Running head: GOAL ORIENTATION IN CHINESE WORK DOMAIN

Study Goal Orientation in Chinese Society in Work Domain

CHEN Yulin (2007937472)
The Department of Psychology
The University of Hong Kong

June 30, 2008

Contents

Abstract 2
Introduction……………………………… …………………………………………………. 3 Cultural Difference regarding Motivation 5 How to Induce Learning Goal Orientation? 6 A Distinct Pattern in Chinese Society? 8 A Developmental Pattern of Goal Orientation 9 More about Performance Goal Orientation 10
Method 11
Results 13
Discussion 15
Summary and Implication 20
Limitations and Further Research 21
References 23
Appendix A 28
Appendix B 29
Appendix C 30
Appendix D 31
Appendix E 32
Appendix F 33

Abstract

The study of goal orientation is usually conducted in Western society. In attempt to extend theories related to goal orientation and Yu’s (1996) study on cultural difference in motivation to Chinese work domain, in this research, 75 working people from Mainland China were invited to complete a set of questionnaires on goal orientation, work climate, task complexity, work experience and marriage status. The relationships among these variables were examined. Contrary to hypotheses, learning goal orientation positively correlated with autonomous work climate but did not correlate significantly with task complexity. Work climate had no effect on participants’ performance approach goal orientation but task complexity was found to be positively correlated with it. Contrary to previous findings in Chinese education domain, the correlation between learning and performance goal orientation was insignificant, indicating a western-like pattern. A developmental transition in goal orientation in Chinese society was not found in this study. The combined results suggested factors involved in Chinese culture produce cross-cultural difference on the study of performance goal orientation but not on learning goal orientation. The implications of these findings for Chinese work domain are discussed.

Study Goal Orientation in Chinese Society in Work Domain The multiple behaviors displayed by working people in their jobs have drawn much attention to the study of work motivation. People are believed to be motivated by various goals. And according to some research findings, different goals predominate in people’s different life stages. Moreover, a person’s predominant goal will be induced or transferred by environmental cues. These cues include the supportive work climate, the complexity of the job, the relationship with the co-workers, and the evaluation methods. Along the time dimension, goals can impose influence on people’s life in a dispositional way. That is, a person tends to deal with his business in a consistent way, which is related to the hierarchy and the prioritization of his goal setting. In the motivation literature, researchers have used different formulations to represent two distinct states along the goal orientation dimension. Dweck (1986) defined these two states as learning goal orientation and performance goal orientation; according to Ames (1984), mastery goal is contrasted with ability goal; in Bandura’s (1989) framework, mastering orientation and outcome orientation are defined to describe people’s attitude of their capabilities in the achievement-related activities. Although this terminological difference, researchers roughly agreed on the existence of the two distinct constructs, and the similarity of the covering of these terms. For consistency purpose, in the following writing, I would adopt the “learning goal orientation” and “performance goal orientation” definition, which is frequently used in the study of related topics in the work domain. A person with learning goal tends to focus on the acquirement of his knowledge, skills and abilities. He or she pursues the reward of intrinsic factors, and is not easily influenced by failure. On the contrary, a person with performance goal tends to focus on comparing outcome with people and seeking positive evaluation by others. He or she pursues the reward of extrinsic factors, and is easily influenced by obstacles and setbacks. So far, the studies of goal orientation have mainly focused in Western society. However, several research showed interest in studying this construct in different culture. For example, Asians are believed to be highly motivated when choices are made for them by trusted authority figures, and are less intrinsic motivated (Latham, 2006). In the study in Chinese education setting, a positive correlation existed between learning and performance goals, while the western counterparts showed a negative or neutral pattern (Salili, 1995; Chang & Beevi, 1999, Cynthia, 2003, Beaubien & Payne, 1999). On the other hand, according to some surveys conducted in Taiwan and Mainland China, entrants of companies attached considerable importance to intrinsic goals such as personal growth and self-actualization but shifted to extrinsic rewards pursuit after several years of working when they started their families (Hui & Tan, 1996). Thus, a developmental shift is depicted in the Chinese society. In light of these findings, the purpose of this research is to study employees’ goal setting behavior in the Chinese work domain, and discover the similarities and differences between the western society and the Chinese society.

