Cooper, M D (1992) An examination of assigned and participative goal-setting in relation to the improvement of safety in the construction industry. PhD thesis, University of Manchester, UK.
Abstract
The conclusion that setting a specific, difficult but attainable goal will improve task performance is one of the most robust findings in the occupational psychology literature. Considerable debate exists, however, amongst goal-setting researchers about whether goals should be assigned by an authority figure (delegated) or set participatively (jointly determined). A narrative and quantitative (meta-analytic) review of literature on assigned vs participative goal-setting was conducted. The available empirical evidence to date is inconclusive. Participative and assigned goal-setting conditions were utilized as part of a much larger study conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a behavioural approach toward the improvement of safety performance in the UK construction industry. Four construction sites were involved in the research reported in this thesis. A multiple baseline with reversal design was used. Two different experimental protocols: training, goal-setting and feedback; and goal-setting and feedback was used. Data were collected over a 55 week period (3 times per week) by trained observers using a safety performance checklist developed as part of the overall research. Results were analysed to explore the relative effects on performance of participative and assigned goal-setting methods. These demonstrate that both methods of goal-setting can be effective in improving safety performance. Participative methods were superior during the first intervention period, but the evidence, although suggestive, is inconclusive during the second intervention period. Supplementary hypotheses reveal that the goal-commitment/performance relationship does not appear to be as straightforward as previous evidence would suggest; during the second intervention, goal-commitment was higher for those working under an assigned, rather than a participative goal-setting regime, but performance was lower. Further, performance feedback appears to be more salient with assigned goal-setting, especially when training is part of the intervention.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | occupational psychology; psychology; construction site; feedback; improvement; performance; safety; training; effectiveness; experiment |
| Index terms: | evidence, narrative, safety performance, psychology, experiment, commitment, construction site, effectiveness, occupational psychology, construction industry |
| Subjects: | data collection methods, evaluation and assessment methods, work location, psychology, performance management, qualitative and interpretive research, occupational health and safety management, behavioral psychology, industry analysis |
| Topics: | Organizational Design, Site Management, Quality Management, Research Practice, Health and Safety |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here