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The purpose of this study was to advance research on work-related well-being and age by using a life-span approach to investigate the relationship between mastery goal orientation and work engagement during various age periods. The authors further tested whether a perceived motivational climate moderated the proposed relationships, and whether the nature of the moderation differed between age groups.

The authors utilized a two-wave, web-based questionnaire survey and collected data from 838 employees in the financial sector in Norway. Multiple regressions and PROCESS macro were used to test these hypotheses.

The authors found that both work engagement and mastery goal orientation differed across age groups and that the relationship between mastery goal orientation and work engagement was stronger for older than for younger ages. The results further support the moderating role of a motivational climate. Whereas a perceived mastery climate moderated the relationship between mastery goal orientation and work engagement for older workers, a perceived performance climate moderated the suggested relationship for younger workers.

The study extends research on work engagement in an age-diverse workforce by applying a life-span approach to the interplay between person and contextual elements in fostering work engagement. Furthermore, the study involved investigating factors that may inhibit or enhance the link between mastery orientation and work engagement for various age groups, which is important given work engagement’s link to central work outcomes.

Goal orientations and classroom goal structures proved to be highly predictive of classroom-related behaviors and academic achievement. The purpose of the present study was to predict students’ classroom behaviors from goal orientations and classroom goal structures and compare those predictions across students with and without learning problems. Participants were 209 typical students and 18 students with learning difficulties/disabilities (LD). Individual goal orientations and perceptions of classrooms’ goal structures were assessed using self-reports. Student behaviors were assessed over five consecutive days during school hours. Using Multilevel Random Coefficient Modeling (MRCM) procedures, results indicated that mastery approach goals and a mastery goal structure were positive predictors of positive affect, student engagement and students’ perceptions of reinforcement from teachers. Mastery avoidance goals were a negative predictor of positive affective states and a positive predictor of both negative affective states and perceptions of punishment. Last, performance approach goals and a performance goal structure exerted deleterious effects on students’ positive classroom behaviors, particularly for students with LD. When matching mastery goals with a mastery goal structure, effects were significantly more pronounced, and in the desired direction, compared to the matching of performance goals with a performance goal structure. Implications of the findings for practice are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the possible curvilinear relationship between empowering leadership and individual in-role and extra-role work performance and the potential moderating role of individual goal orientations.

Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted based on data from 655 certified accountants. Leaders' empowering behavior was measured using Ahearne et al.'s scale. Mastery and performance goal orientations were measured using items from VandeWalle. In-role work performance was measured via a ten-item scale developed and used by Kuvaas and Dysvik. Organizational citizenship behavior was measured using items validated by Van Dyne and LePine.

Too little empowerment might have a negative or limited impact – or none at all – on individual in-role and extra-role work performance. In addition, individual mastery orientation positively moderates these curvilinear relationships.

Empowering leadership-employee performance relationships are not necessarily linear. The present study provides an alternative explanation to the somewhat inconsistent findings in the current literature.

Due to the curvilinear nature of empowering leadership, leaders should not just casually adopt this leadership style but ensure that they implement it at high levels with clear clarification of the goals and work roles.

Even though empowering leadership is important to individual performance, scant research has explored whether and when empowering leadership could be detrimental. This study provides an additional view to empowerment research by examining the potential curvilinear influence of empowering leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to provide new insights into conflict styles by examining a new set of antecedents and outcomes.

A theory is outlined and a theoretical model is presented to explain the relationship between a motivational antecedent – goal orientation – and conflict styles, and to explain the relationship between conflict styles and resolution preferences.

The paper suggests that goal orientation serves as an antecedent for subsequent conflict style. Moreover, resolution preferences vary depending on goal orientation and conflict style.

This paper has several implications for future research. Empirical research is needed to investigate the relationship between goal orientation and conflict styles as well as the relationship between conflict style and outcome preferences. Such research may either provide grounding to the model or generate further theory development regarding the antecedents and outcomes of conflict styles.

This paper suggests that goal orientations are relatively stable but that conflict styles are relatively mutable. This suggests that if people become aware of their goal orientation, they can change their conflict style to achieve a solution that is more appropriate for their unique situation.

This paper fills a gap in the literature and offers a new theoretical framework as to the antecedents and outcomes of conflict styles. The paper offers a motivational explanation for conflict styles and examines resolution preferences that could predict party satisfaction with the outcome.

This paper aims to focus on early career success as determined by a combination of what young professionals learned at school (in terms of their grades and academic competences) and how this, together with their self-regulatory focus, influenced their early objective career success in terms of salary growth and subjective career success, in terms of career satisfaction.

Using an online survey, 247 alumni from a major business school in The Netherlands participated.

The results showed that, within this sample, a person's goal orientation was an important determinant of subjective and objective career success. A master orientation was more beneficial than a performance orientation. In addition, a high mastery or a high performance orientation buffered the potential negative influence of low levels of academic competence and grades on career satisfaction.

The study showed the limited predictive value of grades and academic competences to predict early career success.