Cultural Difference regarding Motivation

Theorists generally agree that in most Western societies, the self is defined based on autonomy and separation from others, whereas in Chinese society, the self is defined primarily within social context and based on the relationship with the ingroup others (Brewer, Chen, 2007). These two states of self-definition are literarily referred to as individualism and collectivism, or individual-oriented and social-oriented (Hofstede, 1980; Yang & Yu, 1988). According to Yu (1996), when it comes to achievement motivation study, individual-oriented people tend to be motivated by internally determined goal or standard, such goal is context free and self-instrumentality. By contrast, in Chinese society where social-oriented is mostly characterized, people tend to reach an externally determined goal or standard, which is set or evaluated by significant ingroup people. Moreover, such goal reflects strong social instrumentality but weak functional autonomy. Accordingly, the cultural difference in motivation produces difficulty in generalizing one theory or research result developed in one country as a universal one. Furthermore, this cultural issue also brings complication to predicting people’s behavior in various settings. For example, Yang and Cheng (1987) found the relationship between achievement motivation and intent to leave a job indicates a higher predictive value in individualistic society than in collectivistic society. For these reasons, some theories related to work motivation are to be reexamined in this research.

How to Induce Learning Goal Orientation?

Learning goal is usually associated with more effective coping strategies and higher job satisfaction compared with performance goal, especially in an age rapid change is mostly characterized. This social and economic trend leads to the promotion of creating a learning organization (Senge, 1990). The underlying assumption is people’s habitual goal setting behavior can be induced or facilitated by company’s proposed value, leadership style, management methods, feature of the tasks, or other environmental factors. Learning goal pursued is indeed an intrinsic-motivated behavior. According to self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985), humans are among an intrinsic-extrinsic motivation continuum and seeking the sources for competence and self-determination from the environment. Whether a person is intrinsic or extrinsic motivated is determined by the extend to which he accepts the value or standard as a part of his personal construct. When one perceives his behavior is externally controlled, the original intrinsic mode will change into a more extrinsic pattern. Therefore, under this framework, the autonomous environment is thought to induce learning goal orientation, whereas the controlled environment can undermine people’s learning goal pursuit and increase the performance goal orientation. Need for self-determination and individual goal striving are highly valued by Western culture. However, in the Chinese society where maintenance of harmonious relationship and emphasis on hierarchy are proposed (Bond, 1996; Yu, 1996), assigned goals are more easily to be internally accepted. Thus, an autonomous work climate has no such influence on inducing employees’ learning attitude as their Western counterparts. Many theorists claimed that an enriched environment is essential for personal development. Csikszentmihalyi (2003) has emphasized the opportunities for improvement in order to learn more skills and progress to complexity. Accordingly, the degree of challenge is positively related to a person’s willingness to focus on the tasks and develop his skills. Research conducted in western society found that employees’ learning preference can be enhanced when they can apply their skills in the follow-up activities (Pearn, Roderick & Mulrooney, 1995). As no evidence showed the need for competence is unique in Western culture, I hypothesize it is also critical for Chinese culture. In this research, the relationship between task complexity and learning goal orientation will be examined for the Chinese working people. Thus, in this part, we have the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 1: In Chinese society, whether the environment is autonomous or controlled has no effect on employees’ learning or performance goal orientation. Hypothesis 2: To Chinese employees, task complexity positively correlates with their learning goal orientation, while negatively correlates with performance orientation.

A Distinct Pattern in Chinese Society?

Learning and performance goal orientations were historically defined at the opposite ends of a continuum (Dweck, 1986, 1989). Beaubien and Payne (1999) conducted a meta-analysis of 75 relevant articles in the United States, which he found a mean correlation of r = .04 between these two constructs, indicating the measures are conceptually independent. As already mentioned, studies conducted in the Chinese society showed a different pattern. For example, Chang and Beevi (1999) found a positive correlation between these two goal orientations (r (178) = .49, p < .001) and so did Cynthia, Catherine & Philip (2003) in their more recent work (r (175) = .71, p < .01). The explanation for this difference was mainly focused on the comparison between individualism and collectivism, representing Western culture and Eastern culture respectively (Cynthia, Catherine & Philip, 2003). In Chinese society, people are not only motivated to achieve personal goals, but also live up to the expectations and are influenced by the evaluations of significant others. Yu (1996) found a social-oriented pattern in Chinese achievement activities. That is, Chinese subjects tend to reach an externally determined goal or standard of excellence in a socially approved way. Thus, their desire for ability improvement is instrumental for social approval, rather than personal development or functional use in job-related or economic activities. This is especially evident in Chinese education domain, where learning is the most effective means to social and economic advancement and for the improvement of the person (Stevenson & Lee, 1996). Meanwhile, in Western society where individual-oriented is predominated, people tend to be motivated by internally determined goal or standard. Their motivated behaviors are functional autonomy. However, the positive correlation between learning goal and performance goal was found exclusively in the education setting. In order to test it in the work domain, the third hypothesis is developed: Hypothesis 3: In Chinese work domain, employees’ measured learning goal orientation is positively correlated with their performance goal orientation.

