IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v106y2020icp277-287.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Goal achievement, subsequent user effort and the moderating role of goal difficulty

Author

Listed:
  • Gutt, Dominik
  • von Rechenberg, Tobias
  • Kundisch, Dennis

Abstract

It is established in the marketing literature that people increase their effort in a recurring goal framework when the goal difficulty increases, because their experience of success upon goal achievement leads to higher self-efficacy. It is not yet established, however, whether this mechanism also applies to a gamified environment without monetary incentives or quasi-monetary benefits. Using data from a popular German Question & Answer community in which goals are represented in the form of badges we empirically investigate the impact of successful goal achievement on the base level of effort to attain the next goal in a hierarchical recurring goal framework. Our findings indicate that after successful badge achievement users increase their subsequent base level of effort to attain the next badge, but only as long as the badge just achieved represented a challenge to the user. We identify self-efficacy as the key driver of this behavior and provide additional experimental evidence in support of this explanation.

Suggested Citation

  • Gutt, Dominik & von Rechenberg, Tobias & Kundisch, Dennis, 2020. "Goal achievement, subsequent user effort and the moderating role of goal difficulty," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 277-287.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:106:y:2020:i:c:p:277-287
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.06.019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296318303060
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.06.019?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lena Steinhoff & Robert W. Palmatier, 2016. "Understanding loyalty program effectiveness: managing target and bystander effects," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 88-107, January.
    2. Jeffrey A. Roberts & Il-Horn Hann & Sandra A. Slaughter, 2006. "Understanding the Motivations, Participation, and Performance of Open Source Software Developers: A Longitudinal Study of the Apache Projects," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(7), pages 984-999, July.
    3. Viswanathan, Vijay & Sese, F. Javier & Krafft, Manfred, 2017. "Social influence in the adoption of a B2B loyalty program: The role of elite status members," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 901-918.
    4. Latham, Gary P. & Locke, Edwin A., 1991. "Self-regulation through goal setting," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 212-247, December.
    5. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, December.
    6. Maura L. Scott & Stephen M. Nowlis, 2013. "The Effect of Goal Specificity on Consumer Goal Reengagement," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 40(3), pages 444-459.
    7. Haiyang Yang & Antonios Stamatogiannakis & Amitava Chattopadhyay, 2015. "Pursuing Attainment versus Maintenance Goals: The Interplay of Self-Construal and Goal Type on Consumer Motivation," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 42(1), pages 93-108.
    8. Rajagopal, 2014. "The Human Factors," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Architecting Enterprise, chapter 9, pages 225-249, Palgrave Macmillan.
    9. Xavier Drèze & Joseph C. Nunes, 2009. "Feeling Superior: The Impact of Loyalty Program Structure on Consumers' Perceptions of Status," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 35(6), pages 890-905, April.
    10. A. Colin Cameron & Pravin K. Trivedi, 2010. "Microeconometrics Using Stata, Revised Edition," Stata Press books, StataCorp LP, number musr.
    11. Ran Kivetz & Oleg Urminsky & Yuhuang Zheng, 2006. "The Goal-Gradient Hypothesis Resurrected: Purchase Acceleration, Illusionary Goal Progress, and Customer Retention," Natural Field Experiments 00658, The Field Experiments Website.
    12. Paulo B. Goes & Chenhui Guo & Mingfeng Lin, 2016. "Do Incentive Hierarchies Induce User Effort? Evidence from an Online Knowledge Exchange," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 497-516, September.
    13. Yanwen Wang & Michael Lewis & Cynthia Cryder & Jim Sprigg, 2016. "Enduring Effects of Goal Achievement and Failure Within Customer Loyalty Programs: A Large-Scale Field Experiment," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(4), pages 565-575, July.
    14. Lars Bo Jeppesen & Lars Frederiksen, 2006. "Why Do Users Contribute to Firm-Hosted User Communities? The Case of Computer-Controlled Music Instruments," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(1), pages 45-63, February.
    15. Dennis Kundisch & Tobias Rechenberg, 2017. "Does the Framing of Progress Towards Virtual Rewards Matter?," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 59(4), pages 207-222, August.
    16. Minjung Koo & Ayelet Fishbach, 2012. "The Small-Area Hypothesis: Effects of Progress Monitoring on Goal Adherence," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 39(3), pages 493-509.
