Copyright 1987 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

002l-90IO/87/$00.75

Journal of Applied Psychology

1987, Vol. 72, No. 2, 212-220

Goal Commitment and the Goal-Setting Process: Problems, Prospects,

and Proposals for Future Research
John R. Hollenbeck and Howard J. Klein
Graduate School of Business Administration, Michigan State University

The purpose of this article is to examine the role of goal commitment in goal-setting research.
Despite Locke's (1968) specification that commitment to goals is a necessary condition for the effectiveness of goal setting, a majority of studies in this area have ignored goal commitment. In addition,
results of studies that have examined the effects of goal commitment were typically inconsistent with
conceptualization of commitment as a moderator. Building on past research, we have developed a
model of the goal commitment process and then used it to reinterpret past goal-setting research. We
show that the widely varying sizes of the effect of goal difficulty, conditional effects of goal difficulty,
and inconsistent results with variables such as participation can largely be traced to main and interactive effects of the variables specified by the model.

The major finding emanating from the widespread research

on goal setting is that difficult and specific goals lead to higher
levels of performance than do easy or vague goals (Locke, Shaw,
Saari, & Latham, 1981). There is some evidence to suggest,
however, that one or more variables may act to moderate the
relation between goal difficulty and task performance. First, the
goal difficulty effect does not always result (e.g., Motowidto,
Loehr, & Dunnette, 1978; OMham, 1975; Organ, 1977), and
when it does, the size of the effect varies widely, from .03 (Dossett, Latham, & Saari, 1980) to .77 (Locke & Bryan, 1967). Second, the effect of goal difficulty, especially in field settings, tends
to be conditional on the presence or the level of other variables
(Carroll & Tosi, 1970; Dossett, Latham, & Mitchell, 1979; Hall
& Hall, 1976; Ivancevich & McMahon, 1977; Latham & Saari,
1979a). Third, results are highly inconsistent with respect to
the role played by other key variables such as monetary incentives (e.g., Locke, Bryan, & Kendall, 1968, vs. Pritchard &
Curts, 1973), participation (Dossett et al., 1979, vs. Latham &
Yukl, 1976) and individual differences (French, Kay, & Meyer,
1966, vs. Searfoss & Monczka, 1973) in the goal-setting process.
Goal commitment was one of the first potential moderating
variables recognized by Locke (1968), who stated that people
who "stop trying when confronted by a hard task (i.e., those
uncommitted to a goal) are people who have decided that the
goal is impossible to reach and who no longer are trying for
that goal" (p. 164). The notion that goal commitment was a
necessary condition for the goal difficulty effect was central to
early theorizing on goal setting, because at that time, a number
of empirical studies supported achievement motivation theory

(Atkinson & Feather, 1966) and its emphasis on goals of moderate difficulty. The results of these studies, which apparently contradict goal-setting theory, were attributed by Locke (1968) to
a lack of commitment to the difficult goals set in studies of
achievement motivation.
Goal commitment, according to Locke et al, (1981), refers to
the determination to try for a goal. Commitment implies the
extension of effort, over time, toward the accomplishment of an
original goal and emphasizes an unwillingness to abandon or to
lower the original goal (Campion & Lord, 1982). In addition,
because of the central importance of goal difficulty in determining performance, our emphasis is on commitment to difficult
goals, rather than to goals in general. There is little in the literature to advocate the use of easy goals; hence, the commitment
to such goals is not a major issue.
Commitment to difficult goals should also be distinguished
from acceptance of difficult goals, which merely refers to the
initial use of a goal assigned by another person as a referent.
Goal acceptance does not necessarily imply that the individual
is bound to the standard. The present review deals conceptually
with goal commitment because commitment is more critical
for predicting performance. For example, one can initially accept a difficult goal and yet not demonstrate subsequent commitment to that goal over time. If commitment is a necessary
condition, then the effect of goal difficulty would not be forthcoming in such an instance, despite initial goal acceptance. Although these concepts are distinguishable, note that (a) there is
a considerable overlap between them, (b) they have been used
almost interchangeably in past research, and (c) there is not
complete consensus as to the separateness of these constructs.
Because they have been used interchangeably in the past, it is
impossible to determine whether the original authors are using
commitment or acceptance as we have defined. Therefore, for
purposes of this article, any study mentioning either commitment or acceptance is treated as dealing with commitment, and
hence is included here.
Given the critical role assigned to goal commitment by early
researchers on goal setting, and both theoretical and empirical

The authors are indebted to Daniel Ilgen, Edwin Locke, Charles Williams, and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. The authors would also like to thank Colleen
Kniffen, who provided technical assistance.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to John
R. Hollenbeck, Graduate School of Business Administration, Michigan
State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824.

