YOU WIN SOME YOU LOSE SOME:
THE EFFECTS OF MERE-, REWARD- AND PUNISHMENT GOALS ON UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR
Master thesis MSc, Human Resource Management,
University of Groningen, faculty Economics and Business
Date: 12/06/2015
HESTER MARSMAN
Smaragdplein 27, 3523EB Utrecht
+31653386166
h.h.marsman@student.rug.nl
Student number: 1873121
YOU WIN SOME YOU LOSE SOME:
THE EFFECTS OF MERE-, REWARD- AND PUNISHMENT GOALS ON UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR
ABSTRACT
Goal-setting is one of the most import management tools to motivate employees. However, research has shown that it can also have a downside, namely unethical behavior. This paper focuses on the effects of mere, reward, and punishment goals on an individual’s unethical behaviors. Drawing from regulatory focus theory I argue that punishment goals result in higher vigilance and therefore less moral disengagement, and that reward goals result in more eagerness and therefore a higher proneness to engage in moral disengagement and eventually in unethical behavior. To test this, I conducted an experiment in which participants were given the possibility to engage in unethical behavior. Even though the outcome of the experiment did not support my expectations it did result in some interesting new ideas for future research.
INTRODUCTION
From Enron to the worldwide financial crisis in 2008, corporate scandals and other instances of unethical behavior within organizations are becoming returning topics in the media (The Economist, 2002). These examples of ethical failures add to cases of employee wrongdoing, such as theft of office supplies, and made-up overtime that are believed to cost US companies an estimated fifty billion dollars a year (Mishra & Prasad, 2006; Weber, Kurke & Pentico, 2003; Gino & Margolis, 2011). Unethical behavior is often believed to be the result of goal setting: an important management tool of organizations. Most companies encourage employees to focus on positive economic outcomes (Gino et al., 2011). For example, leaders may emphasize the importance of reaching specific financial goals within a given amount of time, or they may administer bonuses to employees that exceed their sales targets (Gino et al., 2011).
Organizations are eager to use goal setting as a motivational tool or performance enhancer (Locke & Latham, 1967). One important aspect of goals is that they may or may not imply monetary rewards for individuals that attain them. Goals that do imply such rewards are labeled reward goals, whereas goals that do not imply such rewards are labeled mere goals (Heath, Larrick & Wu., 1999). We can also distinguish goals that instead of a reward result in a punishment and are therefore called punishment goals. Although we have some preliminary empirical evidence that reward and punishment goals may motivate unethical behaviors over mere goals more research is needed (e.g., Gino & Margolis, 2011; Schweitzer et al., 2004). Research has shown that the outcome associated with (not) reaching the goal can trigger different types of motivation (cf. Regulatory Focus Theory; Higgins, 1997). Whereas mere goals generate a general type of intrinsic motivation (Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1994), reward and punishment goals motivate more specific types of motivation. Specifically, reward goals motivate an eagerness-type of motivation where the individual is focused on
approaching the reward (Brendl, Higgins, & Lemm, 1995), regardless of the means of doing so (i.e., a promotion focus; Higgins & Friedman, 2001). In contrast, punishment goals motivate a vigilance-type of motivation where the individual is focused on avoiding the punishment, while focused on the means of doing so (i.e., a prevention focus). Motivation can result in unethical behavior, because people want to ensure a fit with their goal and
Although approaching or avoiding specific outcomes may motivate individuals to consider insidious unethical behaviors, individuals usually choose not to engage in such conduct. This is mainly because individuals have a need to maintain a positive moral image, which inhibits them from engaging in (unethical) behaviors that violate this moral self-image (Tsang, 2002). One way people are able to justify their immoral behavior is through moral disengagement. Moral disengagement gives individuals the opportunity to selectively activate their moral standards. Thus, moral disengagement of internal control permits different types of conduct with the same moral standards (Bandura, 1996). An individual that is
focused on the process will have more difficulty to morally disengage themselves from their actions. On the contrary, an individual that is focused on ends instead of means will have less difficulty to morally disengage themselves of their behavior because reaching the end state is the most important motivation (Tsang, 2002).