A Developmental Pattern of Goal Orientation

Goals priorities not only vary among different people, but also along a person’s life development. A person might be predominated by one goal for a period of time and be taken hold by another later. The developmental transition of goals may due to an accumulative effect of environmental change. Recently, Nurmi and Salmela-Aro (2006) proposed studying motivated behavior and personal goals in people’s life-span development. In this framework, developmental tasks and age constraints impose influence on the opportunities and the constraints a person encounters while maturation. Selection and adjustment are the two functions during this process. If opportunities are abundant, he or she can select a desired goal that best fits in with his or her motives. However, if constraints are overridden, the adjustment of previous goal is in need. Since developmental tasks and age constraints are closely related to social and cultural factors, the developmental trend of goal setting vary across different countries. Accordingly, I hypothesize intensity of each goal orientation vary along time dimension. As stated before, in Chinese workplace, entrants displayed more intrinsic-motivated behavior compared with the elders. Chinese culture is characterized by its emphasis on the harmonious relationship and approval by social norms. As people grow older and take on more social roles (such as husband, parent, supervisor), responsibilities embedded within these social roles require more social-oriented consideration for the sake of keeping harmony and security. Thus, during the course of socialization, Chinese employees’ performance-oriented pattern becomes more obvious. While their perceived social control increases, the learning-oriented pattern will decline. This shift pattern can be also observed after marriage. Therefore, the last two hypotheses are stated as below: Hypothesis 4: In Chinese society, employees’ goal orientation negatively correlates with learning goal orientation, while positively correlates with performance goal orientation. Hypothesis 5: In Chinese society, employees’ goal orientations (included learning and performance) are significantly different after marriage, with a lower degree of learning goal orientation and a higher degree of performance goal orientation.

More about Performance Goal Orientation

While testing the relationship between performance goal orientation and the performance outcome or other variables, inconsistent results were usually found. To account for the conflicting relationships between performance goals and various adaptive and maladaptive outcomes, recent studies differentiated this construct into two subdimensions (Elliot & Church, 1997; VandeWalle, 1997; Elliot & McGregor, 2001): (a) a performance approach goal orientation is defined as striving to demonstrate competence relative to others, which is usually related to neutral or adaptive outcome; (b) a performance avoidance goal orientation is defined as striving to avoid incompetence relative to others, which usually results in maladaptive outcome. Although the relationship with relevant outcomes is not measured, for accurate conceptualization, the division of performance goal orientation is used in this research.

Method

Participants Seventy five participants were invited to complete a set of questionnaire consisted of 21 items. 68 of them did the questionnaire on internet and sent the completed copies back through e-mail, while seven of them finished the questionnaire on paper and data were collected directly by the surveyor. The participants are all Chinese people from Mainland China. They come from local companies in different industries. Only people with less than 15 years of working experience were invited to take part in this research (M = 5.96, SD =3.95).

