To Örebro University

Considering the fact that we’ve moved towards a more individualistic way of living, we want to examine if this individualism is creating conflicts when it comes to organizational goals. Is it harder today to have people in an organization working towards the same goals? Do organization members have more personal goals, that they put first and that are inconsistent with the organizational goals? Furthermore, we are interested to learn more about the complexity of goals, how different aspects of goals may or may not motivate the members of the organization, and whether or not shared values are important when it comes to goal attainment.

We have synthesized and analyzed 15 articles that all highlight different aspects of how organizational goals may affect individuals and organizations. This study has been implemented through a sociological perspective regarding organizations and aim to answer the following questions: •     What does the research on this area let us know about the significance of goal setting in organizations? •     What are the things that affect the experience of organizational goals among the employees’, and how do they get motivated to reach those goals? •     What is the significance of congruence between organizational and individual values, when it comes to goal attainment?

Our findings suggest that different scholars have different perspectives on this issue, and none of them are really contradictory. They all shine light on different, important topics when it comes to organizational goals, and the most reliable conclusion we are able to make out of this is; goals are a complex thing.