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GOAL COMMITMENT AND THE GOAL-SETTING PROCESS

evidence (Erez & Zidon, 1984; Locke, 1982; Organ, 1977) that
suggest that goal commitment is inversely related to goal
difficulty, the assessment of goal commitment should have
played a prominent role in subsequent goal-setting research.
Rather, in the majority of empirical studies reviewed (66 of 109,
or 61%), no mention whatsoever is made of goal commitment.*
In another 12% of these studies, goal commitment was mentioned but never empirically assessed. In the remaining studies,
goal commitment has been treated in many different ways (e.g.,
as a main effect variable), generally inconsistent with Locke's
(1968) formulation. To date only three studies have examined
commitment and tested its role as a moderator of the goaldifficulty-performance relation.
The purpose of this article is to use past empirical research
and expectancy theory (Vroom, 1964) to develop a model of the
antecedents and consequences of commitment to difficult goals.
This model is then used to reinterpret the results of past goalsetting research (where goal commitment was not explicitly
considered) and to provide direction for future research. The
article is organized into four subsections dealing with (a) past
empirical research, (b) the expectancy theory model, (c) reinterpretation of past research, and (d) future research directions.
Past Empirical Research on Goal Commitment
Because it is our intention to develop a model of (a) the consequences of goal commitment that is consistent with Locke's
(1968) moderator formulation and (b) the antecedents of commitment to difficult goals consistent with expectancy theory,
only two lines of past research are examined here. First, we describe the handful'of studies that have attempted to test the
moderating effects of goal commitment on the goal-difficultyperformance relation, and second, we examine research that
has treated goal commitment as a dependent variable.

Studies Treating Goal Commitment as a Moderator

Variable
Only three studies have tested Locke's (1968) conception of
goal commitment as a moderator of the goal-difficulty-taskperformance relation. Erez and Zidon (1984) found a moderating effect for goal commitment on the goal-difficulty-performance relation, whereas Frost and Mahoney (1976) and Yukl
and Latham (1978) did not Explaining these inconsistent results is difficult for several methodological reasons. First, each
of these studies used only a single-item measure of commitment, and therefore, differences in reliability of measurement
cannot be assessed. Second, because each study used a different
item, the relative validity of each becomes questionable. Third,
the studies also differ in timing of measurement, in that Erez
and Zidon (1984) and Yukl and Latham (1978) measured commitment prior to having subjects engage in the task, whereas
Frost and Mahoney (1976) measured it after task completion.
Self-reports of goal commitment collected after task completion when the subject has complete information on both the
nature of the task and the outcome relative to the goal, are
hardly equivalent to measures obtained prior to subjects' engaging in the task. Finally, differential range restriction could also
explain the discrepant results. Erez and Zidon (1984) designed

213

their study to ensure variation in goal commitment, whereas

Yukl and Latham (1978) stated that only 2% of subjects were
not committed to their assigned goal. Frost and Mahoney
(1976) failed to report the amount of variation in their measure
of commitment. Suffice to say that there have been few, if any,
adequate tests of Locke's original conceptualization of goal
commitment as a necessary condition for the goal difficulty
effect.

