This thesis examined the psychological responses of injured athletes as a basis for designing theoretically meaningful intervention strategies to expedite recovery from sports injuries. The thesis is written as a series of research papers (studies). The methodological approaches adopted ranged from quasi-experimental to qualitative research in a naturalistic rehabilitation setting. The first study reported the development of a theoretically derived psychometric measure to assess athletes psychological responses to injury, initially using exploratory factor analysis and subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis. The Psychological Responses to Sport Injury Inventory (PRSII) comprised five sub scales (Devastation, Dispirited, Attempts to Rationalise, Isolation and Reorganisation). In its final form the PRSII contained 20 items. The PRSII was found to possess adequate psychometric integrity. The second study examined the effects of a goal-setting intervention on injured athletes rehabilitation adherence, perceptions of self and treatment efficacy and the psychological response variables assessed by the PRSII. The study provided support for the effects of goal-setting upon athlete adherence, self-efficacy, treatment efficacy, and reorganisation. However, the hypothesised effects for dispirited and isolation were not found. As a result, a qualitative follow-up study was conducted to more closely examine the effects of the goal-setting intervention. The qualitative follow-up study proposed a number of possible mechanisms for the effects of the goal-setting intervention. These included the effects of goal-setting on self-efficacy, attributions, perceptions of control, and attention. The final, collaborative action research study employed a multi-modal intervention with three athletes rehabilitating from injury. The efficacy of social support, goal-setting, imagery, simulation training and verbal persuasion emerged from the study. The study highlighted the importance of outcome expectancy and goal flexibility. In relation to the re-entry phase of rehabilitation, confidence in the injured body part, and the ability to meet game demands emerged as important to participants successful return to competition.

The purpose of the investigation was to determine if goal setting has an effect on physical performance in a realistic, natural, and competitive athletic environment. Results revealed no significant differences between the goal-setting group and the "do your best" group when performing lacrosse skills. However, results from the questionnaire indicated significant main effect difficulty of the tasks. These results imply that athletes in the goal-setting group felt that their goals were not realistic and that it was increasingly difficult to reach their goals as the season progressed. Because the athlete does not have control over some factors which influence game situations, he or she may be hindered in reaching his or her goals, whether specified or individually chosen. Therefore, a research methodology that manipulates and attempts to control types of goal setting may not be appropriate or realistic when applied to the natural field environment of a highly organized competitive sport.

This study examined the role of attention in goal setting theory, using techniques adapted from selective attention research. Specifically, it explored activation and suppression of goal related information in the presence of two conflicting assigned goals. Pre vs. post goal completion and goal commitment were examined as moderators of these attentional effects. In addition, exploratory analyses looked at the impact of individual differences on attention (goal preference & action-state orientation). Analyses were conducted using three-level hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), where repeated measures occur within trials, which are nested within individuals. In general, results failed to support the hypotheses. However, weak support was found for attentional effects when commitment was also taken into consideration. Further, while commitment was not found to have the strong moderating influence on attention that was hypothesized, there is some evidence for its overall importance to the attentional mechanism of the goal/performance relationship. / Master of Science

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While it is commonly understood by occupational therapy practitioners that collaborative goal setting leads to increased goal achievement (Sugavanam, Mead, Bulley, Donaghy, & van Wijck, 2013), the current literature shows that people with post stroke aphasia are not optimally involved in the collaborative goal setting process (Berg, Askim, Balandin, Armstrong, & By Rise, 2017; Berg, By Rise, Balandin, Armstrong, & Askim, 2016; Rohde, Townley-O’Neill, Trendall, Worrall, & Cornwell, 2012). This leads to reduced goal achievement (Sugavanam, Mead, Bulley, Donaghy, & van Wijck, 2013) and ultimately less leisure and social participation (Hilari, 2011; Eriksson, Aasnes, Tistad, Guidetti, & von Koch, 2012; Nätterlund, 2010). ClientCollab is a theory-based and evidence-driven online visual supplement to the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM), designed to reduce the cognitive and communication burdens of the COPM and assist the practitioner and client with aphasia in the goal setting process. ClientCollab is guided by research on reading and pictorial comprehension of people with aphasia as well as by the Universal Design of Learning (UDL) theory. The online program is available free of charge at www.clientcollab.net and is designed to be used in conjunction with the COPM to assist the occupational therapy practitioner and client in identifying occupational performance issues. The content of the program parallels the section and subsection breakdown of the COPM and is designed for use during step one of the COPM to assist in the identification of occupational performance issues. The objective of the program is to increase communication between client and practitioner during the goal setting process as well as to increase the number of goals developed with client input. ClientCollab is meant to act as a visual supplement to the goal setting section of the COPM, however it is not meant or able to fully replace the COPM, and must be used in conjunction with the paper or online version of the COPM. In conclusion, ClientCollab aims to decrease the cognitive and communication barriers limiting people with aphasia from completing the COPM in hopes of facilitating increased collaborative goal setting and ultimately increased goal achievement in this population.