Is it possible that the framing of goals can result in a specific motivational system that will trigger the process of moral disengagement? Drawing from regulatory focus theory (Brendl, Higgins & Lemm, 1995; Higgins, Shah & Friedman, 1997), I argue that reward goals elicit more unethical behaviors than mere goals because individuals who pursue reward goals are more eager and more prone to morally rationalizing their behaviors. Mere goals are not connected to any reward and therefore people will not be willing to give up one’s moral self-image to attain a goal. On the contrary, I argue that in comparison to mere goals, punishment goals result in vigilance; people who are high in vigilance will be more cautious of their behavior, they are more focused on the process- and are therefore unable to morally
rationalize their behavior. Thus, they will be unable to justify engaging in unethical behavior. Using an experimental procedure in which I manipulate the consequence associated with a goal, I will show that reward goals result in more moral disengagement and therefore more unethical behavior. While, punishment- and mere goals will not result in moral
disengagement and therefore they engage in ethical behavior.
By doing so, I will contribute to the limited research on the “dark side” of goal setting (Schweitzer et al., 2004), as well as moral disengagement (Bandura et al., 1996; Bandura, 2002). This research will also contribute to research on Regulatory focus, while it connects reward goals to a promotion focus as well as punishment goals and prevention focus.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
This research is about the effects of goal-setting on unethical behavior. First, I will discuss the differences between goals and their motivational systems. Subsequently, I will focus on the effects of these motivational systems on moral disengagement techniques. Followed by a discussion of the relationship between moral disengagement and unethical behavior.
Goal setting and regulatory focus.
According to Locke and colleagues (1990: 126) “the term goal refers to attaining a specific standard of proficiency on a task, usually within a specified time limit.” Goals consist of two attributes: goal content and intensity. The content of a goal is the object or the result being sought after (Locke, et al., 1990). Main dimensions of goal content are specificity and clarity (the degree of quantitative accuracy with which the aim is clarified), difficulty (the degree of proficiency or performance sought), goal complexity (the number and interrelation of the results aimed for), and goal conflict (the degree to which attaining one goal undermines attaining another) (Locke et al., 1990). Goal intensity relates to the process of goal-setting or of determining how to achieve it (Locke et al., 1990).
Locke and Latham (1990) reviewed nearly 400 studies on the beneficial effects of goal setting on task performance and found that setting specific and difficult goals enhances performance on physical tasks (e.g., doing squats) and cognitive tasks (e.g., solving a puzzle). First, complex goals lead to a greater effort than moderately difficult, easy or vague goals (Locke & Latham, 2006). Secondly, goals direct attention, effort and action toward goal-relevant actions. Thirdly, goal effects depend upon having the appropriate knowledge and skills to complete a task. Also, they may motivate people to seek for new knowledge
concerning the tasks that need to be performed (Locke & Latham, 2006). Thus, these specific goals provide clear, unambiguous and objective means for evaluating employee performance. Besides these general goal characteristics, another attribute that may arouse the
strength is by implying a financial reward. Until now, I have discussed the effects of goals not attaining a reward, known as mere goals (Heith et al., 1999). Mere goals are goals you want to complete for yourself but you are not rewarded for by any extrinsic reward other than your own satisfaction with reaching the goal. However, managers often do attribute a reward to a goal in the hope that employees will become more eager to attain the goal (Ordonez, et al., 2009). These reward goals can be defined as goals that involve a discrete economic benefit (Schweitzer et al., 2004), which is a distinct, tangible, extrinsic reward that has real
consequences for someone’s physiological well-being (Heath, et al., 1999). Conversely, another way of motivating employees is by connecting a punishment to goal. Thus,
punishment goals are goals that when not met result in a punishment such as a loss of money (Elliot & Thrash, 2002).
Regulatory Focus Theory: How different goals lead to different motivations An useful framework for understanding what motivates people’s choices in the domain of gains and losses is Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT; Higgins, 1997). RFT differentiates between two motivational systems – prevention and promotion – that are differently sensitive to the distinction between gains and nongains (Zhou, Scholer, Higgins, 2014). RFT articulates how these motivational systems affect orientations toward desired end states and strategic preferences (Zhou, et al., 2014) A promotion focus, triggered by
nurturance needs, links to the ideal self, and potential gains, activates cheerful affect,
approach-related behavior, and a heightened sensitivity to positive outcomes (Higgins, 1997). On the contrary, prevention focus is triggered by security needs, associations regarding the ought self, potential punishment. This activates agitates affect, avoidant behavior and the sensitivity to negative outcomes (Keltner, et al., 2003). A prevention focus is associated with orientation toward desired end states as duties and safety (Higgins, 1997, 1998). Individuals can differ in the chronic strength of these systems, but these regulatory orientations can also be situational manipulated (e.g., Friedman & Förster, 2001; Higgins, Roney, Crowe, & Hymes, 1994; Liberman, Molden, Idson, & Higgins, 2001; Shah & Higgins, 1997; Shah, Higgins, & Friedman, 1998).