Studies Treating Goal Commitment as a Dependent

Variable
One commonly investigated antecedent of goal commitment
has been participation, with most studies hypothesizing a positive relation between these variables. A series of studies by Latham and his associates (Dossett el al., 1979; Latham & Marshall, 1982; Latham, Mitchell, & Dossett, 1978; Latham &
Saari, 1979a, 1979b; Latham & Steele, 1983; Latham, Steele,
& Saari, 1982) have not supported this hypothesis; it has been
supported, however, in studies by Erez, Early, and Hulin (1985)
and by French et al. (1966).
The studies just described have largely searched for the determinants of goal commitment without the guidance of any wideranging theory. Other researchers, although they did not all examine goal commitment per se, have used an expectancy theory
framework (Vroom, 1964) to study the goal-setting process.
Dachler and Mobley (1973), Kalb and Boyatzis (1970), Locke,
Frederick, Lee, and Bobko (1984), and Steers (1975) found that
the expected probability of obtaining a goal was positively related to goal commitment. Men to, Cartledge, and Locke (1980)
suggested, however, that commitment may drop off at the extreme upper end of the expected probability continuum.
Valence, another major component of expectancy theory, has
also been reported to be a determinant of goal commitment.
All three of the relevant studies have found positive relations
(Dossett et al., 1979; Memo et al., 1980; Oldham, 1975). In
summary, expectancy theory may be a useful approach for increasing our understanding of the determinants of commitment
to difficult goals.
Expectancy Theory Model of the Goal
Commitment Process
The possibility of integrating expectancy theory and goal-setting theory via goal commitment has been recognized previously (Dachler & Mobley, 1973; Dossett et al., 1979; Kalb &
Boyatzis, 1970; Mento et al., 1980; Oldham, 1975; Steers,
1975). Furthermore, Locke et al. (1981) suggested that "the factors that affect goal acceptance . . . fit easily into two major
categories, which are the main components of expectancy theory" (p. 144). Locke et al. (1981) then listed variables likely to
affect expectations of goal attainment and attractiveness of goal
attainment. One purpose of the model presented here is to expand on this earlier work by (a) suggesting additional variables
likely to be associated with either the attractiveness or expec1
A table containing, describing, and categorizing the treatment of
goal commitment is available from the first author, along with a complete reference list identifying the 109 studies reviewed.

214

JOHN R. HOLLBNBECK AND HOWARD }. KLEIN

tancy of goal attainment and (b) differentiating between situational and personal determinants of attractiveness and expectancy. The value of this differentiation lies in the ability to specify person by situation interactions that are the cornerstone of
interactional psychology (Ekehammar, 1974; Endler & Magnusson, 1976). The recognition that such interactions may exist
will be of central importance in a later section of this article.
A second purpose of this model is to reinterpret results from
previous goal-setting studies in which the goal difficulty effect
did not emerge or was conditional on the presence of other variables. Although commitment was not directly measured in
these studies, the model developed here proposes that many
studies have, in fact, shown the goal commitment by goal
difficulty interaction. That is, conditional results or weak effect
sizes can be directly attributed to the variables measured in
these studies, which this model proposes as antecedents of commitment.
Figure 1 presents a model of the antecedent factors that may
enhance the commitment to difficult goals. The antecedents of
commitment are broken down first by whether they affect attractiveness or expectancy, and then further delineated by
whether they are of a personal or situational nature. Note that
the model is meant to illustrate the way in which many variables
previously studied in this area could be theoretically linked to
goal commitment, and is not meant to be a comprehensive or
exhaustive list. Figure 1 also suggests, in line with the formulations of Locke (1968), that the primary consequence of goal
commitment is to moderate the relation between goal difficulty
and task performance. Under certain conditions goal difficulty
may generate a main eflect. For example, when only difficult
goals are established, all else being equal, greater commitment
will lead to greater performance (Locke et al., 1984). However,
when the entire range of goals are represented in a sample (i.e.,
easy, moderate, difficult) no such main effect will be in evidence.

Situational Factors Affecting the Attractiveness of Goal

Attainment
Several variables discussed by Salancik (1977) in the context
of organizational commitment are worth noting here. One aspect of the situation that tends to increase commitment according to Salancik is piMicncss, that is, the extent to which significant others are aware of one's goal. It is easy to abandon a goal
known only to oneself. If, however, many significant others are
aware of the goal, then abandoning this goal in midstream is
somewhat unattractive because it makes one appear inconsistent. Empirical support for this consistency prediction can be
found in nonorganizational studies by Dweck and Gilliard
(1975) and Pallak and Cummmgs(1976).
A second important factor related to commitment mentioned by Salancik (1977) is volition, defined as the extent to
which an individual is free to engage in a behavior. Volition
should be closely associated with goal origin in that self-set
goals imply volition, assigned goals imply little volition, and
participatively set goals lie somewhere in between these two extremes. Assigned goals can be abandoned without appearing inconsistent inasmuch as the goal can easily be discounted as unrealistic and the person assigning it can easily be discounted as

