Meta-Analysis on Goal Setting and Group Performance

Research Report: The Effect of Goal Setting on Group Performance: A Meta-Analysis

• Overview:

  • This meta-analysis updates and extends the work of O’Leary-Kelly, Martocchio, and Frink (1994) on goal setting and group performance.
  • It demonstrates that specific, difficult goals lead to significantly higher group performance compared to nonspecific goals ($d = 0.80 \pm 0.35$, $k = 23$ effect sizes).
  • Moderately difficult and easy goals also showed performance benefits relative to nonspecific goals, but to a lesser extent.
  • The overall effect size for all group goals was $d = 0.56 \pm 0.19$ ($k = 49$).
  • Unexpectedly, task interdependence, task complexity, and participation did not moderate the effect of group goals.

• Impact of Individual Goals in Interdependent Groups:

  • "Egocentric" individual goals (maximizing individual performance) had a negative impact on group performance ($d = -1.75 \pm 0.60$, $k = 6$).
  • "Groupcentric" goals (maximizing individual contribution to the group) showed a positive effect ($d = 1.20 \pm 1.03$, $k = 4$).

• Conclusions and Future Research:

  • Group goals have a strong positive effect on group performance.
  • Individual goals can promote group performance but should be used carefully in interdependent groups.
  • Future research should explore multilevel goals for group performance in more detail.
  • The lack of recent field studies in organizational settings should be addressed in future research.

• Keywords: goal setting, groups, teams, meta-analysis, group performance

Goal-Setting Theory (GST)

• GST is a well-established motivation theory with widespread application in organizational practice.

  • Core premise: Specific, difficult goals lead to better performance than specific but easy goals or simply encouraging people to do their best (Locke & Latham, 1990).

• Enhancement of Individual Performance:

  • Specific difficult goals enhance individual performance by:
    • Directing attention to desired end states.
    • Mobilizing effort and persistence.
    • Encouraging the development and use of task strategies.

• Factors Influencing Goal-Setting Effect:

  • Goal commitment, task complexity, and feedback (e.g., Latham, Locke, & Fassina, 2002).

• Limitations of GST:

  • GST, as an individual motivation theory, is not fully aligned with current organizational practices that emphasize teamwork (Kozlowski & Bell, 2003).

Group Goal Setting

• Inspired by the changing nature of work, new research has examined goal setting in work groups.

• O’Leary-Kelly, Martocchio, and Frink (1994) Meta-Analysis:

  • The only published meta-analysis on goal setting in groups.
  • Reported a large positive effect of group goals on group performance ($d = 0.92$, $k = 26$).
  • Compared the performance effect of group goals with "no goals or low goals."
  • Included specific goals, goals with undetermined specificity, and goals of varying difficulty.

• Limitations of the O’Leary-Kelly et al. Meta-Analysis:

  • Did not reflect the performance effect of specific difficult goals compared to nonspecific or easy goals.
  • Did not provide a comprehensive test of core goal-setting principles.
  • Qualitative moderator analysis yielded inconclusive results.

• New Meta-Analysis Objectives:

  • Provide an up-to-date assessment of the effect of specific difficult group goals on group performance.
  • Include a quantitative analysis of moderators (goal specificity, goal difficulty, participation, task interdependence, subject type, lab vs. field setting, group type, time), adding task complexity.
  • Examine the effect of individual goals on group performance in multilevel goal environments (DeShon, Kozlowski, Schmidt, Milner, & Wiechmann, 2004).

Goal Setting in Groups: Group Goal Specificity and Difficulty

• Core principles of GST:

  • Specific difficult goals yield higher performance than nonspecific (“do-your best”) goals.
  • Specific difficult goals yield higher performance than specific easy goals.

• Goal Specificity

  • Reflects the extent to which a goal indicates a specific performance standard.
  • Associated with reduced variance in performance (Locke, Chah, Harrison, & Lustgarten, 1989).

• Difficult Goals

  • Initiate goal striving by directing attention, mobilizing effort and persistence, and encouraging the development and use of task strategies.
  • Meta-analyses support the superiority of specific difficult goals to nonspecific difficult goals and easy goals for individual tasks (e.g., Mento, Steel, & Karren, 1987).

• Generalizing GST Principles to the Group Level

  • Specific difficult group goals motivate groups by directing attention, mobilizing effort and persistence, and encouraging the development and use of task strategies.
  • Group goals trigger unique motivational mechanisms such as planning, cooperation, morale-building communication, and collective efficacy (e.g., Weldon & Weingart, 1993).
  • Hypothesis 1: Specific difficult group goals yield higher group performance than (a) nonspecific goals and (b) specific easy group goals.

