Associations among polychronicity, goal orientation, and error orientation

Abstract

The current paper examines associations among measures of polychronicity, goal orientation, and error orientation with the intent of further explicating the nomological network surrounding polychronicity. Two samples of participants completed questionnaires measuring polychronicity, goal orientation, and error orientation: students from a South-western University (n = 302) and employees in a South-western City (n = 105). As hypothesized, polychronicity was related positively to learning goal orientation and negatively to performance-avoid goal orientation. In addition, performance-avoid goal orientation mediated the relationship between polychronicity and Error Strain orientation. Discussion emphasizes construct development as well as future research directions.

Introduction

Hall, 1959, Hall, 1983 first introduced and elaborated upon the construct of polychronicity, defined as the preference for working on multiple tasks at once and a belief that such multi-tasking was the best way to approach work. The antithesis of polychronicity would be monochronicity, defined as the belief that serial task performance is the best way to work and that multi-tasking is generally a poor option. In the decades that followed, polychronicity did not generate much research, but recently a resurgence of interest has begun, involving researchers from psychology, management, and marketing (e.g., Bluedorn, 2002, Conte and Jacobs, 2003, Kaufman-Scarborough and Lindquist, 1999, Slocombe and Bluedorn, 1999). Most of this work has been focused on the development of the nomological network surrounding polychronicity so as to properly locate it in the overall construct space (e.g., Conte, Rizzuto, & Steiner, 1999). The current paper continues this work by examining associations among polychronicity and goal orientation with the intent of further explicating polychronicity’s nomological network.

Past research has identified several variables that are related to polychronicity, although these relationships have also been shown to vary somewhat by sample (Conte and Jacobs, 2003, Ishizaka et al., 2001). Previously-studied variables include gender, age, the Big Five personality dimensions, turnover, sales performance, and absenteeism (Bluedorn, 2002, Conte and Gintoft, 2005). For a summary of significant empirical relationships between polychronicity and related variables, see Table 1 of Conte and Gintoft (2005). Given that polychronicity is still a relatively new construct, many potentially interesting relationships between polychronicity and other variables await study. Goal orientation is one such construct that provides intriguing theoretical questions relevant to polychronicity.

Goal orientation has been frequently studied in the past decade or so (i.e., Breland and Donovan, 2005, Elliot and Harackiewicz, 1996, Hofmann, 1993, Phillips and Gully, 1997, Tan and Hall, 2005). Briefly, goal orientation is defined as the mental structure through which goal situations are interpreted and that leads to behavioral choices in response to those situations. A large body of research has yielded two dominant models of the construct. A two-factor model separating goal orientation into a learning or mastery component and a performance component emerged first (Button, Mathieu, & Zajac, 1995), followed by a three-factor model proposed a few years later which divided the performance component, adding a performance-avoid dimension (VandeWalle, 1997, VandeWalle et al., 1999). Those researchers who advocate for the three-factor model argue that the performance-avoid factor must be included because the other two orientations are both approach-related; the two-factor model does not provide for motivated decisions to escape a task situation and thus is one-dimensional (VandeWalle, 1997, VandeWalle et al., 1999, Zweig and Webster, 2004). Recent studies have presented evidence that the 3-factor model of goal orientation is likely to be the most valid one (Day, Radosevich, & Chasteen, 2003). It should be noted that a new line of research is exploring the idea of dividing learning goal orientation into a “learning-approach” and “learning-avoid” factor (Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1996), but it is as yet unclear if this division of LGO is warranted.

Goal orientation has potential theoretical ties to polychronicity that provide a foundation for the current investigation. First, the decision to approach or avoid some goal state is at least partially based in perceptions of its difficulty, which may be implied by its structure (Locke and Latham, 1990, Seijts et al., 2004, Wicker et al., 2005). If a particular goal requires multi-tasking behavior, those high in polychronicity should be more comfortable approaching it; by contrast, monochronic individuals should see multi-tasking as aversive. However, one question is whether polychronicity and goal orientation are related at the trait level rather than situationally. That is, in the absence of goal context, polychronicity may impact one’s tendency toward a particular goal orientation, or vice versa. We propose that polychronicity is more likely to relate to a learning goal orientation (LGO) because multi-tasking enhances one’s potential to learn and grow in competence without extensive focus on external evaluation (Cron et al., 2005, VandeWalle, 2003). Secondly, LGO individuals are more error tolerant, seeing errors as logical extensions of the learning process. Since multi-tasking increases the likelihood of error per unit of time by probability alone, polychronic individuals must also tolerate and learn from error, which enhances personal enrichment (Heimbeck et al., 2003, VandeWalle, 2003). Polychronic behavior increases task complexity, may increase the probability of error, and improves learning opportunities, which suggests that polychronicity and LGO should be related at the construct level. Thus, we expect that polychronicity will be positively related to learning goal orientation (H1).

