Effectiveness of Goal Setting as a Management Device: Research Note

Previous research regarding the effects of the specification of goals on performance has shown that hard goals produce a higher performance level than a goal of 'do your best' (Bryan & Locke, 1967). The data reported here support this finding and generalize it to a rather complex industrial situation. Although it is a truism to say that employees assigned to work at a certain rate are more likely to work at that rate than are other employees not so assigned, the situation under investigation here has ramifications which might work to reduce the difference in performance between employees with and without specific assignment. The dara were generated as part of the evaluation of an incentive program the purpose of which was to induce soft-drink salesmen and servicemen to adjust soft-drink coolers to a temperature deemed optimal for sales (Hewes. Leidy, & Blumenfeld, 1968). For each unit yhecked, salesmen and servicemen turned in a card which, in fact, granted them certain bonus sales points and constituted an entry in a national sweepstakes drawing. In addition to the national drawing, many local drawings and contests were held. Therefore, in addition to the influence managerial directives might have on employee behavior, in this situation direct and indirect financial rewards were also explicitly associated with high perform- ance levels. At the end of the program, participating bottlers were mailed a questionnaire intended to provide an over-all evaluation of the success of the program. The data cited here were developed from the responses made by 55 responding bottlers to two items included in the questionoaire. These were: (1) Were your men instructed to check a specified number of units each day? and (2) How many units did the typical salesman check each day? Cross-tabulating these two items indicated a positive relationship between the number of units assigned and the number actually checked (xa = 7.528, df = 2, p < .05). The obtained contingency coefficient was .35.