being out of touch. Such a cognitive response is less likely when

the person chooses the goal. Empirical support for this proposition comes from research by Erez et al. (1985). In both a laboratory and a field setting, they showed that groups allowed to establish their own goals exhibited higher goal commitment relative to groups that were assigned goals.
Explicitness is a third factor described by Salancik (1977) as
being a key determinant of commitment. As recognized early
in the goal-setting literature, vague goals are not as effective in
bringing about high performance (Locke, 1968). Salancik's
(1977) theory, however, provides the rationale for why these
vague goals may be of little value. There are innumerable outcomes that could be consistent with a vague goal. Reducing
one's weight by 1 ounce is consistent with the goal of "losing
some weight this year." The number of outcomes consistent
with the goal of "losing 10 pounds by August 1" is much smaller.
Many other situational factors could act to increase goal commitment by increasing the attractiveness of goal attainment.
The importance of reward structures in influencing behavior
has been widely documented in the field of organizational behavior. For example, the amount of authority that supervisors
nave in terms of rewarding or punishing subordinates may be
related to goal commitment. This would be analogous to conclusions made in the feedback literature that the desire to respond to feedback is related to the power of the feedback source
(Ilgen, Fisher, & Taylor, 1979). Competition may also be related
to goal commitment. Pressure generated by competitive situations may increase the desire to reach a goal beyond that which
would be the case in the absence of such pressures. There is even
empirical evidence to suggest that competition leads to goal
choices that are unreau'stically high (Forward & Zander, 1971).

Personal Factors Affecting the Attractiveness of Goal

Attainment
Figure 1 also specifies several personal variables that are
likely to lead to greater commitment to difficult goals by increasing the attractiveness of goal attainment. These variables
are classified as personal in the sense that variation across individuals on these dimensions stems more from factors within the
individual, as opposed to factors within the situation, and deals
with constructs such as needs, beliefs, attitudes, and personality
traits.
Individuals with high need for achievement are characterized
by McClelland (1961) as having a preference for challenging
tasks, for immediate feedback, and for situations in which it is
possible to take personal responsibility. Given this description,
it might be predicted that individuals with high need for
achievement would exhibit greater commitment to challenging
goals than would those with low need for achievement.
Moreover, empirical evidence suggests that variables that are
positively related to the level of goal choice (i.e., degree of
difficulty) under self-set goal conditions are also related to commitment to assigned goals (Early, 1985; Hollenbeck & Brief, in
press). Therefore, studies showing personal variables affecting
goal-level choices will be explicitly interpreted here as providing
indirect evidence that those same variables would be related to
goal commitment (Campbell, 1982). Hence, studies that indicate that subjects with high need for achievement set more

215

GOAL COMMITMENT AND THE GOAL-SETTING PROCESS

Situations!
factors

Situational
factors

Personal
factors

Personal
factors

Publicness

Need for
Achievement

Social influence:
others' goals,
goal commitment,
or performance

Ability

Volition

Endurance

Task complexity

Past
success

Explicitness

Type A
Personality

Performance
constraints

Self-esteem

Reward
structures

Organizational
Commitment

Supervisor
supportiveness

Locus of
control

Competition

Job involvement

Expectancy of Goal Attainment

Attractiveness of Goat Attainment

I
Goal Commitment

Goal Level

Task Performance

Figure 1. Expectancy theory model of the antecedents and consequences of goal commitment.

difficult goals than their counterparts with tow need for achievement (Yukl & Latham, 1978) provide indirect evidence that
need for achievement may be related to commitment to difficult
goals.
Another personality variable that may be relevant to goal
commitment is endurance. According to Jackson (1974) the individual high in endurance is "willing to work long hours;
doesn't give up quickly on a problem; persevering even in the
face of great difficulty; patient and unrelenting" (p. 6). Individuals high on this trait would seem much less likely to abandon
difficult goals than those low in endurance.
A final personality variable that might relate to goal commitment is the degree of Type A behavior pattern. Type A people
are characterized as being aggressive and competitive, setting

high standards, and putting themselves under constant time

pressures (Friedman & Rosenman, 1974). It would appear that
Type A individuals, when faced with difficult goals, are much
more likely to redouble their efforts than to lower their goals or
aspirations. Indirect evidence for this link can be found in a
study by Taylor, Locke, Lee, and Gist (1984), who found that
Type A individuals set more difficult goals than Type B individuals.
An individual's work-related attitudes could also be expected
to relate to goal commitment by increasing the attractiveness
of goal attainment. For example, organizational commitment
has been denned as the relative strength of an individual's identification with and involvement in a particular organization.
Given their strong identification with organizational goals in

