Elon Musk, one of the most resilient technopreneurs in the contemporary business world, and scrutinize his journey as a self-leader.FindingsThe SL characteristics most significantly reflected by Musk are self-goal setting, authenticity and responsibility. Least evidence was found for positive self-talk and self-cueing. This study adds to the repertoire of leadership studies, furnishing important implications for academia and practice.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to explore the controversial Elon Musk’s leadership style through the prism of SL.

Set a Goal for Yourself? A Model and Field Experiment With Gig Workers

On-demand service platforms are interested in having gig workers use self-set, nonbinding performance goals to improve efforts and performance. To examine the effects of such self-set goal mechanisms, we build a behavioral model, derive theoretical results and testable hypotheses, and conduct a field experiment using a large gig platform for food delivery. Our model analysis finds that individual workers’ optimal self-set goals may exhibit a spectrum of difficulty levels, ranging from trivial to impossible, depending on workers’ reference-dependent utility coefficients and self-control cost. Moreover, workers’ efforts are higher with properly set goals rather than no-goals. Consistently, our experimental data show significant treatment effects of self-goal setting, and a causal tree algorithm identifies subgroups who are mostly motivated by self-set goals. Furthermore, our study compares two common types of performance metrics for goal setting: the number of completed orders and total revenue. Our model suggests different cases of effort and performance improvement for the two goal types. The experimental data suggests that both goal types improve efforts equally but lead to different attainment rates. Specifically, the goal attainment rate is lower for the revenue-goal treatment than for the order-quantity-goal treatment. Further analysis reveals that this disparity is due to workers setting excessively high revenue goals. Our study demonstrates the efficacy and limitations of self-goal-setting mechanisms and yields two important managerial implications. First, the implementation of self-goal-setting mechanisms could improve gig workers’ efforts and performance. Second, encouraging order-quantity goals instead of revenue goals could help gig workers achieve higher attainment rates.

A Self-Leadership Model to Enhance Vocal Music Students’ Self-Efficacy at University in Hunan Province, China

Background and Aims: Vocal music performance is the expression of talent and ability through public exhibition and focuses on the human voice as the major component. It requires training and development of self-efficacy to achieve the best results. Self-leadership and self-efficacy are related concepts that both play important roles in personal and professional development. Self-leadership can enhance self-efficacy in vocal music students by assisting in the setting of goals and maintaining motivation to overcome obstacles. This study aimed to develop a model of self-leadership to enhance the self-efficacy of vocal music students. Material and Methods: The research design was a sequential exploratory mixed-methods design that combined both qualitative and quantitative methods to develop an instrument that was used to collect data from the target population. The population for this study was vocal music students from four universities in Hunan. The sample size was 1,009 students. Results: Findings showed that the students’ levels of self-leadership and self-efficacy were overall, at a low level. A multiple regression analysis was conducted to find the significant self-leadership strategies. Predictor variables of self-efficacy were successful foresight (r=.31, p<.001), self-goal setting (r=.24, p<.001), belief hypothesis evaluation (r=.25, p<.001), self-punishment (r=.27, p<.001), self-observation (r=.24, p<.001), and natural reward (r=.23, p<.001). A theoretical model was developed from the findings and validated by experts. Conclusions: Increasing self-leadership in vocal music students can help them to take charge of their musical development and help them to become more confident, motivated, and independent.

Self-goal setting as a way to career sustainability: exploring the roles of career crafting and perceived organizational goal clarity

PurposeAs an increasingly important variable in the career field, career sustainability has received particular attention, yet few empirical studies have been conducted to examine its antecedents. The authors propose a moderated mediation model based on the goal-setting theory and the wise proactivity perspective for exploring when and how self-goal setting can influence career sustainability.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use a time-lagged design and collect three waves of data from 1,260 teachers in basic education schools in China. The authors test the proposed hypotheses with SPSS 26.0 and Mplus 8.3.FindingsThe results show that self-goal setting positively relates to career sustainability and that career crafting plays a mediating role in this relationship. This relationship is strengthened when perceived organizational goal clarity is high.Originality/valueThe authors extend the application scenarios of the goal-setting theory to the field of career research and find out that self-goal setting is also a self-initiated and wise antecedent of career sustainability. From a wise proactivity perspective, the authors examine the mediating mechanism of career crafting to make positive career outcomes. Furthermore, the authors consider the impact of perceived organizational goal clarity as a boundary condition and broaden the understanding of “when to wise proactivity” from the goal-setting theory.