• Exclusion of Specificity Hypothesis

  • No hypothesis for the performance effect of goal specificity because goal specificity has been associated with performance variability rather than absolute performance (Locke et al., 1989).
  • A comparison of specific to nonspecific goals is reported to illustrate the overall effect of specific group goals on group performance.

Moderators of the Group-Goal Effect

• Task Interdependence (TI)

  • Defining characteristic of group work and a contingency factor for the emergence and outcomes of many group states and processes (e.g., Kozlowski & Bell, 2003).
  • Refers to the degree to which group members have to share or exchange information, materials, or expertise to achieve the desired group performance (Van der Vegt, Emans, & Van der Vliert, 1998).
  • Four levels (Van de Ven, Delbecq, & Koenig, 1976):
    • Pooled (independent workflow; e.g., a call center).
    • Sequential (one-way workflow; e.g., an assembly line).
    • Reciprocal (two-way workflow; e.g., a multidisciplinary team of medical specialists diagnosing patients).
    • Intensive (simultaneous multidirectional workflow; e.g., a surgical emergency room team).
  • The actual level of TI depends on the interplay of external design choices and internal process choices (Wageman, 1995).
  • Hypothesis 2: Task interdependence moderates the effect of group goals on group performance such that the effect becomes stronger with increasing levels of task interdependence.
  • Rationale: Group goals emphasizing collective outcomes encourage cooperative task strategies and facilitate exchange when TI is high. When TI is low, group goals may overemphasize cooperation or promote social loafing (Hertel, Kerr, & Messe´, 2000).

• Task Complexity (TC)

  • Involves three aspects of a task (Wood, 1986):
    • Component complexity: the number of acts and information cues.
    • Coordinative complexity: the number of relationships among acts and cues.
    • Dynamic complexity: changes in acts and cues and their relationships.
  • TC is a well-established moderator of the goal–performance link at the individual level: The more complex the task, the smaller the goal-setting effect (Wood, Mento, & Locke, 1987).
  • Hypothesis 3: Task complexity moderates the effect of group goals on group performance, such that this effect decreases as tasks become more complex.
  • Analogous to individual TC, group TC moderates the group goal–performance relationship.
  • For simple group tasks, groups know what must be done to achieve their goals, so a specific difficult group goal can mobilize sustained collective effort.
  • For complex tasks, the optimal path to performance often is not apparent and requires planning and strategy. The focus on results induced by specific difficult goals may prevent the group from investing in planning and strategy development.

Participation and Study Type

• Participation in Decision Making (PDM)

  • Refers to influence sharing among supervisors and subordinates (Mitchell, 1973).
  • Associated with performance gains via cognitive (e.g., increased communication) and motivational mechanisms (e.g., commitment to decisions; Wagner, Leana, Locke, & Schweiger, 1997).
  • Effectiveness of Participation in Goal Setting (PGS):
    • Research yields weak, inconsistent effects of PGS.
    • Reduced effectiveness is supported only for “tell” style goals (authoritarian, without rationale).
    • “Tell-and-sell” style goals (supportive, with a rationale) and PGS show similar effects (Latham, Erez, & Locke, 1988; Wagner, 1994).
  • Hypothesis 4: Participation moderates the effect of group goals on group performance such that this effect is stronger for group goals that are set through “tell-and-sell,” participation, or delegation than for goals set in a “tell” manner.

• Study Type

  • Individual GST generalizes well from lab to field (Latham & Lee, 1986).
  • Report separate results for lab and field studies.

Multilevel Goals in Groups

• Groups are multilevel goal systems where goals can be set for the group as a whole and/or for the individual members.

• Crown and Rosse (1995) Distinction:

  • Egocentric IGs: Focus on maximizing individual performance (e.g., realize individual result X).
  • Groupcentric IGs: Focus on maximizing the individual contribution to the group (e.g., contribute X to the group result).

• Impact on Group Performance (Interdependent Tasks):

  • Egocentric IG may prevent members from investing in the group process.
  • Egocentric IG may evoke competitive strategies.
  • Groupcentric IG will focus group members’ attention on their individual contribution to the group and promote group performance.

• Hypothesis 5: For interdependent group tasks, (a) egocentric individual goals are associated with lower group performance and (b) groupcentric individual goals are associated with higher group performance compared with nonspecific goals.

