Motivasjon, målrettethet, prestasjon og engasjement i jobbsammenheng. Gjennomgang av teori på området og analyse av The High Performance Cycle i barnevernsinstitusjoner, Bufetat region Nord

The goal of this master thesis is twofold. The first article is meant to give a review of goal setting theory and the High Performance Cycle (HPC), highlighting the connections between the five theories of motivation that HPC integrates focusing the torch on goal setting theory, social cognitive theory and reinforcement theory. The second article describes an effort to test the empirical adequacy of HPC assessed among employees in public child welfare institution in the north of Norway. The goal has been to validate HPC and to find out if it is possible to generalize findings to the Norwegian culture in public sector. The goal have also been to find possible connections between the elements of HPC and job engagement. Analyzing if job engagement can have better effect on commitment to the organization and willingness to accept further challenge than job satisfaction and to find out if the concept can be integrated in HPC. By using Structural Equation Modelling (MPLUS) it is found satisfactory empirical support for the key hypothesized relationships, both the HPC model as a hole and the models connections to the concept of job engagement. However, Job engagement do not increase the fit between the HPC model and the data, indicating it does not play any important role in HPC.