From Strategy to Action: Transforming Organizational Goals into Organizational Behavior

• Published date: 01 January 2018
• Date: 01 January 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12159
• Author: Marylène Gagné

International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 20, S83–S104 (2018)

DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12159

From Strategy to Action: Transforming

Organizational Goals into Organizational

Behavior

Maryl`

ene Gagn´

e

Management and Organisations Discipline, Business School, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling HW,

Crawley, WA 6009, Australia

Email: marylene.gagne@uwa.edu.au

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model to explain and predict how

organizational goals are transformed into organizationalbehavior. Using the theory of

action phases as the overarchingframework to explainhow organizations and employees

commit to goals and successfully pursue them, in conjunction with self-determination

theory to explain the development of goal commitment at the individual level, a moti-

vational model of organizational goal pursuit is proposed. This model takes into con-

sideration mission and strategic goal development,organizational-level implementation

intentions in the form of strategic plans and dynamic capabilities, individual goalinter-

nalization, and implementation plans at the individual level. These goalphases are pro-

posed to be affected by the attraction, selection, socialization and management of orga-

nizational members. The model can serveto develop knowledge in the area of behavioral

strategy by integrating motivational considerationsinto strategic management models.

Introduction

A conceptual model to explain how organizational

goals translate into organizational behavior was

developed. It draws heavily on human motivation

theories, as many of them predict goal attainment

and have informed practice in many life areas, such

as education, sport, behavioral health and work (e.g.

Dweck and Leggett 1988; Elliot and Church 1997;

Heckhausen and Gollwitzer 1987; Locke and Latham

1990; Ryan and Deci 2017; Vroom 1964). Among

these theories, Heckhausen and Gollwitzer’s (1987)

theory of action phases served as the overarching

framework, as it helps understand how organizations

and employees develop goals, commit to them, and

successfully pursue them. Within these goal phases,

self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan 1985) was

used to explain the development of individual goal

commitment. More theories could be added, but these

two motivation theories offer a parsimonious and

compelling model that can help organizations man-

age their goal-setting processes and their employees’

pursuit of organizational goals. The theory of action

phases proposes phases of goal pursuit, making it

more comprehensive than goal-setting theory (Locke

and Latham 1990) and expectancy theory (Vroom

1964), which focus almost exclusively on the imple-

mentation phase of goal pursuit. Self-determination

theory offers useful psychological processes to help

understanding of goal internalization and factors that

can inf‌luence it, namely need satisfaction, that other

theories, such as achievement-goal theories (Dweck

and Leggett 1988; Elliot and Church 1997), do not

provide. To make the model practicable, suggestions

for testing it are proposed together with suggested

interventions to assist organizations in setting orga-

nizational goals and ensure employees are pursuing

them.

Model development

The proposed model focuses on the management and

exploitation of a particular intangible organizational

resource, human motivation. It borrows from several

C2018 British Academy of Management and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Publishedby John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington

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S84 M. Gagn´

e

Table1. Concept def‌initions

Concept Def‌inition Level Focus Equivalent concepts

Goal End state not yet attained and focused

on attaining

General General

Goal pursuit Actions taken to attain a goal General General Strategy

Strategy Theory about how to gain competitive

advantage held by an organization

Organizational What and why Goal pursuit

Deliberation The process of choosing a goal General Mission; strategic goals; goal

internalization

Implementation

intention

If–then plans to pursue a chosen goal General How Strategic plan; dynamic capabilities;

implementation plan

Organization Coalition of interdependent

stakeholders who need to coordinate

their efforts through communication

Organizational Can also apply to teams

Organizational goal End state an organization wishes to

attain

Organizational General Goal

Mission An organization’s purpose Organizational Why Deliberation; superordinate goal;

sensing

Strategic goals Clear and specif‌ic sub-goals meant to

achieve the mission (also referred to

as vision)

Organizational What Deliberation; subordinate goal; off‌icial

goal

Strategic plan Specif‌ic plans that explain how

strategic goals are pursued

Organizational How Implementation intention; operational

goal; organizational planning

Dynamic Capability Strategic routines by which f‌irms

achieve new resource conf‌igurations

Organizational How Implementation intention; seizing and

transforming

Goal internalization Takingin an external goal and making

it one’sown

Individual What and why Deliberation; interest alignment

Implementation plan If–then plans to pursue a personal goal Individual How Implementation intention

f‌ields, including strategic management, human re-

source management, organizational behavior and so-

cial psychology,to elaborate on how goals are set and

pursued at the individual and organizational levels.

The model complements strategic management theo-

ries, such as the behavioral theory of the f‌irm (Cyert

and March 1963), the resource-based view of the

f‌irm (Barney 1991; Wernerfelt 1984), agency theory

(Jensen and Meckling 1976) and the dynamic capa-

bilities theory of the f‌irm (Teece 2007; Teece et al.

1997), in two ways. First, it explains how individuals

appropriate organizational goals and how this inf‌lu-

ences their behavior at work. Second, it uses different

assumptions about what motivates human beings. In

addition, this model extends organizational behavior

models by elaborating on how employee motivation

translates into dynamic capabilities in organizations,

using insights from social psychology and strategic

management.

The model follows Coleman’s (1990) ‘bathtub’

model in which a social context (organizational

goals) inf‌luences individual conditions (motivation),

which in turn inf‌luence individual action, which inf‌lu-

ence social outcomes (organizational success). The

model also f‌leshes out Ployhart and Hale’s (2014)

framework, which links strategy and psychology,

by zooming into the motivational underpinnings of

individual performance that link back into organiza-

tional performance.

The very existence of the f‌ield of strategic man-

agement highlights the importance placed on organi-

zational goals for organizational success. From advo-

cating for a sound strategy (Porter 1979) to having

valuable and rare resources (Barney 1991) and de-

veloping dynamic capabilities to create appropriate

resources (Teece et al. 1997), the focus has remained

very much at the organizational level, without much

consideration of how organizational goals inf‌luence

employee behavior. More recently, a microfounda-

tions movementhas brought these behavioral issues to

the forefront of strategy realization (Felinet al. 2015).

The model presented herein f‌its into this movement,

as it focuses on how we go from strategy to action,

and how action leads to strategy realization. It deals

with both multilevel issues and with the need to bring

individuals back into the strategy process (Felin et al.

2015).

An organization is herein def‌ined as a coalition of

stakeholders (Cyert and March 1963), which can in-

clude (but is not limited to) investors and owners,

as well as employees and clients (see Table 1 for

concept def‌initions). Borrowing from agency theory

C2018 British Academy of Management and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.