Looking at promotion focus, we can note that the system is concerned with
advancing from the status quo 0 to a 1 better state (Brendl & Higgins, 1996; Higgins, 1997, 1998; Higgins & Tykocinski, 1992). In other words, success within the promotion system is defined by achieving gains, advancing away from 0 toward a more positive 1 (Zhou et al., 2014). A good day for individuals with a promotion system is filled with gains; the absence of negatives is not enough (Zhou et al., 2014). A promotion-focused individual would rather have experiences that include highly positive components, even at the expense of them containing some negative aspects. They do not want to experience that they are being moderate or average on any dimension (Zhang & Mittal, 2007)
Reward goals imply a discrete economic benefit that can motivate individuals. The financial incentives can be viewed as the previously described gains, the main focus of a promotion focused individual (Zhou et al., 2014). In comparison to reward goals, mere goals are associated with gaining symbolic meaning: the sense of fulfillment of achieving it. The strength of an individual's promotion focus should be related to how much he or she is motivated by incentives seen as accomplishments (Higgins, et al., 1997). Therefore, I argue that reward goals and a promotion focus result in similar behavior.
Traditionally, the eagerness of the promotion system has been linked to a preference for risky choices in the decision making process (Crowe & Higgins, 1997; Friedman & Förster, 2001; Molden & Higgins, 2005). A promotion focused individual in a neutral state will generally display a tendency to be risk-seeking, because a risky option provides the greatest potential for moving away from 0 toward 1. Indeed, given that non gains are
perceived as failures within the promotion system, risk seeking may be the default tactic at 0, because promotion-focused individuals are motivated to do whatever it takes to progress toward 1 (Zhou, et al., 2014). Thus, individuals become eager to obtain the positive reward (e.g. reward goal). This behavior reflects a greater opportunity to take part in goal-directed efforts and they will experience positive feelings when they are exposed to cues of the impending reward (Carver & White, 1994). This resulted in the following hypothesis.
Hypothesis 1a: Reward goals lead to more eagerness motivation than mere goals.
On the contrary, prevention focus is related to being careful, cautious, and oriented toward avoiding losses as negative outcomes. Thus, a prevention focus produces a
(Higgins, 1997) Success within the prevention system is defined as preserving non losses (e.g., “0” or the absence of negativity), though failing is defined by the presence of loss (e.g., “1” or the presence of negativity; Brendl & Higgins, 1996; Higgins, 1997; Higgins &
Tykocinski, 1992). What matters is the preservation of the satisfactory status quo of “0” and restoring it if necessitated by the presence of a loss. In other words, a good day within the prevention system requires only controlling non losses or the absence of negative outcomes. Advancing to a better “1” state beyond the status quo 0 (i.e., a gain), is not considered essential for success (Zhou, et al., 2014).
Task instructions that emphasize losses tend to induce a prevention focus (Gino et al., 2011). A punishment goal implies an additional penalty if the goal is not reached. Therefore, individuals want to ensure themselves against not attaining the goal and thus receiving the punishment associated with the goal. Meaning, they will be more cautious in the process of attaining the goal; the motivational strength is improved during the process of attaining the goal (Spiegel, et al., 2004). Since, punishment goals imply negative consequence; we can argue that it results in a prevention focused motivation.
Prevention focused individuals who are in a state of nongains exhibited risk-averse, or conservative, choices (see also Crowe & Higgins, 1997; Friedman & Förster, 2001; Scholer, Stroessner, & Higgins, 2008). They continued to exhibit risk aversion in a state of loss if the conservative choice offered the higher likelihood of returning to nonloss 0 (the status quo ante or safety). Thus, punishment goals (e.g. nonlosses) are something that no matter what need to be avoidant. Applying a vigilance means helps to ensure this. This resulted in the following hypothesis.
H1b: Punishment goals lead to more vigilance motivation than mere goals.
Motivation and unethical behavior.
formed, moral standards serve as guidelines (Bandura, 1996) that individuals use to anticipate, monitor, and judge their own moral actions (Detert et al., 2008). When individuals are given the opportunity to engage in unethical behavior, moral standards are activated and the self-regulatory mechanism (e.g. guilt or self-censure) is activated. Consequently, preventing the individual from engaging in immoral behavior (Trevino et al., 2014). Hence, due to this continuing use of self-influence, individuals are usually inhibited from engaging in unethical behaviors (Bandura, 1996).