216

JOHN R. HOLLENBECK AND HOWVRD i. KLEIN

general, it is quite likely that individuals high in organizational

commitment would also be committed to operative goals established for them by the organization. Furthermore, the willingness to extend considerable effort for the organization suggests
that in the face of obstacles, organizationally committed workers would tend to increase their efforts rather than modify their
goals.
Job involvement is an attitude similar to organizational commitment, but the focus of identification is with the job itself
rather than any one particular organization. Individuals who
are highly job involved are distinguished by a strong association
between their job performance and their self-esteem. Because
performance on the job is central to their self-concept, highly
job involved individuals would be more likely to demonstrate
commitment to challenging work goals than those low in job
involvement.
Situational Factors Affecting the Expectancy of Goal
Attainment
One situational factor likely to have a strong impact on goal
commitment because of its effects on expectancy, is social influence with respect to (a) others* performance (b) others' goals,
and (c) others' goal commitment. For example, several studies
have shown that knowledge of how others have performed influences self-set goal difficulty (Festinger, 1942; Lewin, Dembo,
Festinger & Sears, 1944; Rakestraw & Weiss, 1981). Given this
relation, it could be argued that information about others' performance would also be related to commitment to difficult
goals, regardless of their origin. Indeed, Early and Kanfer
(1985) manipulated the performance levels of a role model and
found that subjects who viewed a high-performing role model
demonstrated higher goal commitment than those who saw a
tow-performing model. Similarly, Bandura (1977) has shown
that individuals will set high personal performance standards
when they see others adopting such standards. An individual's
commitment to difficult goals probably will be higher when
those around him or her have similar goals, as opposed to when
those around him or her have easier goals. Finally and most
directly, the level of goal commitment shown by others may influence the individual's level of goal commitment. It is unlikely
that an individual will maintain goal commitment when the
majority of his or her co-workers are perceived as quickly abandoning goals.
Task characteristics may also be related to goal commitment.
For example, on difficult or complex tasks, the link between
effort and performance will not be as strong as on simple tasks.
Research by Barley (1985) and Steers and Porter (1974) has
documented this relation between task characteristics and goal
commitment One aspect of a task that may be critical for determining goal commitment may be the extent to which there are
a number of external influences on task outcomes. Peters and
O'Connor (1980) have emphasized the influence of situational
constraints on work outcomes such as performance and satisfaction. The presence of such performance constraints is also
likely to diminish the expectancy of goal attainment. Goal commitment would be low under such circumstances because failure to achieve the goal can be readily attributed to factors beyond the individual's control.

Finally, supervisor supportiveness may be related to goal

commitment. Supervisor supportiveness was defined by Latham and Saari (1979b) as, among other things, friendliness and
listening to employees' opinions. Difficult goals assigned by
such supervisors will probably be perceived as fairer and more
realistic, causing goal commitment to be higher. In support of
this contention, Oidham (1975) directly showed that a measure
of supervisory trust was positively correlated with goal commitment. Latham and Saari (1979b) provided indirect evidence in
that supportive supervision was positively associated with selected goal level for subjects in participative conditions. In this
latter study, the low alpha reliability (.S3) associated with the
commitment measure precluded detecting more direct evidence.
Personal Factors Affecting the Expectancy of Goal
Attainment
Two personal variables likely to result in increased commitment to difficult goals are perceived ability and past success.
The extensive literature on level of aspiration (Frank, 1941)
documents the fact that, in general, future goals are higher following success than when following failure. Also, a number of
studies have used self-set goals and found that self-set goal levels
are strongly related to ability (Campion & Lord, 1982; Locke
et al., 1984; Matsui, Okada, & Kakuyama, 1982). Similarly,
subjects with high-perceived task-related ability (or self-efficacy) would be predicted to have higher expectations for achieving difficult goals, and thus higher commitment to those goals
relative to low-ability subjects. Empirical support for this hypothesized relation is evidenced in a study by Locke et al.
(1984) in a laboratory setting.
Hall's (1971) psychological success theory posits a linkage between self-esteem and goal commitment Although not explicity stated in Halls's model, the higher self-confidence that characterizes high-self-esteem persons is probably associated with
high-perceived probabilities for attaining difficult goals. Empirical research on this model has shown that high self-esteem is
associated with the choice of high goal levels (Hall & Foster,
1977).
Finally, locus of control may also be a personality variable
that is related to goal commitment. Individuals with an external
locus of control, because of their perceived inability to affect
their environment, would tend to show low goal commitment.
Individuals with an internal locus of control, on the other hand,
when faced with a difficult goal would perceive it possible, but
merely requiring more effort. Perhaps it was for this reason that
in a study by Yukl & Latham (1978), employees with an internal locus of control were willing to set more difficult goals than
were employees with an external locus of control.
Interactions Across Categories