MZ세대의 직업 가치관과 대학 생활 만족도의 관계

Objectives The purpose of this study was to empirically examine the structural relationship between job values, career planning, and college life satisfaction among the MZ generation.
 Methods Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using R was used in this study to analyze the structural relationship between job values, career planning, and college life satisfaction using data from the 14th (2020) of the Youth Panel (YP) survey.
 Results The study found that career planning among the MZ generation partially mediates the relationship between their job values and university life satisfaction. Students' intrinsic job values have a direct impact on their university life satisfaction, and this impact is particularly high through career planning. Higher perceived intrinsic job values positively influence career planning, which in turn, has a positive effect on university life satisfaction.
 Conclusions Based on the research findings, the following suggestions are proposed for university innovation. First, a reassessment of career education programs at universities is necessary, as well as the development of systematic programs. Career education should go beyond simple understanding and information about the job world and consider how to induce self-goal setting and higher intellectual pursuit. Second, as part of policies to increase student satisfaction, there is a need to include changes and improvements in the perception of careers. In particular, in improving university education, detailed learner analysis that can reflect inherent values in addition to the latest trends in each field of study should precede. Third, it is necessary to establish career competence enhancement programs that can foster students' inherent occupational values and a system that can visibly link these programs to university life achievements.

Managing in the new normal: Positive management practices elicit higher goal attainment, goal commitment, and perceived task efficacy than traditional management practices in remote work settings. An experimental study.

The COVID-19 global pandemic will likely change how organizations conduct business. For example, a white paper from McKinsey claims that flexible and remote work arrangements (e.g., “working-from-home”) will become increasingly frequent in the “new normal” that will follow the COVID-19 pandemic. Our work is motivated by the premise that in a post-pandemic workplace, traditional management practices like unilaterally assigning goals and displaying contingent rewarding behaviors will likely be replaced by positive management practices. In this context, positive management practices include allowing employees to self-set their goals and displaying authentic leadership behaviors while managing them. However, whether these positive management practices are more efficient in sustaining performance is unknown. Our study benchmarked positive management practices against traditional management practices in a remote work environment, using three individual performance metrics: goal attainment, goal commitment, and perceived task efficacy. In a panel laboratory experiment consisting of a baseline measurement and two work sessions, we randomly assigned participants to an authentic vs. transactional leadership condition (amateur actor recording) and one of three possible goal-setting types (assigned, self-set, “do-your-best”). Our results show that participants in the authentic leadership × self-set goals condition outperformed all other experimental conditions. Further, a post hoc analysis revealed a serial mediation effect of (a) goal attainment and (b) goal commitment at time 1 on perceived task efficacy reports at time 2.

New Normal, but Good Normal? Testing the Effect of a Hybrid Way of Working on Employee Effectiveness

The COVID-19 pandemic has made telecommuting the “new normal”. Employees can now move rather freely between work locations, from the office to home, back again, or even to another location to perform their work. This increased flexibility in the location of work raises the question of whether employees’ weekly work effectiveness varies when they telecommute to varying extents throughout the week. Applying the conceptual framework of conservation of resources theory, the current study addresses this critical issue by developing and testing a conceptual model that highlights how employees’ effectiveness waxes and wanes in response to their extent of telecommuting during a workweek. Furthermore, I explore the moderating role of self-goal setting in this process. Results from a panel study of German employees conducted over 1.5 years provide support for a curvilinear within-person relationship between the extent of telecommuting and employees’ effectiveness in terms of work performance and work engagement in the shape of a “U”. I discuss the implications of these results for the literature on telecommuting. Furthermore, these findings also have important implications for practitioners who face the challenge to shape a post-pandemic future of work in which a hybrid way of working is possibly here to stay.

Remote workers’ well-being, perceived productivity, and engagement: which resources should HRM improve during COVID-19? A longitudinal diary study

In European countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a demanding work situation for office employees who have been required to work from home (hereinafter referred to as remote workers). Due to curfews, school closures, and leisure restrictions in Austria, remote work circumstances have changed compared to before the pandemic. By combining event system theory with transactional stress theory, we aim to identify the most important resources for maintaining remote workers’ well-being, perceived productivity, and engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic. We collected daily data (five working days for each remote worker) once from March to May 2020 (2222 employees) and again from November 2020 to January 2021 (1268 employees) and explored the role of personal (self-goal setting, self-efficacy, home-office experience), external (equipment at home), and organizational (work-related and social) resources for changes in well-being, perceived productivity, and engagement. Well-being and engagement decreased less when remote workers indicated high resources of self-efficacy and social support at the beginning of the crises. Results further reveal that an improvement in resources from the first to the second measurement was associated with a reduced decline in well-being, productivity, and engagement, respectively. We discuss implications for HRM and provide suggestions for future research.

The Benefits of Being Proactive While Working Remotely: Leveraging Self-Leadership and Job Crafting to Achieve Higher Work Engagement and Task Significance.

Given the growing number of remote and hybrid working arrangements, this research investigates the process and outcomes of proactivity during remote work. We approach proactivity during remote working as a resource-building process and integrate self-leadership and job crafting literature. We propose that employees’ self-leadership allows them to regulate their resources optimally, enabling resource availability that can be used to arrange remote working demands and resources proactively. We collected three-wave data from remote workers (n = 329 observations) and tested our hypotheses using multilevel analyses. Results differed by level of analysis. Specifically, at the between level, comparing behaviors between participants, social expansion mediated the relationship between self-goal setting and task significance. In contrast, at the within level (analyzing differences in behavior within the same person), social expansion mediated the relationship between self-goal setting and work engagement. Overall, these findings suggest that self-leadership allows higher availability of resources enabling the proactive initiation of social interactions, which, at the within level enhance work engagement, and at the between level improve task significance during remote work. We discuss these findings considering the implications for interventions to foster more positive remote-work experiences.

