The interactive effects of ex post goal adjustment and goal difficulty on performance

Despite the common use of performance goals to motivate employees and the use of ex post goal adjustments to filter out the effects of unforeseen and uncontrollable events, minimal research has examined the consequences of employing them jointly. We predict that the availability of ex post goal adjustments will have a positive effect on performance and that this effect will be stronger when the ex ante goal difficulty level is moderate rather than difficult. Moreover, we predict that these effects will be mediated by perceptions of procedural justice. Results from an experiment completed by 142 undergraduate students support our predictions. The availability of ex post goal adjustments has positive effects on procedural fairness perceptions and performance under the moderate goal, but has no such effects under the difficult goal. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.