When group goal setting fails: The impact of task dif fi culty and supervisor fairness

Abstract

Group goal setting is a common leadership strategy that is used to improve work motivation, creativity, and excellent performance in organizations. The author tried to answer two important questions: (1) Why do challenging group goals improve group performance? (2) Are there any important (pre)conditions for group goal-setting techniques to be effective? To learn more about potential mediators of group goal setting, they investigated cognitive process variables (e.g., individual problem solving) and team motivation variables (e.g., group identification) that could function as a causal mechanism. To learn more about potential moderator variables, they analyzed the impact of task difficulty and the fairness of a supervisor in negotiating performance goals with the team.