Supervisors and shop stewards as sources of contextual information in goal setting: A comparison of the United States with England

Abstract

Examined how different sources (information given by a supervisor vs a shop steward) and types of information (work strategy vs work rationale) influence goal setting and performance in the US and England. It was hypothesized that workers receiving information from their shop stewards would outperform those receiving information from their supervisors. It was also hypothesized that workers receiving a job rationale would not as effectively perform or have as high a level of goal acceptance as workers who were provided task training. To test these hypotheses, 2 field experiments were conducted at comparable tire-production factories, with 60 18–53 yr old male workers participating from each country. Results demonstrate that the goal-setting method worked in England as it did in the US, except that a supervisor was not as effective a source of information as a shop steward in England. (25 ref) (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)