Method: Literature Search and Inclusion Criteria

• Literature Search:

  1. Inspected all studies from the O’Leary-Kelly et al. (1994) meta-analysis ($n = 10$) and narrative review.
  2. Searched PsycINFO, ABI/Inform, and Scopus for publications up to May 2009 (search terms: group/team, performance/ efficiency/effectiveness, goal[s]/target[s]/goal-setting).
  3. Scanned literature reviews.
  4. Scanned all reference lists of the publications in our sample.
  5. Examined all publications that cited O’Leary-Kelly et al.
  6. Searched databases for unpublished dissertations and theses.
  7. Posted on the Academy of Management Organizational Behavior Division Listserv.
  8. Contacted 10 leading authors to retrieve unpublished research.

• Assessment and Exclusion:

  • 131 studies were assessed for relevance and information availability.
  • 93 publications were excluded for reasons such as:
    1. No measurement or manipulation of outcome goal difficulty or specificity.
    2. Required statistical data could not be retrieved.
    3. No pretest or control group available.
    4. Multiple interventions, possible confounding of goal effects.
    5. Study did not involve goal setting in groups.
    6. Not an empirical study.
  • 5 of the studies in O’Leary-Kelly et al. were excluded due to lack of a clear group goal intervention and/or unavailability of required data.

• Final Sample:

  • Included 38 studies, yielding 76 independent effect sizes.

Coding of Goal Specificity and Difficulty

• Goal specificity:

  • Reflects the extent to which a goal suggests a precise target.
  • Ranges from vague, via moderately specific, to specific goals (Locke et al., 1989).
  • All studies in the sample included specific goals compared with vague or no goals.

• Goal difficulty:

  • Most articles stated goal difficulty (difficult, moderately difficult, or easy), but few provided a definition in terms of attainment percentages.
  • Classification based on quantitative data about control group, pretest, or pilot test performance ($k = 32$):
    1. Difficult goal: pretest/control group/pilot test performance at least 1 SD lower than the goal (goal attainment <15%).
    2. Moderately difficult goal: pretest/control group/pilot test performance less than 1 SD lower than the goal (goal attainment 15%–50%).
    3. Easy goal: pretest or control group performance at least equal to the goal level (goal attainment >50%).
  • Other information was used when pretest data was unavailable ($k = 8$).
  • Studies with no information to infer goal difficulty were removed from relevant analyses ($k = 3$).

Coding of Moderators

• Coding Process:

  • The first and second authors independently coded all studies.
  • Differences were discussed and resolved to reach agreement.

• Task Interdependence (TI):

  • Used a 7-point scale with four anchors: pooled (1), sequential (3), reciprocal (5), and intensive (7).
  • Values in between represent mixed forms of TI.
  • Estimates were based on descriptions of actual teamwork patterns.
  • Distinguished between independent (1.0–2.0) and interdependent (2.5–7.0) tasks.

• Task Complexity (TC):

  • Related authors’ task content descriptions to the Wood et al. (1987) TC scale for individual tasks.
  • Reduced scores to three categories: low (1–2.75), moderate (3–4.75), and high (5–7) complexity.

• Participation:

  • Coded with Heller’s (1971) typology of participation in decision making:
    • 1 = tell (assigned without rationale).
    • 2 = tell-and-sell (assigned with rationale).
    • 3 = consultation (leader/experimenter consults group and then decides).
    • 4 = participation (joint decision of group and leader/experimenter).
    • 5 = delegation (self-set goal, group decides).
  • The sample did not include any studies that used consultation as the goal-setting method.

• Study type:

  • Distinguished between laboratory and field studies.

Coding of Individual Goals

• Coding Process:

  • Coded studies that included individual goal setting in groups for TI.
  • All studies involved interdependent tasks.
  • Coded for egocentric and groupcentric IGs.

• IG Types:

  • Egocentric IGs: Maximize individual results (e.g., construct seven words [on your individual word list]).
  • Groupcentric IGs: Involve a contribution to the group outcome (e.g., contribute 17 letters to the group’s final sentences; Crown & Rosse, 1995, p. 143).
  • Studies allowed for indirect assessment through examination of a measure of commitment to maximizing individual versus group performance.

• All IGs were assigned goals and were identical for all group members.

• Combination:

  • In five studies, the IG was combined with a group goal.

Statistical Analysis

• Effect Size Index:

  • Cohen’s $d$ (difference between the means of two groups divided by the pooled within-group standard deviation).

