The assessment of goal commitment: A measurement model meta-analysis

Goals are central to current treatments of work motivation, and goal commit ment is a critical construct in understanding the relationship between goal s and performance. Inconsistency in the measurement of goal commitment hind ered early research in this area but the nine-item, self-report scale devel oped by Hollenbeck, Williams, and Klein (1989b), and derivatives of that sc ale, have become the most commonly used measures of goal commitment. Despit e this convergence, a few authors, based on small sample studies, have rais ed questions about the dimensionality of this measure. To address the confl icting recommendations in the literature regarding what items to use in ass essing goal commitment, the current study combines the results of 17 indepe ndent samples and 2918 subjects to provide a more conclusive assessment by combining meta-analytic and multisample confirmatory factor analytic techni ques. This effort reflects the first combined use of these techniques to te st a measurement model and allowed for the creation of a database substanti ally larger than that of previously factor analyzed samples containing thes e scale items. By mitigating sampling error, the results clarified a number of debated issues that have arisen out of previous small sample factor ana lyses and revealed a five-item scale that is unidimensional and equivalent across measurement timing, goal origin, and task complexity. It is recommen ded that this five-item scale be used in future research assessing goal com mitment. (C) 2001 Academic Press.