Title

Joint moderating effects of job experience and task component complexity: relations among goal setting, task strategies, and performance.

Authors

Earley, P. Christopher; Lee, Cynthia; Hanson, L. Alice

Abstract

Research in goal setting has demonstrated moderating roles of job experience and task complexity in the relation of goals to performance. Goal setting appears to have its strongest effect on an individual's performance and task strategy quality for jobs having low task complexity. A field study (n = 347) was conducted to assess the moderating role of job experience and task component complexity, or the number of distinct and independent actions an individual must process, using respondents from several organizations across a variety of job levels. The results of moderated regression analyses demonstrate support for the hypothesis that task component complexity would moderate the effect of goal setting on performance. In addition, experience moderated the relation of goal setting to task strategy quality and performance for jobs having a great deal of task component complexity. The results are discussed as further evidence of the lagged beneficial effect of goals on task performance for a job high in task component complexity.

Subjects

GOAL setting in personnel management; TASK analysis; REGRESSION analysis; APPRENTICES; ANALYSIS of variance; QUALITY

Publication

Journal of Organizational Behavior, 1990, Vol 11, Issue 1, p3

ISSN

0894-3796

Publication type

Academic Journal

DOI

10.1002/job.4030110104