• Pooled Mean Effect Sizes:

  • Calculated with the random effects model, taking into account heterogeneity across the studies (Schmidt, 2008).
  • Study weights are the inverse of the sum of the within-study variances plus the between-study variance (Hedges & Vevea, 1998).

• Independence:

  • Effect sizes were independent (one effect size calculated per condition).
  • Multiple performance measures were combined into one overall measure.

• Analyses were carried out with Biostat’s Comprehensive Meta-Analysis program (Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein, 2005).

Results

• Specific Group Goals vs. Nonspecific Goals:

  • The overall mean effect on group performance was significant ($d = 0.56 \pm 0.19$, $k = 49$, $p < .001$).
  • Heterogeneity existed (80% credibility interval includes zero, Q(48) = 146.0, $p < .001$).

• Specific Difficult Group Goals vs. Nonspecific Goals:

  • The mean effect on group performance was significant ($d = 0.80 \pm 0.35$, $k = 23$, $p < .001$).
  • Heterogeneity was indicated (80% credibility interval includes zero, Q(22) = 101.8, $p < .001$).

• Specific Difficult Group Goals vs. Specific Easy Group Goals:

  • Specific difficult group goals yielded higher group performance ($d = 0.80 \pm 0.35$, $k = 23$ vs. $d = 0.23 \pm 0.22$, $k = 8$; $t(28.81) = 2.70$, $p = .012$).
  • Goals that were moderately difficult or easy were also associated with significantly higher group performance compared with nonspecific goals.
  • Goal difficulty moderates the effect of specific group goals on group performance: The more difficult the goal, the stronger the effect.

• Laboratory–Field Distinction:

  • Did not moderate the specific group goal effect or the specific difficult group goal effect.

• Moderating Role of TI, TC, or Participation:

  • Not supported.

• Individual Goals in Groups:

  • Overall IG effect did not differ from zero ($d = -0.61 \pm 1.00$).
  • The mean effect for interventions containing an egocentric IG was significant and negative ($d = -1.75 \pm 0.60$).
  • The mean effect size of interventions containing a groupcentric IG was significant and positive ($d = 1.20 \pm 1.03$).

Discussion

• Contribution of the Meta-Analysis:

  1. A comprehensive quantitative test of the basic premise of goal setting for groups.
  2. Examined multilevel goals in groups by assessing the effects of egocentric and groupcentric IGs on group performance.
  3. Extended previous work with a quantitative analysis of potential moderators of the group goal effect, including TC.

• Key Findings:

  • Robust positive effect of specific group goals versus nonspecific goals on group performance.
  • Effects of specific difficult group goals are somewhat stronger than the effects of goals on individual performance.
  • Negative effects of group goal setting are rare.
  • The moderating role of TI, TC, or participation was not supported.

• Possible Explanations for Unexpected Findings:

  • Groups may have an advantage over individuals in solving complex tasks due to different perspectives.
  • Limited data on complex tasks (only six studies).
  • Empirical evidence for the moderating role of TC may not be as strong as often assumed.

• Implications of Moderating Variables:

  • Task interdependence did not moderate the group goal–group performance effect.
  • Inferiority of a tell strategy was not confirmed, possibly due to lab settings with relatively simple tasks.
  • Participative goal setting may become more effective as goals become more difficult over time.

• Individual Goals:

  • Egocentric IGs undermine group performance in interdependent groups.
  • Groupcentric IGs enhance group performance.
  • When group performance matters, egocentric IGs should be framed as emphasizing the individual contribution to the group.

• Limitations:

  • Findings for IGs were based on a relatively small number of studies with simple tasks in laboratory settings.

Trends and Limitations in Group Goal-Setting Research

• Three Broad Eras:

  • 1970s and 1980s: Focused on individual goal setting, with limited field studies on group goal setting.
  • 1990s: Diverse research on group goal setting, with both laboratory and field studies.
  • New millennium: Field research on group goal setting virtually halted, with laboratory studies focusing on multilevel goals and participative versus assigned goal setting.

• Need for Field Research:

  • The development of a comprehensive theory on goal setting in groups would especially profit from findings in real-life organizational settings.
  • Field studies on group goal setting are challenging but crucial.

Future Research

• Areas for Further Attention:

  • Effects of specific difficult group goals for complex tasks.
  • Effects of tell-style goals in field settings.
  • Changing nature of moderating effects over time.

• Aspects to Focus On:

  • Effects of specific difficult outcome goals versus specific difficult learning goals for complex group tasks.
  • Combinations of individual goals, group goals, individual feedback, and group feedback at different levels of task interdependence.