There should also be a relationship between polychronicity and performance-avoid goal orientation (PAGO). PAGO individuals are averse to goal situations that include external standards perceived to be unattainable. They do not approach goals for the sake of learning, but instead only behave when the probability of failure is minimized. Therefore, PAGO is incompatible with polychronic attitudes, since polychronicity leads to preferences for multi-tasking and error tolerance and involves more complexity, increasing the chance of failure. Finally, we know that LGO and PAGO are negatively associated (Payne, Youngcourt, & Beaubien, 2007). Thus, we also expect that polychronicity will be negatively related to performance-avoid goal orientation (H2).

Finally, the performance-prove goal orientation (PPGO) is defined as the tendency to approach goals in order to demonstrate one’s level of achievement and competence. The PPGO includes both approach and avoidance components, although it is likely to be slightly more avoidant according to the data (Payne et al., 2007). Unfortunately, in our review of the literature, we did not find convincing evidence for hypothesizing a directional relationship between polychronicity and the PPGO at the trait level.

Implied in our discussion of goal orientation and polychronicity is that how an actor prefers and chooses to handle mishaps (i.e., errors) when they arise. This may provide a conceptual link between motivation and time attitudes like polychronicity. It is therefore logical to measure error-based attitudes and behaviors to more fully clarify the link between these factors. Error orientation was first discussed extensively by Rybowiak, Garst, Frese, and Batinic (1999) and has continued to be studied indirectly under the rubric of “error management” (e.g., Keith & Frese, 2005). Error orientation describes one’s tendencies (attitudinal and behavioral) relevant to handling and processing errors that one makes. Currently, error orientation is thought to be composed of eight factors encompassing a variety of different behaviors and attitudes: Error Competence, Learning from Errors, Error Risk Taking, Error Strain, Error Anticipation, Covering Up Errors, Error Communication, and Thinking about Errors (Rybowiak et al., 1999). Error orientation is usually measured with a 37-item instrument. Curiously, to our knowledge, it has only been studied once in connection with goal orientation (Arenas, Tabernero, & Briones, 2006) and never with polychronicity.

Relationships between certain error orientations, goal orientation and polychronicity should exist for a number of reasons. First, goal orientation informs decisions about one’s goal behaviors, which follow from assessments of goal attainability and difficulty (e.g., Locke and Latham, 1990, Seijts et al., 2004). An error probability assessment should be a part of these decisions, so one’s polychronic attitudes and beliefs may affect the results of that error probability assessment. Thus, polychronicity and error orientations should be related because they both impact goal-based behaviors. For example, a learning goal orientation might be more probable where the individual is both more competent to handle errors and more polychronic. To capture the effect of error orientations on approach-related goal assessments, we must emphasize one’s preference and ability for successfully handling errors in a productive manner. The orientation that comes nearest this description is Error Competence, defined as the perception of one’s ability to handle and recover from errors in the short-term (Rybowiak et al., 1999), so it will be utilized in this study.

Second, polychronic individuals prefer multi-tasking environments; by mere probability, multi-tasking increases the likelihood with which errors can occur per unit of time. It is unlikely that a polychronic individual will be averse to errors since they prefer to engage situations where the base probabilities of those errors are likely to increase. Thus, certain error orientations may be related to polychronicity because of similarities in error-related attitudes. A good example is likely to be the error orientation labeled Error Strain (defined as the extent to which errors induce stress in an individual). Error Strain should be lower in polychronic persons, since they must tolerate a greater chance of error and they should be more tolerant of errors in general. In addition, error handling in itself is an additional task to be managed, which also fits within the polychronic construct definition. Thus, Error Strain should be another specific error orientation related to polychronicity.

Error Competence and Error Strain should also share construct space with learning goal orientation and performance-avoid goal orientation, respectively. Error Competence is dependent on one’s sense of efficacy in error situations. Since the LGO individual tends to have a stronger sense of self-efficacy (Dweck, 1999), these two constructs should be related. Secondly, Error Strain is clearly in line with the performance-avoid goal orientation, which is defined in terms of avoiding tasks due to concerns about one’s abilities and due to the anxiety that such concerns produce. Thus, we should expect that performance-avoid goal orientation and Error Strain should be related. Therefore, we expect that learning goal orientation (LGO) and Error Competence should be positively correlated (H3), and also that performance-avoid goal orientation (PAGO) and Error Strain should be positively correlated (H4).

Finally, we argue that the goal orientation – error orientation relationships described should be more salient than relationships between error orientation and polychronicity. First, the construct definitions are more similar in a number of ways between goal and error orientations. Second, polychronicity is a broader attitude that can apply in a number of ways across situations to a wide variety of factors. Therefore, it is probably not a proximal factor in the prediction of behavior; studies have borne this out so far (Ishizaka et al., 2001). Therefore, we expect that goal orientation will be a mediator in this study because of its more proximal relationship with error orientation. We therefore expect that two mediation paths should be discernable: first, learning goal orientation (LGO) will fully mediate the relationship between polychronicity and Error Competence (H5), and second, performance-avoid goal orientation (PAGO) will fully mediate the relationship between polychronicity and Error Strain (H6).