I find good you to ask about compatibility of theories. Sometime, mainly in Education, researchers tend to use results, even foundations, from different theories, forgetting possible inconsistency, resulting from different philosophical foundations, which are systems describing the reality in complete different ways.

Hi Tamer,

You will need to read widely about Activity Theory as I suspect there are many differences between the two theories. On first glance I would suggest that a primary difference is the emphasis in Activity Theory that our attainment of goals is mediated by the availability of tools - both mental and physical - and how we use these tools (and are in a sense shaped by the tools) to attain goals. In addition, from an Activity Systems point of view, we also add Rules, Division of Labour and Community which will also affect how an individual attempts to attain a goal. Hope this helps, Kevin.

Presently some ergonomists reject the concept of goal all together because this concept is not clearly defined outside of Systemic-Structural Activity Theory (SSAT).

In the goal-setting theory goal and motive are considered together. They wrote: “The more intense the goal is the more efforts people spend to reach the goal.” Therefore, they state that the goal pulls activity.

In contrast, in SSAT goal and motive are two different activity mechanisms. Motive is energetic and goal is cognitive mechanism of activity.  Motive and goal metaphorically create a vector motive ->goal. Motive pushes activity to reach the goal. The more intensive the motive the more efforts a person spend to reach the goal. The goal can be precise or imprecise but it can’t be intensive.

It’s also important to mention that Goal directed activity is poly-motivated. Therefore, according to goal setting when a person performs one task she/he tries to achieve several goals at the same time. In our opinion, this is incorrect.

We are putting out two new books by the end of this year. They might be of use to you for better understanding of this issue (CRC, Taylor & Francis Group).