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Tested the hypothesis that induced conceptions of ability as a stable entity or as an acquirable skill would affect self-regulatory mechanisms governing performance in a simulated organization. Ss served as managerial decision makers in which they had to match employees to subfunctions and to discover and apply managerial rules to achieve a difficult level of organizational performance. Those who performed the challenging managerial task under an entity conception of ability suffered a loss in perceived self-efficacy, lowered their organizational goals, and became less efficient in their analytic strategies. Ss who managed the organization under an acquirable skill conception of ability sustained their perceived self-efficacy, set challenging organizational goals, and used analytic strategies effectively. These divergences in self-regulatory factors were accompanied by substantial differences in organizational performance. Path analysis revealed that perceived self-efficacy had both a direct effect on organizational performance and an indirect effect through its influence on analytic strategies. Personal goals also affected organizational performance through the mediation of analytic strategies. The relation of prior organizational performance to subsequent performance was mediated entirely by the combined influence of the self-regulatory factors. Complex decision making is, by its nature, a motivated, cognitive process. This is especially true in dynamic organizational environments. Decision making in such environments is an ongoing process that requires complex integration of multiple sources of information to produce distal, socially mediated outcomes (Mintzberg, 1973; Stewart, 1967). Because organizational outcomes must be achieved through the concerted efforts of others, some of the most important managerial decisions are concerned with how to use human talent and how to guide and motivate human effort. In executing this role, managers have to cope with numerous obstacles, failures, and setbacks that often carry perturbing self-evaluative implications as well as social consequences. These affective factors can undermine self-conceptions and motivation in ways that impair good use of decision-making skills. Effective decision making thus involves more than applying a set of cognitive operators to existing knowledge for desired solutions. Self-regulatory influences have considerable impact on how well cognitive-processing systems work (A. Bandura, 1986; Wood, Bandura, & Bailey, in press). The mechanisms and outcomes of managerial decision making do not lend themselves readily to experimental analysis in

Tested the hypothesis that perceived controllability and stringency of performance standards would affect self-regulatory mechanisms governing performance attainments of a simulated organization. Ss who managed the simulated organization under a cognitive set that organizations are not easily controllable displayed low perceived self-efficacy, even when standards were within easy reach, and lowered their organizational goals. Ss who operated under a cognitive set that organizations are controllable maintained a strong sense of self-efficacy, set increasingly challenging goals, and exhibited effective analytic thinking. The divergent changes in these self-regulatory factors were accompanied by large differences in organizational attainments. Path analyses revealed that perceived self-efficacy, which was affected by prior accomplishments, influenced subsequent organizational performance through its effects on analytic strategies. After further experience, the performance system was regulated more extensively and intricately by Ss' self-conceptions of efficacy. Perceived self-efficacy affected subsequent organizational attainments both directly and indirectly through its influence on personal goal challenges. Personal goals, in turn, enhanced organizational attainments directly and through mediation of analytic strategies.

Much evidence exists that supports the use of goal setting as a motivational technique for enhancing task performance; however, little attention has been given to the role of task characteristics as potential moderating conditions of goal effects. Meta-analysis procedures were used to assess the moderator effects of task complexity for goal-setting studies conducted from 1966 to 1985 (n = 125). The reliability of the task complexity ratings was .92. Three sets of analyses were conducted: for goaldimculty results (hard vs. easy), for goal specificity-difficulty (specific difficult goals vs. do-best or no goal), and for all studies collapsed across goal difficulty and goal specificity-difficulty. It was generally found that goal-setting effects were strongest for easy tasks (reaction time, brainstorming), d ~ .76, and weakest for more complex tasks (business game simulations, scientific and engineering work, faculty research productivity), d = .42. Implications for future research on goal setting and the validity of generalizing results are discussed.Twenty years of empirical research has established that specific, challenging goals lead to higher levels of task performance than no goals, vague goals, or easy goals (Locke, Shaw, Saari, & Latham, 1981;Finder, 1984). Interest is now turning to identifying the theoretical limits of goal setting, for example, the variables that moderate the positive performance effects of goals (e.g., Austin & Bobko, 1984;Locke et al., 1981;Naylor & Ilgen, 1984).One variable of potential importance to the theory of goal setting is task complexity. Tasks are an integral part of all studies of human performance, and task characteristics have been suggested as moderators in a diverse range of areas, including job design (Hackman & Oldham, 1980), personnel selection (e.g., Peterson & Bownas, 1982), information processing and decision making (e.g., Streufert & Streufert, 1978), and psychomotor activities (Fleishman, 1975). Locke et al. (1981) have speculated that goals will have less direct effects due to effort, attention, and persistence on complex tasks, and that indirect effects due to strategy development will become more important to performance. Further, Wood (1985) has argued that specific, challenging goals may lead to suboptimal search procedures on complex tasks (e.g., Baumler, 1971;Huber, 1985). From this literature we hypothesize that goals, on the average, will have less pronounced performance effects on complex tasks than on simple tasks.The study of characteristics such as complexity has suffered

Primary pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP) is a rare syndrome characterized by accumulation of surfactant in the lungs that is presumed to be mediated by disruption of granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) signaling based on studies in genetically modified mice. The effects of GM-CSF are mediated by heterologous receptors composed of GM-CSF binding (GM-CSF-Rα) and nonbinding affinity-enhancing (GM-CSF-Rβ) subunits. We describe PAP, failure to thrive, and increased GM-CSF levels in two sisters aged 6 and 8 yr with abnormalities of both GM-CSF-Rα–encoding alleles (CSF2RA). One was a 1.6-Mb deletion in the pseudoautosomal region of one maternal X chromosome encompassing CSF2RA. The other, a point mutation in the paternal X chromosome allele encoding a G174R substitution, altered an N-linked glycosylation site within the cytokine binding domain and glycosylation of GM-CSF-Rα, severely reducing GM-CSF binding, receptor signaling, and GM-CSF–dependent functions in primary myeloid cells. Transfection of cloned cDNAs faithfully reproduced the signaling defect at physiological GM-CSF concentrations. Interestingly, at high GM-CSF concentrations similar to those observed in the index patient, signaling was partially rescued, thereby providing a molecular explanation for the slow progression of disease in these children. These results establish that GM-CSF signaling is critical for surfactant homeostasis in humans and demonstrate that mutations in CSF2RA cause familial PAP.

SUMMARYBone marrow transplantation is an effective cell therapy but requires myeloablation, which increases infection-risk and mortality. Recent lineage-tracing studies documenting that resident macrophage populations self-maintain independent of hematologic progenitors prompted us to consider organ-targeted, cell-specific therapy. Here, using GM-CSF receptor-β deficient (Csf2rb−/−) mice that develop a myeloid cell disorder identical to hereditary pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (hPAP) in children with CSF2RA/CSF2RB mutations, we show that pulmonary macrophage transplantation (PMT) of either wild-type or Csf2rb-gene-corrected macrophages without myeloablation was safe, well-tolerated, and that one administration corrected the lung disease, secondary systemic manifestations, normalized disease-related biomarkers, and prevented disease-specific mortality. PMT-derived alveolar macrophages persisted for at least one year as did therapeutic effects. Results identify mechanisms regulating alveolar macrophage population size in health and disease, indicate that GM-CSF is required for phenotypic determination of alveolar macrophages, and support translation of PMT as the first specific therapy for children with hPAP.