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The emphasis on short-term by project-based firms (PBFs) implies the adoption of project efficiency and impact on the team as project success drivers in PBFs context. Good performance by employees, as individuals in a team, can be explained by their behaviors, associated with goal orientation theory. Learning and performance orientations are associated with teams’ effectiveness and overall project performance. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationships between the dimensions of goal orientation, especially learning orientation, and project efficiency and impact on the team, in PBFs context.

A quantitative approach was adopted, based on data from a survey of 714 respondents, representing project managers, that turned into a valid sample of 315 composed only by PBFs respondents. The results were analyzed through multiple linear regression and, mainly, mediation analysis methods.

Performance-avoid orientation is a predictor of project efficiency; performance-prove orientation, a predictor of impact on the team. Learning orientation relates positively to both project success criteria. Project managers should balance/induce the proper orientation within the team, favoring learning orientation according to the results, to have short-term project success in PBFs.

There is a direct relationship between learning orientation and project efficiency, but it is fully mediated by impact on the team, which it was not found in previous studies. This study argues that they are not parallel constructs, constituent parts of equal weight in project success, but that impact on the team precedes project efficiency when learning orientation is considered.

The current study examined relationships between goal orientation dimensions and other individual difference constructs in order to clarify the conceptual definition of goal orientation. Results from a sample of university students (N = 228) revealed that learning goal orientation is related to constructs addressing competence (need for achievement, intrinsic motivation, and private self‐consciousness) and to constructs addressing control (locus of control and dominance). Additionally, results indicated that performance goal orientation is related to constructs addressing individuals' desire for favorable evaluations (social desirability and public self‐consciousness). Finally, we proposed that self‐esteem addresses issues relating to both competence and desire for favorable evaluations, and results revealed support for predicted relationships with learning and performance goal orientation dimensions. Our clarification of the goal orientation construct provides a framework to guide future research.

The present paper aims to explore the effects of state (trust in supervisor) and trait (trust propensity) trust on employees' work engagement. Furthermore, it seeks to investigate the mediating role of learning goal orientation in the relationship between work engagement and two forms of performance: in‐role job performance and innovative work behaviour.

Data for this cross sectional survey study were collected from 168 research scientists drawn from six Irish science research centres. Structural equation modelling was used to test the research hypotheses.

The results suggest that both trust in supervisor and trust propensity were positively and significantly related to work engagement. Additionally, results indicate that learning goal orientation partially mediated the effects of work engagement on in‐role job performance and innovative work behaviour.

This research was limited by two main factors: the cross‐sectional research design, and use of self‐reported questionnaire data. Limitations aside, this study provides evidence that a climate of trust can fuel work engagement, which in turn, is likely to promote learning, innovation and performance.

This paper extends the developing engagement literature in two ways. First, it empirically establishes an association between two facets of trust and work engagement. Second, it highlights the role of learning goal orientation in explaining the linkage between work engagement and job performance.

To investigate individual and contextual antecedents of learning, transfer of learning, training generalization and training maintenance in a work context.

The hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analysis on data obtained from 119 employees who attended training programs.

The data supported the relationship between continuous‐learning culture and supervisor support and training motivation. Although training motivation was directly related only to training maintenance, it interacted with performance goal orientation in affecting training transfer and generalization.

Practitioners interested in designing interventions directed at increasing similar training outcomes can use various approaches aimed at assessing and monitoring factors such as continuous‐learning culture, supervisor support and training motivation. More importantly, based on the current results, practitioners can manage selectively the performance goal orientation of their trainees, given its differential relationship with training outcomes.

The findings are valuable for researchers and practitioners. From a theoretical perspective, the study offers a better‐specified model of training effectiveness by including both contextual and individual factors important for improving training effectiveness. Practitioners can use these ideas to design corresponding training and training transfer interventions.

Drawing upon the feedback intervention theory, this study aims to focus on the concept of negative feedback change (increase or decrease) to analyze the dynamics of performance feedback and its relationships with goal orientation, feedback utility and task performance.

The authors conducted a two-wave survey by tracking 195 employees and their supervisors from two representative semiconductor-related equipment companies in China for one month.

Results showed that learning goal orientation positively moderates, and performance-approach goal orientation negatively moderates the indirect relationship between negative feedback change and employees’ task performance through employees’ perceptions of feedback utility.

This study provides new directions for performance feedback research by treating negative feedback from a dynamic perspective and addressing the mediating and moderating mechanisms. Furthermore, the findings also remind managers to not only consider feedback actions at a single moment but also manage it as a series of actions in the ongoing stream of time.

Drawing on goal orientation theory, the authors propose a moderated mediation model, wherein objective career success is positively related to employees' life satisfaction through subjective career success moderated by learning and performance goal orientations.

