“Management by objectives” refers to the need to refrain from the traditional “management by eyeball”, meaning that workers are made responsible for reaching certain targets, without being given detailed instructions how to reach them (and without being exposed to direct control of behaviour by their superiors). SIBIS defines Management by objectives as those cases where workers state that they generally

• have to assess themselves the quality of their work, and
• have to solve unforeseen problems on their own, and
• are able to choose or change their order of tasks, methods of work and speed or rate of work.

According to these criteria, and using data from the ESWCs (European Survey on Working Conditions), between one third (Luxembourg, Greece, Germany) and more than half (the Netherlands and Denmark) of all persons employed are being managed by objectives.