THE EFFECTS OF DIFFERENTIAL GOAL WEIGHTS ON THE PERFORMANCE OF A COMPLEX FINANCIAL TASK
研究通过银行信贷官员模拟实验，检验了在复杂金融任务中，团队能否根据任务不同方面设定差异权重目标并达成相应绩效，发现目标权重与绩效显著相关。
This study involved taking goal‐setting research in a new direction. Its purpose was to determine whether people could attain outcomes on a complex task that would be in line with differential goal weights corresponding to different aspects of the task. One hundred twenty‐nine bank lending officers were run through a four‐period, lender‐simulation exercise. Teams of two to six persons competed with two to five other teams in terms of five weighted performance goals: portfolio yield, portfolio size, net income, net charge‐offs, and credit file deficiencies. Weights for each performance goal were equal for each team in Periods 1 and 2. In Period 3 teams could set their own goal weights within a range. During this period goal weights were significantly related to performance for three of four relevant criteria. In all but Period 4 each group had to maintain a minimum return on assets (ROA) standard or suffer penalties. In Period 4, when the ROA standard became inoperative, ROA performance decreased significantly. These results confirm the effectiveness of goal setting (1) with complex tasks, (2) using the group as the unit of analysis, and (3) using multiple goals with differential weights.