The model shown in Figure 1 attempts to delineate, more

concretely, the direct antecedents and consequences of goal
commitment. Although only main effects have been discussed
here, the possibility for interactions both within and across categories should be recognized.
Expectancy theorists (cf. Vroom, 1964) clearly predict an in*

217

GOAL COMMITMENT AND THE GOAL^ETTING PROCESS

teraction between attractiveness and expectancy, therefore, one

might predict interactions between situational characteristics
that differentially affect attractiveness and expectancy. For example, volition may be related to commitment only where there
are not substantial constraints on performance. Where there
are external constraints on performance, abandoning the original goal appears neither inconsistent nor irrational because
these external factors make the original goal unrealistic.
Similar interactions could be specified between personal variables that differentially affect attractiveness and expectancy.
Self-esteem, for example, may be related to goal commitment
only when it occurs in conjunction with job involvement. High
self-esteem individuals who are uninvolved with their work may
not be as confident in being successful in the work role. Indeed,
it is often found that task-specific self-esteem is a much better
predictor of work behavior than is generalized self-esteem
(Tharenou& Marker, 1982).
Person by situation interactions within attractiveness or expectancy categories are also possible. An interaction may exist
between competition and Type A behavior pattern in determining the attractiveness of the goal attained, in that competition
fails to motivate Type B individuals (Friedman & Rosenman,
1974). Expectancy of goal attainment might additionally be an
interactive function of social influence and past performance.
Rakestraw and Weiss (1981) found, for instance, that only subjects without prior task experience were influenced by a model's
goal-setting behavior. When an individual has a long history of
past performance, immediate social influence may not affect
goal commitment. Finally, although not explicitly depicted in
Figure 1, the possibility of feedback loops should be recognized.
That is, personal and situational characteristics are not static,
and task performance could have dynamic effects on our proposed antecedents such as perceived past performance, job involvement, and supervisor supportiveness.
Reinterpretation of Past Research
The importance of increasing our understanding of the role
of goal commitment in the goal-setting process is highlighted
by reinterpreting past research in light of the model shown in
Figure 1. The lack of effects of goal difficulty, the presence of
conditional effects of goal difficulty, and inconsistent results using similar key variables across studies may be, in many cases,
attributable to variation in goal commitment. Note that the
studies discussed ahead provide only indirect evidence for the
model and are hardly a substitute for more direct empirical examinations of the linkages suggested. Their discussion will
hopefully convey that the preponderance of indirect evidence
on this issue warrants direct examination by future research.
Studies Failing to Establish Effects

of Goal

Difficulty

Several studies that found insignificant or negligible effects

may be explained by subjects' lack of goal commitment. For
example, in a study by Organ (1977) no group performance
average reached the level of the moderate goal. Because subjects
had prior task experience, they could have easily perceived the
appreciably harder "difficult" goal as unrealistic and hence may
have failed to become commited, because of low expectations.

Indeed, this would explain the inverse relation between goal

difficulty and commitment found in this study.
Motowidlo et al. (1978) found that performance was highest
for the low-goal condition (where expectancy of goal attainment
was high) rather than in the high-goal condition (where expectations of goal attainment were low). In this study, however, subjects did not make their expectancy ratings conditional on trying their best Because of this, the low expectancy reported for
the difficult goals may simply reflect a lack of commitment to
the originally established goal.
Ivancevich (1976) and Latham and Yukl (1975) found no significant effects of goal difficulty in field samples. In both of these
cases, however, a lack of organizational support was offered as
a possible explanation for these lack of results. As is shown in
Figure I, however, the effects of low organizational support were
possibly mediated by a resultant decrease in goal commitment.
Finally, Oldham (1975) failed to find a significant effect of
goal difficulty in a study where performance on a time-sheet
completion task was the dependent variable. A substantial
number of subjects did not, however, accept the assigned goals
established in this study. The results from other studies that
failed to replicate the effect of goal difficulty could possibly be
attributed to a lack of goal commitment, but because no assessment of goal commitment was ever attempted, this is impossible to ascertain (e.g., Bavelas & Lee, 1978; Forward & Zander,
1971; Hall & Foster, 1977;Steers, 1975).
Studies Establishing Conditional Effects
Difficulty