Measures Two measures were used in this research. The first is Goal Orientation Scale in Work Domain, which was developed by VandeWalle (1997) to measure three subscales of goal orientation – learning, performance approach and performance avoidance. VandeWalle (1997) integrated the work of Dweck (1986) and Elliot (Elloit & Harackiewicz, 1996) and found his measure of goal orientations correlated in expected ways with other theoretically related constructs. In his research, Cronbach alphas were reported as .89, .85, .88 respectively, all exceeded the acceptable level of .70, implicating high reliability of the measurement. Each subscale consists of 4 items on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Sample items in testing the three goal orientations (learning, performance approach and performance avoidance) are “I am willing to select a challenging work assignment that I can learn a lot from”, “I like to show that I can perform better than my coworkers” and “I would avoid taking on a new task if there was a chance that I would appear rather incompetent to others” respectively. Higher average score on each subscale represents a higher level of the corresponding goal orientation. The other measure is The Work Climate Questionnaire, which was developed by Baard, Deci and Ryan (2004) to measure the autonomy-support in general of the managers of that company. A short form of the questionnaire consists of 6 items on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The reported Cronbach alpha was .92. A sample item from this scale is “I feel that my manager provides me choices and options.” High average score on the scale represents a high level of perceived autonomy-support, whereas a low score represents the participant perceives the work environment as controlled. Since the participants were all Chinese working people, the original English versions of these measures were translated into Chinese. In order to increase the accuracy of the translation and make sure the translated versions were measuring the same constructs intended to be measured, a translate-retranslate method was used in this research. After translating the original versions of the two measures, two translators who did not know the questionnaires previously were invited to translate the translated Chinese questionnaire back to English. The original and the retranslated versions of the questionnaires were compared in regard of the choosing of words and the sequence. After revision, a group of 34 people from a same company were invited to participate in the questionnaire. On the confused and problematic items, efforts were extended to improve the accuracy of the wording. Because Chinese tend to have a mid-point responding pattern, the previous 7-point scales were changed into 6-point scales. The final version of the questionnaire consists of the revised Goal Orientation Scale in Work Domain and the revised version of The Work Climate Questionnaire. In measuring task complexity, there is only one item ask the participant to identify the complexity of the job he or she is currently engaging. They were required to choose the one most described their feeling in a 6-point scale ranging from 1 (very simple) to 6 (very complex). In the end, participants were required to indicate the years of their work experience and their marriage status. The whole questionnaire was conducted in Chinese language.

Results

Preliminary Test Include the 75 participants’ scores in the two measures to calculate their internal reliability. In Goal Orientation Scale in Work Domain, Cronbach’s alphas for learning, performance approach and performance avoidance goal orientations were .78, .67 and .66 respectively. In The Work Climate Questionnaire, Cronbach’s alpha was .92, indicating an acceptable level.

Correlation Analysis Contrary to hypothesis 1, learning goal orientation positively correlated with the level of autonomy-supportive (r = .33, p< .01), whereas performance avoidance goal orientation negatively correlated with the level of autonomy-supportive (r = -.24, p < .05). These findings are consistent with the findings in the western society where the level of autonomy-supportive of the managers can predict employees’ learning goal orientation. However, performance approach goal orientation correlated with the supportive level of working climate at an insignificant level (r = .07, ns). As to hypothesis 2, significant result was just found between performance approach goal orientation and task complexity where a positive correlation was evident (r = .23, p < .05). Learning goal orientation and performance avoidance orientation did not correlate with task complexity at significant level (r = .19, ns; r = .04, ns). Contrary to hypothesis 3, learning goal orientation was not significantly correlated with performance goal orientation. The correlation between learning and performance approach goal orientation was .09, whereas the correlation between learning and performance avoidance goal orientation was -.18. Likewise, age was found not correlated with each goal orientation at a significant level (learning: r = -.11, ns; performance approach: r = -.11, ns; performance avoidance: r = -.02, ns), hypothesis 4 was disproved.

One-Way ANOVA Analysis Although linear relationship was not found while testing hypothesis 4, there might exist a non-linear relationship. Therefore, further efforts were extended to test whether there is significant difference among groups. Participants were grouped into three cohorts: people with less than four years of work experience into the “entrant” group, people with five to nine years of work experience into the “young” group, people with 10 to 15 years of work experience into the “middle” group. Descriptive statistics of the three groups were calculated and reported in the appendix. In order to compared the means between the three groups, one-way ANOVA was used to test if there existed significant difference. According to the results, no significant difference was found among the three groups with respect to learning goal orientation, performance approach and performance avoidance goal orientation (learning: F (2, 72) = .68, p > .05; performance approach: F (2, 72) = 1.49, p > .05; performance avoidance: F (2, 72) = .68, p > .05). As to hypothesis 5, in this research, 38 of the participants have married and 37 of them have not. The descriptive statistics were reported in the appendix. In one-way ANOVA test, no significant difference was found between these two groups (learning: F (1, 73) = .23, p > .05; performance approach: F (1, 73) = .24, p > .05; performance avoidance: F (1, 73) = .01, p > .05), disproving the hypothesis.