This paper examines the effect of impression management on goal level and commitment to the goal. Participants involved in a goal-setting program in the United States were asked to complete a web survey regarding their desire to impress superiors and their commitment to the goal. The specific dependant measures were self-set goal and goal commitment. No statistically significant differences were found between high and low desires to manage impressions with respect to goal set, but a higher desire to manage impressions was positively correlated with a higher degree of goal commitment. This finding suggests that triggering impression management is beneficial for situations in which high goal performance is desired as it increases goal commitment. Future studies could verify these results using larger sample sizes and tackle such issues as goal performance.

This paper examines the effect of impression management on goal level and commitment to the goal. Participants involved in a goal-setting program in the United States were asked to complete a web survey regarding their desire to impress superiors and their commitment to the goal. The specific dependant measures were self-set goal and goal commitment. No statistically significant differences were found between high and low desires to manage impressions with respect to goal set, but a higher desire to manage impressions was positively correlated with a higher degree of goal commitment. This finding suggests that triggering impression management is beneficial for situations in which high goal performance is desired as it increases goal commitment. Future studies could verify these results using larger sample sizes and tackle such issues as goal performance.

Goal setting theory has consistently found that high and specific goals lead to better performance than low and vague goals do. However, the independent effect of each of these two dimensions, difficulty and specificity, on performance is less clear. Although goal difficulty has been shown to affect performance level independent of goal specificity, evidence for an independent effect of goal specificity is mixed. In the current research, we introduce a moderator, regulatory focus, of the relationship between goal specificity and performance level. Specifically, we hypothesized that people in a promotion focus would be more motivated by aiming for wider goals that have a higher possibility of success and therefore fit an eager-approach strategy, while people in a prevention focus would be more motivated by aiming for narrower goals that have a small range of acceptable outcomes and therefore fit a vigilant-avoidance strategy. We examined this hypothesis with different hypothetical scenarios that manipulated goal width (wide versus narrow) with numerical ranges (Study 1) and visually with a bar graph (Study 2), and with different behavioural tasks that manipulated goal width in a saving strategies task (Study 3) and an anagram task (Study 4a, 4b). The findings revealed promising trends that were consistent with our hypothesis across all studies.

