Self-improvement and cooperation: How exchange relationships promote mastery-approach driven individuals' job outcomes

Abstract

In the present research we argue that mastery-approach goals may be beneficial in social achievement contexts because these goals lead to constructive exchange relationship building. An examination of three methodologically complementary studies revealed that mastery-approach goals lead to more cooperative and higher-quality exchange relationships than performance-approach goals and are, ultimately, associated with better job outcomes, as well. The results of a questionnaire study demonstrated that mastery-approach goals are more strongly related to cooperative motives and more weakly related to competitive motives than performance-approach goals. Furthermore, an experimental study indicated that mastery-approach driven individuals show a higher concern for others and are more strongly inclined to cooperate with an exchange partner when engaged in a complex reasoning task than performance-approach driven individuals. Finally, an organizational field study showed that team-member exchange mediates the effect of masteryapproach goals on job performance, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment.

Autonomous and controlled reasons underlying achievement goals: Implications for the 3 × 2 achievement goal model in educational and work settings

“…Performance-avoidance goals have been almost uniformly correlated to negative outcomes such as burnout and negative affect (e.g., Kumar and Jagacinski 2011;Tuominen-Soini et al 2008 of performance-approach goals in prior research. Indeed, performance-approach goals were significantly and positively associated with positive affect and satisfaction in some studies (e.g., Mouratidis et al 2013;Papaioannou et al 2008), whereas other research did not find any significant relationship with these outcomes (e.g., Adie et al 2008;Poortvliet and Giebels 2012). In sum, there are inconsistent findings in the literature regarding the effects of achievement goals, especially for mastery-avoidance and performance-approach goals.…”

Mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals and their relation with exhaustion and engagement at work: The roles of emotional and instrumental support

“…For example, Janssen and Van Yperen (2004) showed that leader-member exchange predicted job satisfaction and job performance in employees who adopted mastery-approach goals. Likewise, Poortvliet and Giebels (2012) demonstrated that mastery-approach goals were positively associated with quality of exchange relationships between colleagues, and, in turn, had positive relationships with organizational commitment, job satisfaction and job performance. So, trying to improve one's own previous performance (i.e.…”

“…Individual differences in mastery goals were tested with Elliot and McGregor's (2001) achievement goal questionnaire, adapted to make it suitable for a work context (cf. Poortvliet & Giebels, 2012). The participants responded to three mastery-avoidance goal items (α = .77) and three mastery-approach goal items (α = .84).…”

“…Indeed, mastery-approach goals are positively related to experiencing task interest , effective task processing (Ford, Smith, Weissbein, Gully, & Salas, 1998), job satisfaction (Janssen & Van Yperen, 2004) and organizational commitment (Poortvliet & Giebels, 2012). So, the adoption of mastery-approach goals directs the attention of individuals to the task at hand rather than to collateral matters such as fear of failure.…”

Perverse Effects of Other-Referenced Performance Goals in an Information Exchange Context

“…Thus, achievement goals may act as temporal and situation-specific drives, and individuals may also endorse different levels of achievement goals over time (Button et al 1996;DeShon and Gillespie 2005;Elliot and McGregor 2001;Payne et al 2007;Yeo et al 2009). Interestingly, recent research has demonstrated that persons who have a dominant performance goal, relative to a dominant mastery goal, are more likely to make competitive decisions and less likely to make cooperative decisions (Poortvliet and Giebels, 2011).…”