Discussion

The findings of this research turned out quite different to the hypotheses. In hypothesis 1, similar to their western counterparts, an autonomous working climate increases Chinese working people’s learning goal orientation while a controlled climate has an undermining effect on it. The culture assumption was disproved while examining the relationship between learning goal orientation and autonomous work climate. Free choice and self-determination are also critical in Chinese culture to nurture employees’ tendencies to set learning goals. As McClelland (1984) proposed, at the level of the basic motivation, the achievement motives are similar across cultures. In this regard, I think the motivation for competence and self-determination is something does not differentiate across countries. As to performance goal orientation, things became complicated. A controlled work climate increased employees’ performance avoidance goal orientation, but had no effect on performance approach orientation. On the intrinsic-extrinsic motivation continuum, different patterns of motivation are differentiated according to the extend people accept the external rules and regulations internally (Deci & Ryan, 1985). At the extrinsic end, the person perceives his behavior is caused entirely by external control. Ryan and Deci (1985) named this state as impersonal orientation which they found positively correlates with performance avoidance goal orientation. People have this orientation perceive themselves rather incompetent and adopt avoidant coping strategies in everyday business. However, if the person can integrate the rule or regulation as his personal construct, his extrinsically motivated actions can become self-determined (Ryan & Deci, 2000). As mentioned before, in Chinese society, because of the emphasis on social relationship and hierarchy, goals assigned by authorities or significant others are more easily to be accepted. Hence, they would not perceive their behaviors as controlled. In Chinese society, the performance approach goal orientation would be quite stable regardless the work climate is controlled or not. But on the measurement of avoidance goal, if people fail to integrate the norms or standards personally, a controlled environment would decrease their perceived self-determination, the influence is salient. Hypothesis 2 stated the influence of task complexity. Many theorists are interested in proposing a person-environment fit job. However, how to design a “good” task is kind of controversial. Recent study (VandeWalle, Ganesan, Goutam & Brown, 2000) conducted in sales setting found a near zero correlation between learning goal orientation and task complexity (r = .03). However, learning goal can be very efficient when task complexity is high (VandeWalle, 1999). In Locke & Latham’s (1990) comprehensive framework, task complexity plus ability moderate the effect of various goals on employees’ job satisfaction, which conversely affect their goal setting behavior. Moreover, although an enriched environment is essential for development, the relationship between these two variables is not necessarily linear. In Warr’s vitamin model (1987), environment (includes workplace) can provide “psychological vitamins” which acts on people’s well-being, rather like vitamins act on the physical body with an optimal dosage. However, an over dosage can produce adverse effect, just as overwhelmingly complex jobs can lead to fatigue and amotivation. For the above reasons, the correlation between learning goal orientation and task complexity was moderate and insignificant. Accordingly, the positive correlation between performance approach goal orientation and task complexity may due to the reason that an enriched environment can provide the “vitamin” for the person to demonstrate his capacity, which is pretty important in Chinese society to gain social approval. Moreover, low of task complexity not necessarily leads to avoidant behavior, for a person can still seek other sources of satisfaction in the workplace (e.g. social relation, money) or just seek satisfaction from other aspects of life (e.g. family, personal interest) and this satisfaction can spill out into workplace, especially in a society keeping harmonious social relationship is highly valued. In a research where individualism and collectivism were measured in the individual level, employees high in collectivism positively regarded personality similarity with supervisors and produce high quality service thereafter. But this result was not found in people who were high in individualism (Hui, Cheng & Gan, 2003). This may be due to the reason that goal of self-development overwhelms the others in western society. But in Chinese society, sources of satisfaction can be derived from opportunities embedded in opportunity for skill use, externally generated goals, and harmonious interpersonal relationship (Warr, 1987). It is noteworthy that in the above discussion, the three patterns of goal orientation are distinct constructs distinguished from each other. Research conducted in Western society found that individuals may hold various combinations of high and low level of each goal orientation (Button, Mathieu, & Zajac, 1996; VandeWalle, 1997). This pattern is also shown here. Different from previous findings (Chang and Beevi, 1999; Cynthia, Catherine & Philip, 2003), learning goal orientation was uncorrelated with performance goal orientation in Chinese society when study was conducted in the work domain, disproving hypothesis 3. If the research finding reflects some reality, in workplace, Chinese people’s desire for self-development is unrelated to the desire for social approval. Learning serves a pure function of personal realization. A Chinese pattern of goal orientation found in education domain didn’t replicate in the work domain. This finding does not imply the influence from traditional Chinese culture is weakened. However, the work force in Mainland China today are facing quite different work environment compared with their predecessors. The introduction of market economy not only introduces competition, an individualistic value, into Chinese work domain, but also introduces a western life style, in which the uniqueness of each person is becoming more important. Under this trend, the definition of self is becoming separated from the social context. Thus, their pursuit of self-determined goals can be differentiated from socially defined goals. In testing the first three hypotheses, culture influence was not so notable as it was thought to be. Sticking to hierarchical relationship is still an important part of Chinese social life. But as a result of economic development and frequent culture exchange with other countries, Chinese people (maybe I should say Chinese workers) become more self-determined and self-development pursued. To Chinese employees in this new age, a more appropriate description may be like this: they value social approval as well as personal growth; their growth potential can be nurtured, yet their desire to seek approval is more cultural rooted and unrelated to the desire for growth. As Yu (1996) posted, as collectivist societies modernize, the intensity and nature of individual achievement motivation may change. For similar reasons, in a country where social and economic changes are undergone, although developmental tasks still impose some constraints on their choices of goals, the influence is less significant than it used to be. This is evident in testing the last two hypotheses. Maybe at the individual level, some developmental shift with respect to goal orientation can be seen. But within the scope of a country, significant difference across various cohorts is yet to found. Such difference is not evident between married and unmarried groups either. People living in different contexts hold different goals at different life stages. Age and marriage status may be some relevant factors, but due to time constraint, I can’t conduct a longitudinal research to study whether goal transition in adulthood has a universal pattern in Chinese society.

