Goal Prioritization and Commitment in Public Organizations: Exploring the Effects of Goal Conflict

Public personnel policies increasingly adapt performance management systems that focus on goal attainment making goal commitment a critical issue in contemporary public administration research. Few studies have however empirically investigated how context factors such as goal conflicts reduce or hinder goal commitment. Accordingly, this paper investigates the interplay between public managers’ goal prioritization, goal conflict and employees’ goal commitment. Multilevel data from two electronic surveys of 67 principals and 1362 teachers in secondary education show that goal conflict moderates the association between principals’ goal prioritization and teachers’ goal commitment.