Perceived leadership quality in 1st-year medical students: A single-center, cross-sectional, and observational study

Background: Today’s medical students are tomorrow’s future workforce in the Indian health-care system. Leadership quality among medical students is rarely assessed or discussed during the undergraduate medical course. Aim and Objective: This study aimed to ascertain the level of perceived leadership quality among 1st-year medical students in an Indian medical college. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted with all 1st-year medical students studying MBBS. We took a convenience sample for this study. A self-report questionnaire-abbreviated self-leadership quality was used to assess the perceived leadership quality. This questionnaire has a total of nine questions or statements that have a 5-point Likert-type response option. Data were presented descriptively and analyzed by one-way analysis of variance. Results: A total of 87 (58 male and 29 female) 1st-year medical students participated in this study. The highest score was for self-goal setting and the lowest score was for self-reward. There was a significant difference (P < 0.0001) in the variance of a score. The questionnaire showed a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.86 which indicates the questionnaire was having a goo d internal consistency. Conclusion: From the experience of this single-center, it may be concluded that 1st-year medical students are having a high level of perceived leadership quality. Although their goal-setting is the highest quality, self-reward is not practiced by them. Leadership training in the curriculum may help in growing the leadership quality among medical students.

Gender differences in private and public goal setting

We conduct a field and an online classroom experiment to study gender differences in self-set performance goals and their effects on performance in a real-effort task. We distinguish between public and private goals, performance being public and identifiable in both cases. Participants set significantly more ambitious goals when these are public. Women choose lower goals than men in both treatments. Men perform better than women under private and public goals as well as in the absence of goal setting, consistent with the identifiability of performance causing gender differences, as found in other studies. Compared to private goal setting, public goal setting does not affect men's performance at all but it leads to women's performance being significantly lower. Comparing self-set goals with actual performance we find that under private goal setting women's performance is on average 67% of goals, whereas for men it is 57%. Under public goal setting the corresponding percentages are 43% and 39%, respectively.

Spillover effects from energy conservation goal-setting: A field intervention study

Behavioural spillover, in which initial behaviour undertaken by individuals leads to other behaviours, has attracted attention of environmental policymakers. We propose to understand behavioural spillover of goal-setting using a goal theoretical perspective. Using a randomized controlled trial, this study examines and compares spillover effects – from electricity-saving to water-saving – of three types of goal-setting intervention. In a field experiment carried out in Singapore, 150 households were randomly assigned to the control group or one of three treatment groups – where they set electricity-saving goal by themselves (SG), were assigned a 10% goal (AG), or were assigned a 10% goal with a guarantee of a monetary reward for goal achievement (AGM). An electricity consumption reportwas also provided weekly to participants in the treatment groups during the six weeks of intervention; participants in the control group received no information. We found that all the three types of goal-setting intervention significantly reduced participants’ electricity consumption. Participants in the SG group recorded a positive spillover effect to water-saving; however, no spillover was found in the AG and AGM groups. Finally, limited evidence was found that shows that goal commitment can moderate the spillover effect. Hence, the self-set goal is preferred to promote positive spillover and these results reduce the concern that monetary incentive could trigger negative spillover.

Academic procrastination in college students: The role of self-leadership

Procrastination has been recognized as the quintessence of self-regulatory failure. Self-leadership strategies operate within the broader theoretical context of self-regulation and represent a complementary set of strategies designed to improve the self-regulation process. This study is the first to investigate the association between self-leadership with academic procrastination in a sample of 533 Chinese college students. We included the three primary self-leadership strategies in multiple regression models as well as various demographic variables, self-efficacy, trait anxiety, neuroticism, and conscientiousness. All the three primary self-leadership strategies of behavior-focused strategies, natural reward strategies, and constructive thought pattern strategies significantly predicted the students' academic procrastination, in addition to increased neuroticism and lower conscientiousness. Further, the multivariate regression showed that the self-leadership sub-strategies of self-reward, self-goal setting, self-talk, task-based natural rewards, and task-relation-based observation significantly predicted the students' academic procrastination. The findings of this study suggest that practicing relative self-leadership strategies may reduce students' procrastination.

The Effects of Goal Publicity and Incentives on Self-Set Performance Goals

ABSTRACTMany companies encourage employees to set their own performance goals and do not attach formal incentives to the achievement of these goals. In this environment, some organizations make employees' self-set performance goals public while other organizations do not. We predict that, due to strategic concerns induced by goal publicity and competition, making goals public will be more likely to lead employees to lowball their goals when they work under tournament incentives than under piece-rate incentives. Consistent with this prediction, our experimental results reveal that making self-set performance goals public decreases goal level under tournament incentives but has no significant effect on goal level under piece-rate incentives. Results of our study suggest that the practice of making self-set goals public is potentially more compatible with organizations with a collaborative culture than those with a competitive culture.JEL Classifications: C91; D83; M40.