What is goal blockage, really? A conceptual validation study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Goal blockage is at the heart of explanations for the adoption of destructive behaviors by leaders towards their employees (Krasikova et al., 2013). Indeed, when a leader fails to achieve their goals, they may use destructive behaviors towards the source of this frustration. Despite the popularity of this explanation in the literature of destructive leadership, the construct of goal blockage has, to our knowledge, never been defined or even distinguished from similar constructs (e.g., frustration). This study aims (1) to conduct a conceptual validation of the goal blockage construct (e.g., literature review, definition, differentiation from other constructs, and verification of suitability with its operationalization), and (2) to perform a psychometric validation of its measure (reliability, discriminant and criterion validity). We followed Locke's (2012) methodology to assess conceptual validity and we tested the psychometric properties of a goal blockage measure through series of correlational and confirmatory factor analyses. This research was conducted with French questionnaires. Goal blockage now has a clear and precise definition and its measure has been thoroughly validated and can be used for research purposes. The ball is now in the researchers’ court in order to empirically assess the implication of goal blockage in various phenomena of interest, including leaders’ reactions and employees’ exposure to destructive forms of leadership. Le blocage de buts est au cœur des explications de l’adoption de comportements destructeurs par les leaders envers leurs employés (Krasikova et al., 2013). En effet, lorsqu’un leader n’atteint pas ses objectifs, il pourrait utiliser des comportements jugés destructeurs envers la source de cette frustration. Malgré la popularité de cette explication dans la littérature sur ces formes de leadership, le construit n’a, à notre connaissance, jamais été défini ni même distingué de construits similaires (par exemple, la frustration). Cette étude tente d’évaluer (1) la validation conceptuelle (analyse de la littérature sur le construit, formulation d’une définition, différenciation conceptuelle avec d’autres construits similaires et vérification de l’adéquation avec sa mesure), et (2) la mesure (fidélité, validité discriminante et validité critériée) du BB. Nous avons suivi la méthodologie de Locke (2012) pour évaluer la validité conceptuelle du blocage de buts, et avons testé les propriétés psychométriques de sa mesure à travers des analyses corrélationnelles et factorielles confirmatoires. Cette étude a été réalisée avec des questionnaires en français et auprès de participants fluents dans cette langue. Le blocage de buts a maintenant une définition claire et précise, et sa mesure a été validée de manière approfondie et peut être utilisée à des fins de recherche. La balle est maintenant dans le camp des chercheurs afin d’évaluer empiriquement l’implication du blocage de buts dans divers phénomènes d’intérêt, y compris le leadership destructeur.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.044 | 0.071 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.009 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".