Conflicting personal goals: a risk to occupational well-being?

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating role of goal conflict in the relationship between the contents of managers’ personal work goals and occupational well-being (burnout and work engagement). Eight goal categories (organization, competence, well-being, career-ending, progression, prestige, job change, and employment contract) described the contents of goals. Goal conflict reflected the degree to which a personal work goal was perceived to interfere with other life domains.

Design/methodology/approach

The data were drawn from a study directed to Finnish managers in 2009 (n=806). General linear models were conducted to investigate the associations between goal content categories and occupational well-being and to test whether goal conflict moderates the relationship between goal content categories and occupational well-being.

Findings

Career-ending goals related to significantly higher burnout than progression goals. Participants with organization, competence, or progression goals reported the highest goal conflict, whereas participants with well-being, career-ending, or job change goals reported lower goal conflict. Goal conflict was found to have a moderating role: in a high-goal conflict situation, participants with organizational, competence, and progression goals reported lower occupational well-being, whereas participants with job change goals reported higher occupational well-being.

Originality/value

The research highlights that both the contents and appraisals (e.g. goal conflict) of personal work goals should be taken into account when investigating the relationship between personal goals and well-being at work.

Citation

Hyvönen, K., Rantanen, J., Huhtala, M., Wiese, B.S., Tolvanen, A. and Feldt, T. (2015), "Conflicting personal goals: a risk to occupational well-being?", Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 30 No. 8, pp. 1034-1048. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-04-2013-0105