Summary and Implication

According to this research, although Chinese employees are becoming more like their western counterparts, there does remain some social-oriented features. In comparing Chinese pattern of goal orientation to the western pattern, a learning goal orientation is more individually characterized in Western society, whereas a performance approach goal orientation is more characterized by Chinese culture. In Chinese society, employees pursue learning goal as well as performance approach goal and differentiate these two goals from each other. Therefore, some motivation theories derived from the self-determination assumption of human nature are also useful to induce learning goal in Chinese society. On the other hand, a social orientation is also rooted in the constitution of Chinese personality, people’s performance goal orientations appear rather different compared with Western society. In research conducted in Chinese education domain, performance approach goal can produce more adaptive outcome than in Western society (Tao & Hong, 2000). According to this research, the influences that environment imposed on Chinese employees are quite different from what is produced in western society – for a controlled managing style did not necessarily increase performance approach behavior, and a simple task was unrelated to avoidant activities. Due to rapid economic development and dramatic social structure change, the constitution of Chinese personality is quite different from previous studies. Dramatic differentiation occurs among various groups within the Chinese population. Age may be an influential factor of people’s goal setting behavior. But cohort difference and other subculture difference would confound the finding even further. These situations bring much difficulty to study motivation in Chinese society. When it comes to work domain, apart from money, positive regard from significant others, and other kinds of extrinsic rewards, employees also pursue intrinsic rewards. As the importance of person-environment fit is commonly recognized in the study of work motivation, not only it is people’s responsibility to adapt to the rapidly changed environment, but also managers should take into account how to redesign the task and work environment to improve employees’ work performance and job satisfaction. Under the influence of economic and technology development, business managers should be more sensitive to employees’ desired goals and place more efforts on nurturing a “learning culture” in the company. In short, organizations should provide relevant “vitamins” to satisfy employees’ various needs.

Limitations and Further Research

Although the research found some correlation between some relevant variables, we do not know whether they are really causal factors for various kinds of goal orientations. It is possible that people high in learning goal orientation tend to perceive their work environment as pleasurable and autonomous. They can find opportunities to learn and develop their skills more easily. Besides, research found the congruence between personal value and organizational value is mediated via the mechanism of attraction-selection-attrition (Arther, Winfred, Bell, Villado, Doverspike, 2006). Further, cross-sectional survey is not a good method to study developmental transition. Between-group difference may already exist in each age cohorts due to their different experience in the course of development. To reveal causal relationship and investigate whether there is some transition pattern, further research should use longitudinal or quasi-experimental designs. Sometimes, environment offers such strong cues that override people’s habitual goal preferences (VandeWalle, 2003). Such cues not only include managing style and task complexity, but also include special knowledge required in a job and the competition environment in certain industry. For example, in knowledge-intensity industry where sustained learning is especially important, such cue would override other cues presented right at the moment. In this study, participants were invited from various industrial backgrounds, which would possibly confound the findings. To eliminate the influence derived from specific industry, further research is advised to conduct within certain industry. In this research, what is work climate was not clearly defined. In the discussion of person-environment fit, theorists tended to conduct meta-analysis in terms of person-job, person-group, person-organization, and person-supervisor (Latham, 2006). However, the focus of this research was just on the analysis on job and supervisor, which is not sufficient to explain the whole variance. It is possible that in Chinese society, influence from some aspects of environment overrides the others, but these results turn out to be quite different in another society. Thus when it comes to discuss influence from environment, efforts should be extended to specify which aspect of the environment is studied. This research just investigated how goal orientations display in Chinese society in work domain and some influential factors. However, according to some research findings, performance approach goal orientation also produces adaptive outcome in some tasks. In simple task in which standards are clearly defined, performance approach goal is more efficient than learning goal (VandeWalle, 1999). As the outcome produced by performance goal is confounding, more and more theorists are interested in the underlying mechanism of goal setting behavior. For example, in the comprehensive model of high-performance cycle (Latham, Locke & Fassina, 2002), mediators and moderators between goals and outcomes are investigated. While work motivation is studied under a globalization trend, culture factors may be considered as one boundary condition to channel goals into high performance and sustained development.

