Goal orientation and employee resistance at work: Implications for manager emotional exhaustion with the employee

Abstract

This study advances our understanding of goal orientation (GO) theory by relating GO to manager outcomes (i.e., manager emotional exhaustion with the employee) through interpersonal behaviour patterns (i.e., employee resistance). Specifically, we examine the mediating effect of constructive and dysfunctional resistance (DR) on the relationships between GO and manager emotional exhaustion with the employee. The findings from 565 manager-employee dyads in a Chinese company indicate that learning GO (LGO) and performance-prove GO (PPGO) are positively related to constructive resistance (CR), and performance-avoid GO (PAGO) is negatively related to CR and positively related to DR. CR and DR significantly mediate the relationships between LGO and PAGO and manager emotional exhaustion with the employee. The findings are discussed in terms of the importance of GO theory for understanding interpersonal behaviours and manager outcomes. Practitioner pointsFirst, organizations should educate and sensitize managers to the motivational orientations their employees bring to the workplace so that managers can better shape work experiences and challenges in ways that allow employees to attain their goal orientation (GO)-related goals (e.g., avoid embarrassment, insure positive evaluations) without jeopardizing important interactions with others. Second, before managers coach employees with a performance-avoid GO on how to provide constructive feedback and the benefits of doing so, they may set the stage by discussing how avoidance behaviours may lead to future embarrassment or negative evaluations rather than to prevent these outcomes. Managers can foster work climates that value learning and development and reward employees for offering constructive resistance rather than avoidance behaviours. Third, the findings linking GO with manager emotional exhaustion with the employee clearly indicate that the personal consequences for a manager make it worth their time and effort to coach employees on more adaptive and constructive behaviours.Goal orientation (GO) theory offers important understanding regarding individuals' adaptive or maladaptive self-regulatory behaviours in achievement settings (Button,

Proactive Vitality Management, Work Engagement, and Creativity: The Role of Goal Orientation

“…In the present study, we focus on LGO and PAGO, because these two orientations are expected to have predictable and rather differential effects on the creativity process. GO has a powerful impact on job performance and creativity, because GO determines employees' self-regulatory tactics, including their effort, selfset goals, feedback seeking, persistence, and learning strategies (Brett et al, 2016). Since GOs influence approach/avoidance motivation and openness to experience (Payne, Youngcourt, & Beaubien, 2007), GOs have important implications for (a) how proactive vitality management relates to work engagement, and (b) how work engagement relates to creativity.…”

“…Goal orientation (GO) theory outlines how individuals use adaptive or maladaptive self‐regulatory behaviours in achievement settings. Accordingly, people hold one of three types of GOs: Learning goal orientation (LGO)—a desire to develop mastery through learning, seeking challenges, and acquiring new skills; performance‐prove GO (PPGO)—a desire to prove competence to gain favourable evaluations from others; and performance‐avoidance GO (PAGO)—a desire to avoid displays of incompetence that could lead to negative judgments (VandeWalle, ; Dragoni & Kuenzi, ; Gong, Kim, Lee, & Zhu, ; Brett et al, ). In the present study, we focus on LGO and PAGO, because these two orientations are expected to have predictable and rather differential effects on the creativity process…”

“…Finally, we contribute to the goal setting and goal orientation literatures by investigating how goal orientation, as a motivational moderator variable, influences this creativity process. Since goal orientation determines employees’ self‐regulatory tactics, including their effort, persistence, and learning strategies (Brett, Uhl‐Bien, Huang, & Carsten, ), goal orientation potentially has important implications for how proactive vitality management is related to work engagement and how engagement is related to creativity.…”

Decision-making in a dynamic task: effects of goal orientation on stocks and flows performance

“…Due to these individual differences, they are found to have different tendencies toward goals, which are denoted goal orientation (Dweck and Leggett, 1988). Goal orientation is an important predictor of job performance and creativity as it exerts its effect on individual's selfregulatory tactics, including self-efficacy, persistence and learning strategies (Brett et al, 2016;Bakker et al, 2018). We argue that decision-makers' goal orientation is a salient antecedent in understanding their performance in SF tasks.…”

Investigating employee and organizational performance in a cross‐border acquisition—A case of withdrawal behavior

“…Bearing in mind the importance of the transfer of tacit knowledge for the success of M&As, we argued that acquiring firms need to take acquired firm employee withdrawal behaviors seriously and enact strategies to counter them. This is important given that the prior literature has established that employee withdrawal behaviors are linked with a lack of interest in both routine and strategic tasks (Aslam, Ilyas, Imran, & Rahman, 2016; Porter & Steers, 1973) and, in some cases, with resistance (Brett, Uhl‐Bien, Huang, & Carsten, 2016). As a result, acquiring firms could fail to acquire important tacit knowledge, which may play a key role in the success of the integration process.…”