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As competitive pressures persist and global economic influences continue to present new challenges, businesses need to be able to respond to emerging circumstances. Goal-setting and planning are key mechanisms contributing to organizational competitive success, yet organizations underappreciate the role of competency and capacity building factors that contribute to successful planning. This paper integrates three theoretical models enabling an investigation into the positive relationships between managerial activities generating information feedback, training in planning and skills and organizational performance outcomes, while exploring the positive mediating roles of goal-setting and planning.

A unique organizational sample of agribusiness producers (n = 499) in Canada is examined. A structural equation path analysis model is used to evaluate the main relationships.

The results suggest that organizations are finding that managerial and training activities should not be considered in isolation, but rather as supports for goal-setting, planning and performance outcomes. Thus, the implications are that managers can find organizational value enhanced through the building of human resource competency (e.g. management activities and training) with these emerging capacities aiding goal setting and planning activities.

This study makes three main contributions: first, by adopting a rational-design perspective and integrating theoretical frameworks focusing on (a) planning-performance and (b) goal-setting-planning. This extended model goes beyond previous studies by including managerial activities, training, goals, planning and performance outcomes. Second, this study uniquely accounts for a more comprehensive set of key confounding factors such as operational activities, organizational strategy and organizational size in the integrated framework. Finally, as far as the authors are aware, there has not been a survey study at the organizational level that has explored the role of managerial activities and training in planning within a similarly comprehensive model.

Goal setting is a crucial aspect of client-centered practice in occupational therapy (OT) for mental health conditions. However, it remains to be seen how goal-setting has been delivered in mental health, particularly the OT process. The purpose of this scoping review was to explore the nature and extent of goal setting delivered in mental health and informed OT practice.

The authors followed the guidelines of Arksey and O’Malley (2005) and searched three databases using key search terms: “mental disorder,” “goal setting,” and “occupational therapy” and their synonyms.

After excluding duplicate records, the authors initially screened 883 records and resulted in 20 records in total after the screening process. Most of the identified articles used goal-setting delivered by both a health professional and a client (n = 14), and focused on people with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (n = 13), but three interventions were delivered by occupational therapists. Further research needs on goal-setting in mental health OT, exploring the reliability and validity of different goal-setting strategies and investigating the effectiveness of goal-setting for promoting behavior change and client engagement across various mental health conditions and settings.

The scoping review has some limitations, such as not investigating the validity and reliability of goal-setting strategies identified, and excluding conference papers and non-English articles.

This scoping review presents a mapping of how goal-setting has been delivered in mental health and informed OT practice. The findings suggest limited research in OT and highlight the need for more studies to address the evidence gap in individualized client-centered OT.

Prior studies on the impact of incentives on physicians’ online participation mainly focused on different incentives while ignoring the difficulty of setting monetary incentives efficiently. Based on goal-setting theory, the current research examines the relationship between incentives with goals of varying difficulty and professional health knowledge sharing (PHKS) in online health knowledge-sharing platforms (OHKSPs).

Four field experiments with different monetary incentives were conducted by one of China’s largest OHKSPs, with whom the researchers cooperated in data collection. Monthly panel data on 10,584 physicians were collected from September 2018 to December 2019. There were 9,376 physicians in the treatment group and 1,208 in the control group. The authors used a difference-in-difference (DID) model to explore the research question based on the same control group and the Chow test with seemingly unrelated estimation (sureg) to compare regression coefficients between four groups. Several robustness checks were performed to validate the main results, including a relative time model, multiple falsification tests and a DID estimation using the propensity score matching method.

The results show that the monetary incentive significantly positively affected the volume of physicians’ PHKS directly with negative spillover to the duration of physicians’ PHKS. Moreover, the positive effect of incentives with higher difficulty on the volume of physicians’ PHKS was significantly smaller than that of incentives with low difficulty. Finally, professional title had a positive moderating effect on the volume of goal difficulty setting and did not significantly moderate the effect on the duration of physicians’ PHKS.

Some limitations of this study are: firstly, because the field experiments were enterprise benefit oriented, the treatment and control groups were not balanced. Secondly, the experiments for different incentive measures were relatively similar, making it challenging to validate a causal effect. Finally, more consideration should be given to the strategy for setting hierarchical incentives in future research.

The research indicates that monetary incentives have a bilateral effect on PHKS, i.e. a positive direct effect on the volume of physicians’ contributions and a negative spillover effect on the duration of physicians’ PHKS. The professional titles of physicians also moderate such bilateral switches of PHKS. Furthermore, when a physician’s energy is limited, the goal difficulty setting of the incentive mechanism tends to be low. The more difficult the incentives are, the more inefficient the effects on physicians’ PHKS will be.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

A 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.

The 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.

Employee training and learning have transformed over the years. The movement from classroom training to the blended format represents the magnitude of this evolution. This has placed much attention on self-regulated learning. This study aimed to understand the individual and organizational mechanisms that sustain the formal learning process in organizations. It explored the goals the organizations and employees strive to achieve by investing in learning. Through this, the authors investigated how technology assistance makes learning more goal-oriented, despite the possibility of different goals for different stakeholders. They also examined how person-job fit can be achieved in employee training.