of Goal

According to Locke et al. (1981), relative to laboratory studies, "the majority of the correlational [i.e., of the field] studies
found only a conditional positive relation between goal difficulty and performance" (p. 129). It is instructive to look at these
studies in light of the model presented here, because many of
the variables on which the effect of goal difficulty was contingent are described here as antecedents of goal commitment.
Therefore, whereas the situation appears to be complex or chaotic (i.e., a large number of moderating influences), the situation may be much simpler (i.e.. one major moderating influencegoal commitmentthat is influenced by a large number
of other variables).
For example, Carroll and Tosi (1970) found an effect of goal
difficulty only for self-assured managers. Such a result would be
predicted from the model in Figure 1, inasmuch as self-esteem
is positively related to goal commitment and goal commitment
moderates the goal-difficulty-performance relation. In studies,
both Ivancevich and McMahon (1977) and Steers (1975) found
effects of goal difficulty only for subjects with strong higher order need strength. Because there is substantial overlap between
need for achievement and higher order need strength, it is probably the case that individuals with higher order need strength
simply exhibit greater goal commitment.
Goal commitment, according to the model developed here, is
also higher when there are no situational constraints on performance and there is high supervisory support It should not be
surprising, therefore, that for a sample of elementary school
children, an effect of goal difficulty was found only in schools
offering high support (Hall & Hall, 1976). Finally, Dachler and

218

JOHN R. HOLLENBECK AND HOWARD J. KLEIN

Mobley (1973) found an effect of goal difficulty only for kmgtenured employees. There is a substantial amount of literature
that suggests that tenure is associated with both job involvement (Rabinowitz & Hall, 1977) and organizational commitment (Mowday, Steers, & Porter, 1979) and, therefore, it is again
apparent that the effects of goal commitment can at least partially explain an unexpected moderating effect.

Studies Yielding Inconsistent Results With Key

Variables
Results of studies that have examined monetary incentives,
participation, and individual differences show considerable uncertainty with respect to the roles these variables play in the
goal-setting process. Locke et al. (1968) found that monetary
incentives lead to setting goals of increased difficulty. This finding was not replicated by Chung and Vickery (1976); Latham
et al. (1978); London and Oldham (1976); Pritchard and Curts
(1973); Terborg (1976); or Terborg and Miller (1978). Thus, one
cannot conclude that monetary incentives lead to increased
goal difficulty. Saari and Latham (1980) found that monetary
incentives increased the frequency with which individuals set
difficult goals on their own. Terborg (1976) and Terborg and
Miller (1978) failed to replicate this finding, however, so it cannot be concluded that money leads to goal setting in situations
wherein there would normally be no goals.
More plausibly, as suggested originally by Locke (1968) and
in the model presented here, monetary incentives (or the reward
structure in general) tend to increase goal commitment. Inconsistent results emerge because whereas goal commitment is a
necessary condition for the goal difficulty effect, monetary incentives are not a necessary condition for goal commitment.
That is, a situation may not contain monetary incentives yet
still generate goal commitment through other means, such as
publicness or social influence. When it is recognized that the
key variable is goal commitment, it becomes apparent that one
cannot make any simple prediction about the effects of monetary incentives. Rather, some assessment must be made of the
relative contribution that monetary incentives make to goal
commitment, over and above what is already available from
other variables.
Even more inconsistent results have been obtained regarding
participation. In some cases, participation resulted in higher
goals (Latham et al., 1978; Latham &Yukl, 1975). In the latter
study, participation interacted with individual differences to determine performance; that is, participatively set goals lead to
higher performance only for educated workers (Latham & Yukl,
197S). A number of studies holding goal difficulty constant
found no differences in commitment between participatively
set versus assigned goals (Dossett et al., 1979; Latham & Mitchell, 1972; Latham & Saari, 1979a; Latham & Yukl, 1976). In
other studies, participation seemed to play no significant role
in the goal-setting process (Carroll & Tosi, 1970; Ivancevich,
1976).
The expectancy theory model of goal commitment provided
here may be able to add some clarity to the situation. As discussed earlier, participation in the goal-setting process may increase volition, which in turn, may increase goal commitment.
Clearly, self-set goals imply volition, whereas assigned goals do