Data were collected from 188 employees in South Korea. The hypotheses were tested with the moderated mediation regression analysis.

The results indicated that salary and promotion, as indicators of objective career success, were positively related to subjective career success. However, subjective career success mediated only the influence of salary, not promotion, on life satisfaction. Furthermore, the authors found that the indirect relationship between salary and life satisfaction via subjective career success was not significant for employees with high learning goal orientation but was significant for those with high performance goal orientation.

Organizations need to understand that a higher salary and frequent promotions may not always be positively related to employees' satisfaction with career and personal life and should consider the types of goal orientations.

The authors’ consideration of goal orientation as a dispositional characteristic contributes to the comprehensive understanding of how employees' learning and performance goal orientations interact with objective career success in influencing their subjective career and life satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model that takes into account both personal and contextual factors in explaining individuals' motivation to share their knowledge.

Drawing from research on achievement motivation and social exchange, it is posited that goal orientations provide a framework for individuals' knowledge sharing by shaping how they cognitively value the costs and benefits associated with sharing their knowledge. It is argued each of the goal orientations is associated with preferences for sharing specific types of knowledge and is that a focus on different aspects of the knowledge provider‐recipient relationship.

The model provides a possible explanation for some of the inconsistencies in existing knowledge‐sharing research on the factors that motivate knowledge sharing as well as expanding understanding of the conditions that facilitate knowledge sharing.

For organizations to encourage the desired knowledge sharing, they may need to maintain human resource management (HRM) practices that recognize the different motivations associated with each of the goal orientations.

The model developed integrates research on goal orientations and knowledge transfer to expand understanding of how individuals cognitively value the costs and benefits of sharing their knowledge.

The aim is to understand how goal orientation may help entrepreneurs maintain life satisfaction when faced with multiple crisis episodes. To do so, the authors study the early impact of COVID-19 on the life satisfaction of entrepreneurs who were previously faced with venture distress.

Data on 164 Belgian entrepreneurs, who were faced with previous venture distress, are used. The analysis is quantitative, and uses survey data, in combination with databases. The survey was administered in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (June 2020).

Entrepreneurs high in learning goal orientation are less likely, and those high in performance-avoidance orientation are more likely to experience a decline in life satisfaction. Additionally, the time span between the two crises moderates the relationship between learning goal orientation and life satisfaction. Particularly, entrepreneurs high in learning goal orientation are less likely to experience a decline in life satisfaction if more time has passed between venture distress and the COVID-19 crisis.

Often, entrepreneurs are faced with multiple episodes of distress. The authors study entrepreneurs who have been in venture distress before and are then confronted with the COVID-19 crisis. The study shows that goal orientation, which is a type of self-regulation, plays an important role in how entrepreneurs’ life satisfaction is affected. Also, the authors find that the time between distress events matters. These are important insights for practitioners, including entrepreneurs and support providers.

The study adds to the emerging discussion on the impact of crises on entrepreneurs. It studies life satisfaction (a measure of well-being) and complements studies that examine the impact of crises, on entrepreneurs’ actions and firm performance.

Arguing that it is necessary to look into specific global leadership processes in specific contexts, this article focuses on collective global leadership in self-managed multicultural teams using an input-process-output model. Building on a study of nationally and culturally diverse self-managed teams, our work demonstrates that collective global leadership in these teams is critical for team performance (output). Our study also examines some of the affective or attitudinal antecedents of collective global leadership in self-managed multicultural teams (process) and their members’ goal orientations (input). Our findings suggest that a team learning orientation may greatly help multicultural teams overcome the liability of cultural diversity, create a positive intra-team environment, and enable collective global leadership. Our research also suggests that team performance orientation moderates the above effects.

This paper aims at examining the relationship between proactive personality and training motivation among older workers (aged over 55 years) in a context characterized by the growing ageing of the global population. First, the authors hypothesized that proactive personality predicts the motivation to learn among older workers and that this relationship is mediated by goal orientation. In particular, the authors hypothesized that learning goal orientation may mediate the relationship between proactive personality and learning motivation.

The employees of an Italian bank completed an online questionnaire. AMOS 17 was used to carry out confirmatory factor analysis, and the SPSS macro was used to test the meditational model.

The results confirmed both the hypotheses, demonstrating the influence of proactive personality on training motivation of older workers, as mediated by goal orientation and, in particular, by learning goal orientation.

From an applicative point of view, this study may have implications for organizations that aim to increase the employability of older people by encouraging them to undertake more training. In particular, interventions aimed at increasing learning goal orientation could contribute in strengthening proactive personality that, in turn, may affect levels of training motivation.

Even if proactive personality has already been found as a predictor of learning motivation, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study demonstrates that the relationship between proactive personality and training motivation is mediated by goal orientation among older workers.