    17. Tobias von Rechenberg & Dominik Gutt & Dennis Kundisch, 2016. "Goals as Reference Points: Empirical Evidence from a Virtual Reward System," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 13(2), pages 153-171, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bitrián, Paula & Buil, Isabel & Catalán, Sara, 2021. "Enhancing user engagement: The role of gamification in mobile apps," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 170-185.
    2. Qian Wu & Chei Sian Lee & Dion Hoe‐Lian Goh, 2023. "Understanding user‐generated questions in social Q&A: A goal‐framing approach," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 74(8), pages 990-1009, August.
    3. Lu, Shijie & Xie, Ying & Chen, Xingyu, 2023. "Immediate and enduring effects of digital badges on online content consumption and generation," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 146-163.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dennis Kundisch & Tobias Rechenberg, 2017. "Does the Framing of Progress Towards Virtual Rewards Matter?," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 59(4), pages 207-222, August.
    2. Chen, Yanyan & Mandler, Timo & Meyer-Waarden, Lars, 2021. "Three decades of research on loyalty programs: A literature review and future research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 179-197.
    3. Tobias Mutter & Dennis Kundisch, 2014. "Goals as Reference Points: Empirical Evidence from a Virtual Reward System," Working Papers Dissertations 19, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    4. Erdem Dogukan Yilmaz & Tim Meyer & Milan Miric, 2023. "Preventing Others from Commercializing Your Innovation: Evidence from Creative Commons Licenses," Papers 2309.00536, arXiv.org.
    5. Malika Chaudhuri & Clay M. Voorhees & Jonathan M. Beck, 2019. "The effects of loyalty program introduction and design on short- and long-term sales and gross profits," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 640-658, July.
    6. Bombaij, Nick, 2021. "Effectiveness of loyalty programs," Other publications TiSEM 095c506d-5b5c-4ea3-9b41-a, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. Smirnova, Inna & Reitzig, Markus & Alexy, Oliver, 2022. "What makes the right OSS contributor tick? Treatments to motivate high-skilled developers," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(1).
    8. Stanko, Michael A. & Allen, B.J., 2022. "Disentangling the collective motivations for user innovation in a 3D printing community," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    9. Bombaij, Nick J.F. & Dekimpe, Marnik G., 2020. "When do loyalty programs work? The moderating role of design, retailer-strategy, and country characteristics," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 175-195.
    10. Helge Klapper & Markus Reitzig, 2018. "On the effects of authority on peer motivation: Learning from Wikipedia," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(8), pages 2178-2203, August.
    11. Hu, Xin & He, Liuyi & Liu, Junjun, 2022. "Status reinforcing: Unintended rating bias on online shopping platforms," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    12. Tobias Mutter, 2014. "The Impact of Goal Achievement on User Effort," Working Papers Dissertations 18, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    13. Hsing Kenneth Cheng & D. Daniel Sokol & Xinyu Zang, 2024. "The rise of empirical online platform research in the new millennium," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 416-451, March.
    14. Jisu J. Kim & Lena Steinhoff & Robert W. Palmatier, 2021. "An emerging theory of loyalty program dynamics," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 71-95, January.
    15. Kunter Gunasti & Timucin Ozcan, 2019. "The role of scale-induced round numbers and goal specificity on goal accomplishment perceptions," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 207-217, June.
    16. Septianto, Felix & An, Jake & Chiew, Tung Moi & Paramita, Widya & Tanudharma, Istiharini, 2019. "The similar versus divergent effects of pride and happiness on the effectiveness of loyalty programs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 12-22.
    17. Stamatogiannakis, Antonios & Chattopadhyay, Amitava & Chakravarti, Dipankar, 2018. "Attainment versus maintenance goals: Perceived difficulty and impact on goal choice," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 17-34.
    18. Johannes Loh & Tobias Kretschmer, 2023. "Online communities on competing platforms: Evidence from game wikis," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 441-476, February.
    19. Krafft, Manfred & Kumar, V. & Harmeling, Colleen & Singh, Siddharth & Zhu, Ting & Chen, Jialie & Duncan, Tom & Fortin, Whitney & Rosa, Erin, 2021. "Insight is power: Understanding the terms of the consumer-firm data exchange," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 133-149.
    20. Giuliani, Elisa & Martinelli, Arianna & Rabellotti, Roberta, 2016. "Is Co-Invention Expediting Technological Catch Up? A Study of Collaboration between Emerging Country Firms and EU Inventors," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 192-205.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:106:y:2020:i:c:p:277-287. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.