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Appendix A

Table 1
Descriptive Statistics of Goal Orientations (Grouped by Work Experience)
| | |Learning |Performance Approach |Performance Avoidance |
| |N |Mean |SD |Mean |

|N |Mean |SD |Mean |SD |Mean |SD | |Married |38 |19.9737 |3.50665 |17.5000 |4.15087 |14.6842 |3.65473 | |Unmarried |37 |19.6216 |2.81219 |17.0811 |3.13030 |14.6216 |4.08487 | |Total |75 |19.8000 |3.16655 |17.2933 |3.66419 |14.6533 |3.84670 | |

Appendix C

Items in the Achievement Goals for a Work Domain (English Version)
1. I am willing to select a challenging work assignment that I can learn a lot from.
2. For me, development of my work ability is important enough to take risks.
3. I often look for opportunities to develop new skills and knowledge.
4. I enjoy challenging and difficult tasks at work where I’ll learn new skills.
5. I like to show that I can perform better than my coworkers.
6. I prefer to work on projects where I can prove my ability to others.
7. I try to figure out what it takes to prove my ability to others at work.
8. I enjoy it when others at work are aware of how well I am doing.
9. I would avoid taking on a new task if there was a chance that I would appear rather incompetent to others.
10. Avoiding a show of low ability is more important to me than learning a new skill.
11. I prefer to avoid situations at work where I might perform poorly.
12. I’m concerned about taking on a task at work if my performance would reveal that I had low ability.

Appendix D

Items in The Work Climate Questionnaire (English Version)
1. I feel that my manager provides me choices and options.
2. I feel understood by my manager.
3. My manager conveyed confidence in my ability to do well at my job.
4. My manager encouraged me to ask questions.
5. My manager listens to how I would like to do things.
6. My manager tries to understand how I see things before suggesting a new way to do things.

Appendix E

Items in The Work Climate Questionnaire (Chinese Version)
1、我愿意承担有挑战性的，并能从中学习的工作任务。
2、对我来说，提高我的工作能力的重要性，足以让我在工作中冒一定风险。
3、我经常寻找机会以获得新的技能和知识。
4、在工作中我享受有挑战性和有难度的工作，从中我可以学习到新的技能。
5、我喜欢显示我比我的同事做得更好。
6、我更乐于在能向他人证明我的能力的项目中工作。
7、我试图找出，通过什么可以向别人证明我的工作能力。
8、当工作中有其他人知道我做得有多好的时候, 我就会喜欢这份工作。
9、如果承担一项新的任务有可能令我在他人面前显得没有能力，我会避免去承担。
10、避免显示能力不足对我来说比学习到一项新的技能更重要。
11、工作的时候, 我尽量避免处于可能表现欠佳的情形。
12、在工作中承担某项任务时，我会在意我的表现是否会显示出我的能力不足。

Appendix F

Items in The Work Climate Questionnaire (Chinese Version)
1、我觉得我的主管（经理）能给我提供机会和选择。
2、我觉得我的主管（经理）能理解我。
3、我的主管（经理）显示出对我能做好工作有信心。
4、我的主管（经理）鼓励我问问题。
5、我的主管（经理）会听取，了解我会如何开展工作。
6、我的主管（经理）在他（她）向我建议新的工作方法前会先了解我的想法。