The study adopted a grounded theory-based inductive approach using a qualitative inquiry that used in-depth interviews of employees working in the Indian IT/ITES sector. This sector is knowledge-intensive and engages in constant skill development. A content analysis of the interview transcripts unraveled the most relevant themes from the participants' discussion.

Individual learners use dimensions of self-regulated learning to set and achieve goals such as better performance and career development. On the other hand, organizations use learning support mechanisms such as better access and flexibility to direct employee learning behavior to achieve organizational goals. Focusing on goal congruence leads to better achievement of results. Goal congruence also implies good person-organization fit.

This research established how aligning individual and organizational mechanisms can help achieve training goals that ultimately contribute to organizational performance. The study differentiated itself by investigating training goal setting and goal achievement at two levels – organizational and individual – using a qualitative approach. It also showed how goal congruence is vital in improving organizational performance and how technology-enabled training practices rely on self-regulated learning and help achieve goal congruence.

This study aims to determine whether and how objectives and key results (OKRs) help employees collaborate and innovate.

A total of 295 executives and operational staff from two types of organizations – large corporations and start-ups – that have adopted OKRs were interviewed. Content analysis was performed.

Based on the opinions of executives and operational staff from both large organizations and start-ups, OKRs encouraged employee collaboration and innovation.

This study adopted a qualitative method; thus, the generalizability of the results might be limited. Therefore, more samples are required for statistical testing in future studies.

Managers can adopt OKRs and use them to encourage employee collaboration and innovation. OKRs should not be linked to employee compensation and clear and challenging goals should be set.

This study enhances the existing knowledge boundary, as to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study has investigated the effect of OKRs on employee collaboration and innovation in two different types of organizations: large organizations and start-ups.

The paper aims to gain understanding of perceived benefits and barriers to GAS-light as an occupational therapy outcome measure in community adult mental health. The study explored occupational therapists’ views on the client-centred nature of GAS-light and whether it is an applicable outcome measure for group intervention. It also aimed to understand how occupational therapists use of GAS-light informed their practice and the wider multidisciplinary team perspective.

The study used a phenomenological design. This comprising of a focus group of occupational therapists experienced in using the tool, followed by framework analysis. Focus group questions were derived from literature.

Three main themes were identified to reflect experiences relating to the GAS-light tool as an outcome measure; value in process, occupational narrative and language and expertise.

The paper is indicative of practical implications regarding the use of the GAS-light tool with community mental health clients and therapists, including the perceived value in the process, the language used by the therapist and level of expertise.

This paper fulfils an identified need to contribute towards an evidence base for occupational therapy and mental health.

Employee participation in budgeting enhances motivation and commitment, leading to better performance by enhancing ownership. Within Iraqi higher education institutions (HEIs), the current investigation delves into the influence of participative budgeting on managerial performance. Drawing upon goal-setting theory, this study discerns budget goal commitment as a mediating variable while also examining directive leadership as a moderator in the dynamics of this association.

The current study used partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 4.0. 373 questionnaires were collected from managers in Iraqi public universities, with 58.37% responding.

The findings show that budget goal commitment partially mediates the connection between budget participation and managerial performance. Furthermore, the results showed that directive leadership increases the positive associations between budget goal commitment and managerial performance.

This study expands the existing literature by shedding light on the mediating role of budget goal commitment and the moderating influence of directive leadership. It also enriches the discourse in management accounting by providing a more elucidation of how employee involvement in the budgeting process enhances managerial performance.

This study evaluates how well Victorian local councils’ procurement policies align with the sustainable and circular economy (CE) approach that prioritises sustainable and regenerative practices. It proposes a set of criteria designed to effectively integrate environmental sustainability issues into purchasing policies.

Employing the Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic and Time-bound (SMART) framework, a multi-dimensional content analysis guided by the goal-setting theory was applied to evaluate all 79 Victorian local councils’ procurement policies. This approach provided an assessment of policy specificity, measurability, assignability, realism and time sensitivity in promoting environmental sustainability through purchasing policies.

The findings underscored a significant deficiency in policy adherence to all SMART criteria concerning environmental sustainability, hindering the effective green purchasing decisions within government entities. This lack of integration of greening in purchasing policy poses challenges for manufacturers of waste-derived goods, obscuring the procurement objectives of these critical public sector customers.

The paper contributes to the sustainable procurement (SP) discourse by proposing guidelines aimed at improving the efficacy of governmental purchasing of sustainable products. These guidelines address the broader imperative to mitigate the environmental impacts of governmental spending on less sustainable goods, thereby fostering ecological sustainability and promoting responsible consumption.

While past studies have often relied on subjective content analysis methods, the SMART assessment used to develop the environmental sustainability criteria for purchasing policies, which distinguishes this study from previous governmental policy evaluation studies. This approach marks a departure from traditional governmental policy evaluation studies, offering a more structured analysis of policy effectiveness in promoting SP practices.