General concepts of goals and goal-setting in healthcare: A narrative review

Goal-setting is fundamental to organisational management, yet not every manager knows how to do it well. A narrative literature review was done to explore current knowledge of definitions and classifications of goals, and principles of goal-setting in the healthcare sector. Online databases generated 65 relevant articles. Additional literature sources were snowballed from referenced articles, and textbooks. Most academic authors define ‘goal’ synonymously as ‘aim’ or ‘objective’, but there is evidence of hermeneutical confusion in general literature. Goal classifications are diverse, differing according to their contextual, structural, functional, and temporal characteristics. Many authors agree that goal-setting is problem-based, change-oriented, and can effectively motivate attainment if the goal statement is formulated with a specific and challenging or SMART framework. However, recent authors report varying definitions for SMART, and evidence of past studies that empirically examined the nature and efficacy of frameworks currently used for formulating goal statements for health programmes are lacking.

Goal-oriented networks and capacity building for natural hazards – examples in the Dresden region

Networks and networking are important for building social capacities for natural hazards. However, up to now, it has been an open question which types of networks contribute to capacity building under certain circumstances. The paper focuses on the type of a goal-oriented network. The distinction between goal orientation and goal directedness is used to show the following: goal directedness of networks to build capacities for natural hazards involves intensive and continuous processes of "sensemaking" (Weick, 1995) to specify the network goal. This process of specifying an initial goal statement is important in small and large networks at the regional level. The governance form of a lead organization network facilitates goal specification. The paper illustrates these findings through evidence from two case studies conducted in the Dresden region in Germany.

Goal-oriented networks and capacity building for natural hazards – examples in the Dresden region

Networks and networking are important to build social capacities for natural hazards. However, up to now, it is an open question which types of networks contribute to capacity building under certain circumstances. The paper focuses on the type of a goal-oriented network. The distinction between goal orientation and goal directedness is used to show the following: goal directedness of networks to build capacities for natural hazards involves intensive and continuous processes of sensemaking (Weick, 1995) to specify the network goal. This process of specifying an initial goal statement is important in small and large networks. The governance form of a lead organization network facilitates goal specification. The paper illustrates these findings through evidence from two case studies conducted in the Dresden region in Germany.

LD Children's Comprehension of Selected Textual Features: Effects of Proximity of Information

This study investigated elementary-age LD children's ability to comprehend narrative text when information explicitly identified as being important to resolving a goal statement was systematically dispersed or centralized within a text. Responses to comprehension questions and recall measures specific to a resolution of the goal statements were analyzed after LD children read and listened to six passages. Repeated-measures ANOVA revealed no statistically significant effect for input mode on either measure. A statistically significant effect was found for proximity of information on both the comprehension and the recall measure.