Companies worldwide are facing a severe competition from an increasing number of domestic and foreign competitors, who put extra pressure on the achievement of market efficiency and performance. In this context, research and transference of managerial tools aimed at increasing performance has become decisive for organizations. One particular tool, the coaching of the sales force, has been largely praised by practitioners and scholars alike as a central managerial activity increasing employee's performance. As salespeople's performance is a key antecedent of organizational performance, research on sales coaching as a tool for increasing performance is critical. Despite its importance, research on coaching has been scarce and inconsistent, and published work has been predominantly practice-driven and guru-led, lacking solid theoretical basis. Additionally, the relationship between coaching and performance has not received conclusive support, and the mediating variables linking coaching with performance have not been studied; these restrictions limited the explanations and predictive capacity of present models. This research tries to close the gap between what is presently known about coaching and what should be known in the opinion of both practitioners and scholars, by answering two general research questions: 1) does coaching by the sales manager have an impact on salesperson's performance?; and 2) what are the mediating mechanisms that turn coaching by the sales manager into salesperson's performance? This dissertation presents a model based on two institutionalized' theories, Leader-member Exchange (LMX) Theory and Goal-setting Theory; LMX is a dyadic, relational theory, useful to explain the high quality relationship developed between coach and coaché during the coaching intervention, and some of the proximal outcomes of this relationship; goal-setting theory is particularly useful in sales contexts, where salespeople have clearly defined goals, to understand how the coaching intervention can mobilize salesperson's cognition and motivation in order to achieve the goals. The model explores the motivational and cognitive process enacted by the coaching intervention that have an impact on salesperson's performance, and proposes different ways through which coaching could be translated into increased performance; according to the model, the coaching intervention helps the salesperson to develop new task-specific strategies , which increases his capacity of adapting to different selling situations; additionally, the characteristics of the coaching intervention increases his goal commitment and his self-efficacy ; in consequence, the salesperson will spend more effort , with greater persistence , and will choose better strategies; as a consequence of increased sales adaptability, new strategies, goal commitment, self-efficacy and effort, salesperson's performance will also increase. The model was tested using data collected early in 2011; a local Latin-American branch of a global industrial company and a Canadian bank accepted to participate in the study, and invitations to take a web-based survey were sent to their sales forces. I received 186 complete, usable responses, for a total response ratio of 40.43%, which were used to test the model using Structural Equation Modeling. Results supported the main hypotheses; the conclusion of the dissertation is that the coaching intervention actually enacts motivational and cognitive mechanisms in the salesperson that allows him to increase his performance. These mechanisms are increased effort, adaptive selling, sales planning, new strategies, goal commitment and self-efficacy. The dissertation contributes to the solution of the research problem in several ways. First, it proposes a model of coaching mediators, an issue that has not been addressed by previous research. The model represents an original perspective that advances the field of coaching research by enlarging our understanding of the processes addressed by the coaching intervention. Second, the model proposes two complementary ways for achieving performance; one that considers the motivational aspects of the coaching intervention, where an increased performance is achieved through increased goal commitment and effort; the other one considers the cognitive aspects of the coaching intervention, where an increased performance is achieved through increased adaptive selling and sales planning behavior, and the development and implementation of new task-related strategies. These two ways are consistent with present research on adaptive selling and sales performance. Third, the model is based on two institutionalized theories: LMX and Goal-setting Theory. The use of these theories is an original approach, useful to understand how coaching work in sales contexts. As the proposed model is not based on any particular practitioner's model or set of experiences, it can potentially be generalized through a large series of organizational settings. Finally, the results of this research contributes: 1) to the advancement of scientific knowledge through the development of an original, theory-based model of coaching mediators, as well as 2) to the solution of a managerial problem by providing practical insights to practitioners willing to implement successful coaching processes in their organizations.

Titel: Transfer of training – en studie av överföringsprocessen av säljträning med avseende på motivation och målsättning. Författare: Therése Eriksson & Lovisa Söderlund Uppsatsnivå: Examensarbete i Företagsekonomi för kandidatexamen, 180 hp VT-14 Handledare: Lars-Johan Åge, Jonas Molin & Jens Eklinder Frick Datum: 2014-05 Syfte: Vi vill undersöka om och hur säljares målsättningar påverkar säljare att ta till sig säljträning och omsätta den i praktiken. Metod: Med syftet som utgångspunkt har en kvalitativ metod använts i undersökningen där empirisk data erhölls genom att utföra 12 semi-strukturerade intervjuer med respondenter från fem telefoni- och elektronikföretag i Gävle. En strukturerad, abduktiv analysmetod som gör det möjligt att analysera kvalitativ data användes för att analysera och identifiera mönster i materialet.  Resultat: Studien visar att motivation är av stor betydelse när det kommer till säljträning och huruvida säljare väljer att använda sig av träningen. Det som motiverar säljare att använda sig av säljträning är huruvida det kommer leda till ett ökat försäljningsresultat. Vi ser också att motivationen till överföringen är beroende av säljarnas personliga mål eftersom målen har med deras egna värderingar att göra och det är dessa mål som främst driver säljarna. Studien har visat att för att säljare ska känna motivation till att överföra träningen måste de uppfatta att träningen är relevant till deras personliga mål. När säljarna har satt upp sina personliga mål och uppfattar att träningen kommer öka deras chans att uppfylla dessa, blir de motiverade att utföra träningen, ta till sig den och sedan överföra materialet till praktiken. Förslag till vidare forskning: För vidare forskning rekommenderar vi att motivationens roll i överföringsprocessen utifrån andra faktorer än målsättning studeras, för att stärka beviskedjan och generaliserbarheten. Vi tror att det är viktigt att öka förståelse av hur överföring av säljträning kan hjälpa företag att effektivisera försäljningen. Bidrag: Denna studie belyser hur en ökad förståelse kan nås om vad som motiverar säljare att överföra träningsmaterial till praktiska situationer. Vårt bidrag blir att bygga på den forskning som handlar om just målsättningens roll i hur framförallt personliga mål påverkar motivationen och i sin tur överföringen. Flera begrepp, däribland målsättning och motivation har vi lånat från psykologiforskningen för att ge bidrag till forskningsfältet företagsekonomi. Nyckelord: Transfer of training, Motivation to transfer, Goal-setting.