The purpose of this study is to propose and examine an integrated learning model for improving training effectiveness in workplace learning. Specifically, this study investigated the effect of achievement goal-setting intervention across three groups of new employees from a multinational medical company. During a three-day remote training program, the role of each achievement goal orientation (AGO) in goal setting intervention and their relations with trainees’ applied learning strategies were examined. This study proposed and validated an integrated training model for improving remote workplace learning effectiveness.

This study was based on two data sources, the pre- and posttests scores; time on task (deep learning: completing reflective practice) and time on content learning (surface learning: watching tutorials) retrieved from an adaptive learning platform. A total number of 133 participants were recruited in this study, and they were randomly assigned to three interventional groups. The intervention was grounded from the AGO theory and goal setting theory. A series of statistical analysis were conducted to examine the effect of each type of achievement goal setting as a prompt for new employees’ learning behavior and performance.

Results indicated that setting mastery goal at the beginning of the training program leads to productive learning outcomes. Compared with the groups being required to set performance goal (final rank) or not to set any goal for the training purpose, trainees’ who were assigned to set a mastery goal (final performance score) performed statistically significantly higher than the other groups. Additionally, learners who set mastery goal spent higher proportion of time on deep learning than learners from the other groups. The results proved mastery goal setting as an effective prompt for boosting workplace learning effectiveness.

Organizations and institutions can take setting mastery approach goals as a prompt at the beginning of the training to increase learning effectiveness. In this way, trainees are promoted to apply more deep learning strategies and achieve better learning outcomes while setting mastery goal for their training purpose.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study was the first to combine the intervention of goal setting and types of AGOs into workplace learning. This study adds to previous research on goal setting theory and AGO theory for the practical application and proposes an effective model for learners’ adaptive remote learning. Findings of this study can be used to provide educational psychological insights for training and learning in both industrial and academic settings.

This study aims to examine the effects of trait goal orientations (mastery, performance-prove and performance-avoid goals) on individual-level absorptive capacity (AC), ultimately adaptive performance. This study also explores the cross-level moderating effects of transformational leadership climate on these mediated relationships.

Data from 480 participants in 76 teams from accounting firms in Northeast Thailand were analyzed using the multilevel method.

Findings showed support for positive indirect effects from approach-related goal orientations (mastery and performance-prove) to adaptive performance via AC and a negative indirect effect from avoid goal orientation to adaptive performance via AC. Results showed that a transformational leadership climate strengthens the relationship between goal orientations and AC, but only when team members have a high level of approach-related goals.

This study extends previous work by providing an understanding of how a transformational leadership context and the differences in goal orientations interact to promote or impede an individual's AC. It also extends our understanding of the mechanism of how AC mediated the effects of trait goal orientations and transformational leadership climate on adaptive performance.

The purpose of this paper is to paper examine goal orientation and organizational commitment in relation to employees' job attitudes and performance in a hospital. Specifically, it investigates the effects of mastery and performance goals on different facets of organizational commitment and how these effects impact individuals' job outcomes.

The paper utilized an online survey to collect data from 497 hospital employees. The conceptual model was tested using a three‐step mediation procedure of structural equation modeling with maximum likelihood estimation.

The results indicate that while mastery goal is related to the three components of organizational commitment, performance goal is only related to affective commitment. Although affective and normative commitment are both related to job satisfaction, only the former is linked to employees' performance.

The survey is conducted in an East Asian hospital. To ensure greater generalizability of the results, future research should be conducted using a broader Asian sample, preferably, in a different organizational setting, and using longitudinal methods in addition to online surveys.

When managing employees with Asian backgrounds, establishing mastery goal orientation can potentially cultivate higher organizational commitment. Managers may consider aligning affectively and normatively committed employees with more complex job assignments because these employees typically exhibit desirable job attitudes and innovative job performance.

The contributions are two‐fold: managerially and scholarly. Identifying employees' mindset in relation to goal orientation and commitment allows firms to effectively manage employees' performance. The paper also provides evidence for rethinking constructs' relevancy outside of North America.

This study aims to innovate by investigating the effects of goal orientations on informal learning strategies and whether intrinsic motivation mediates the relation between those two constructs.

To address these aims, the author relied on a quantitative study and on structural equation modeling to evaluate the relationships prescribed by the research model. The hypotheses were tested on a sample of 244 bank managers from Brazilian banks.

Results show that mastery goal orientation positively relate with both informal cognitive and behavioral learning strategies in the workplace.

This paper has contributed to the discussion concerning the effects of goal orientations on managers’ informal learning strategies, complementing previous research on the antecedents of informal learning.

Psychological contracts are subjective perceptions about exchange agreements between employees and employers. Through surveys of 256 graduating college seniors with recently accepted job offers, beliefs regarding employment obligations were investigated. Consistent with findings by Rousseau (1990), new hires’ perceptions of employee and employer obligations were interrelated and consistent with either transactional or relational contracts. Further, while expected tenure with the first employer was related to relational contracts, “careerism” was negatively related to new hires’ beliefs in a relational contract and positively related to a transactional contract with an employer. The results also revealed that goal orientations moderate the relationship between relational contracts and careerism. Specifically, the results indicate that the relationship was more strongly negative in individuals with high mastery orientation. The findings in this study therefore indicate that new hires' attitudes are shaped by both explicit and implicit promises and by individual characteristics such as goal orientations.