Goal-setting theory proposes that specific and difficult goals lead to higher performance. Evidence strongly suggests that specific goals increase performance; that difficult goals, when accepted, result in higher performance than do easy goals; and that feedback leads to higher performance than does nonfeedback. Specificity itself seems to act as an internal stimulus. All things being equal, someone with a specific goal will outperform a counterpart with no goals or the generalized goal “do your best.”

If factors such as acceptance of goals are held constant, the more difficult the goal, the higher the level of performance. Once a hard task has been accepted, we can expect employees to exert a high level of effort to try to achieve it. People do better when they get feedback on how well they are progressing toward their goals because it helps identify discrepancies between what they have done and what they want to do next—that is, feedback guides behavior. Self-generated feedback—with which employees can monitor their own progress or receive feedback from the task process itself—is more powerful than externally generated feedback.

Three personal factors influence the goals–performance relationship: goal commitment, task characteristics, and national culture. Goal-setting theory assumes an individual is committed to the goal and determined not to lower or abandon it. Goal commitment is most likely to occur when employees expect that their efforts will pay off in goal attainment, when accomplishing the goal is attractive to them, and when they actively participate in goal setting. Goals themselves seem to affect performance more strongly when tasks are simple and independent.