Conflicting personal goals: a risk to occupational well-being?
Hyvönen, K., Rantanen, J., Huhtala, M., Wiese, B. S., Tolvanen, A., & Feldt, T. (2015). Conflicting personal goals: a risk to occupational well-being?. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 30 (8), 1034-1048. doi:10.1108/JMP-04-2013-0105
Published in
Journal of Managerial PsychologyAuthors
Date
2015Discipline
PsykologiaCopyright
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited. This is a final draft version of an article whose final and definitive form has been published by Emerald. Published in this repository with the kind permission of the publisher.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating role of goal conflict in the relationship between the contents of managers’ personal work goals and occupational well-being (burnout and work engagement). Eight goal categories (organization, competence, well-being, career-ending, progression, prestige, job change, and employment contract) described the contents of goals. Goal conflict reflected the degree to which a personal work goal was perceived to interfere with other life domains.
Design/methodology/approach
– The data were drawn from a study directed to Finnish managers in 2009 (n=806). General linear models were conducted to investigate the associations between goal content categories and occupational well-being and to test whether goal conflict moderates the relationship between goal content categories and occupational well-being.
Findings
– Career-ending goals related to significantly higher burnout than progression goals. Participants with organization, competence, or progression goals reported the highest goal conflict, whereas participants with well-being, career-ending, or job change goals reported lower goal conflict. Goal conflict was found to have a moderating role: in a high-goal conflict situation, participants with organizational, competence, and progression goals reported lower occupational well-being, whereas participants with job change goals reported higher occupational well-being.
Originality/value
– The research highlights that both the contents and appraisals (e.g. goal conflict) of personal work goals should be taken into account when investigating the relationship between personal goals and well-being at work.
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