not. Participative goal setting lies somewhere between these extremes, and without observing the actual joint goal-setting session, it is difficult to ascertain how much input subordinates
had in establishing these participative goals. When the subordinate sees his or her input to be low, goal commitment will be
low; when this input is perceived to be high, goal commitment
will be higher (Erez et al., 198S). Again, it has to be noted that
although increasing subordinate perceptions of input into the
goal-setting process may be sufficient to bring about goal commitment, it is not a necessary condition for goal commitment.
According to Locke et al. (1981) "the only consistent thing
about the studies of individual differences in goal setting is their
inconsistency" (p. 156). The model provided here may prove
instrumental in understanding the underlying reasons for these
confusing results. Individual differences, according to the
model, are personal factors that affect goal commitment
through attractiveness or expectancy of goal attainment. Any
personal factor that affects attractiveness may interact with another variable (either personal or situational) that affects expectancy and vice versa. Also, any personal factor that affects the
attractiveness of goal attainment, may be substituted for by a
situational variable that also affects attractiveness. For example,
Steers (1975) found that goals lead to performance only for subjects with high need for achievement (i.e., a personal factor
affecting attractiveness). Yet subjects with a low need for
achievement performed well when they were allowed to participate in goal setting. It would appear that in this case, need for
achievement was enough to bring about commitment in some
subjects, but subjects low in this need required something else
(in this case, volition) to bring about goal commitment. Similar
explanations could explain interactions among personality and
other variables found in the goal-setting literature (e.g., Latham
& Yukl, 1975).

Conclusion and Suggestions for Future Research

In summary, this article supports several conclusions about
the role goal commitment has played in the goal-setting literature. First, despite the fact that the earliest discussions of goal
setting (Locke, 1968) specified commitment to goals as a necessary condition for goal setting to work, the majority of studies
in this area have completely ignored goal commitment (or acceptance, or both). Furthermore, few investigators examined
the effects of goal commitment in a fashion consistent with the
conceptualization of commitment as a moderator. To date,
there has not been a single study that has tested for the moderating effects of goal commitment on the goal-difficulty-performance relation in a methodologically appropriate fashion (i.e.,
that did not use single-item measures, measures of low reliability, range restriction, and inappropriate timing of measurement). Studies that treated goal commitment as a dependent
variable, have at least provided suggestive evidence on the antecedents to commitment to difficult goals. Building on this past
research, one can develop a model of the goal commitment process that breaks down the antecedents of commitment, first by
determining whether they affect the attractiveness or expectancy of goal attainment, and second by determining whether
they are of a personal or situational nature. When this model is
used to reinterpret past goal-setting research, it becomes appar-

GOAL COMMITMENT AND THE GOAL-SETTING PROCESS

enl that the widely varying goal difficulty effect sizes, conditional goal difficulty effects, and inconsistent results with variables such as monetary incentives, participation, and individual
differences can largely be traced to main and interactive effects
of the variables specified by the model.
Future research in the area of goal setting obviously needs to
place greater emphasis on assessing goal commitment. Given
the central role of goal commitment in goal-setting theory, this
variable should always be measured, even when the goal commitment by goal difficulty interaction is not being tested. If hypothesized goal characteristics do not affect performance, a
likely explanation is that there was a low level of commitment
to the goal. Direct measurement of commitment would allow
this possibility to be tested and would reduce the plethora of
other post hoc explanations tangential to goal-setting theory. In
addition, future research, perhaps conceptually guided by the
expectancy theory model of goal commitment presented, needs
to uncover precisely what factors influence goal commitment.
The knowledge that one has to assign "difficult" goals, has little
value if one does not know how difficult these goals can be before job incumbents become uncommitted and hence abandon
those goals.
Future research incorporating these recommendations may
lead to a greater understanding of the role that goal commitment plays in the goal-setting process. If it is found that goal
commitment is a necessary condition for goal setting to work,
then this increased understanding of the antecedents of goal
commitment will have critical implications for goal-setting applications, as well as goal-setting theory. Clearly this topic deserves more commitment from goal-setting researchers than
has been evident in the past.

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Received April 25,1986

Revision received September 17,1986
Accepted December i, 1986