Over time, moral self-image concerns have gained increased recognition as a successful determinant of human choices, especially in the realm of moral behavior (Tsang, 2002). The central message is arguably a common one: people desire to maintain a comfortable self-image (Dunning, 2007). People approach every decision with the belief that they are respectable individuals, and although the decisions they face are not explicitly about this proposition, people behave as though their decisions are, very much, about it (Dunning,2007). To be exact: as people engage in belief harmonization, they attempt to ensure that the beliefs remain harmonious with their positive image, even when their self-images are logically irrelevant to the decision at hand (Dunning, 2007)
However, one’s strive of maintaining a positive moral self-image may come in to conflict with goal-attainment. Sometimes, the only way of achieving a goal is via unethical behavior. Prior goal setting work suggests that the presence of a goal results in an increase in arousal, focus of attention, as well as creating a psychological reward for attaining the goal (Gellatly & Meyer, 1992; Gollwitzer & Schaal, 2001; Heath, Larrick, & Wu, 1999). According to social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1991), goal attainment is associated with psychological rewards, including positive self-evaluations and higher self-satisfaction. Thus, attaining the goal can become increasingly important. As a result people have to balance the costs and benefits of engaging in unethical behavior. Thus, balancing the psychological costs (such as negative self-perceptions) and psychological benefits (such as the psychological reward of claiming goal achievement) (Schweitzer, et al., 2004).
dissonance by for example belittling the effects of smoking (Berkowitz, 1969). Thus, people start to rationalize their own behavior (Tsang, 2002).
This cognitive dissonance is an explanation for Bandura’s (1996) social cognitive and moral disengagement theory. In extension to the social cognitive theory, moral disengagement theory (Bandura, 1991, 1999) claims that the self-regulatory process is not successful at all times. The self-regulatory processes can be deactivated by the use of moral disengagement techniques. Examples of moral disengagement techniques are euphemistic language, advantageous comparison and displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, disregarding or distorting the consequences, dehumanization, and the attribution of blame. These techniques help to disengage the self-regulatory processes and consequently prevent self-censure and guilt and thus reinterpreting immoral actions as, in fact, moral (Trevino et al., 2014).
Moral disengagement: how it results in unethical behavior
Researchers have proposed that moral disengagement increases immoral behavior because morally disengaged reasoning disconnects a contemplated act from the guilt or self-censure that would otherwise prevent it (Detert et al., 2008) This breakdown between internal standards and contemplated behavior decreases self-deterrents that would ordinarily block individuals from carrying out unethical acts (Bandura et al., 1996; Duffy, Aquino, Tepper, Reed, & O’Leary-Kelly, 2005). This is supported by empirical research. For example, Bandura showed that moral disengagement decreased prosocial behavior (helpfulness and cooperativeness) as well that it increased antisocial behavior (aggression and delinquency) in children (Bandura et al., 1996). Research on adults and moral disengagement has been in the area of attitudes toward war and terrorism. For example, McAlister (2001) found that moral disengagement was positively related to support for military attacks against Iraq and
Yugoslavia.
A study of Moore and Colleagues (2012) showed that moral disengagement was positively associated with self-reported unethical behavior, fraud decisions, self-serving decisions, and the reporting of others’ unethical behavior. Other research found a relationship between an individual’s propensity to morally disengage and other individual traits such as cynicism, locus of control, moral identity, and moral personality (Detert et al. 2008, Duffy et al. 2005). Correspondingly, Aquino and colleagues (2007) found moral disengagement
relationship between moral disengagement and adult unethical decision making or behavior. They found that moral justification (a single moral disengagement mechanism) was positively related to co-worker undermining (e.g., spreading rumors) among hospital workers. As a result of this extensive research on moral disengagement, I propose that moral disengagement will have this same positive relationship with undesirable outcomes in the domain of everyday decision making wherein individuals make decisions that involve unethical behavior (e.g. cheating).This resulted in the following hypothesis.
H2: Moral disengagement leads to unethical behavior.
Eagerness and moral disengagement.
Now we know how unethical behavior comes about, we can focus on the effects of motivation on individuals cognitive processes that result in unethical behavior. Research has shown that financial incentives are perceived as the most important influence on employee performance and other desired behaviors (Baker, Jensen, & Murphy, 1988; Jenkins, Gupta, Shaw & Mitra 1998; Locke, et al., 1980; Locke, et al., 1981). Critics of a monetary pay- for-performance system do not indicate that the system is ineffective but rather too effective (Baker et al., 1988) While financial incentives are connected with gaining symbolic meaning (e.g. status, recognition). To attain this, people start to focus more on receiving the monetary reward and put less importance on achieving goals that are not connected to a reward (e.g. mere goals, Jenkins et al., 1998).
Another reason why eager individuals may engage in unethical behavior is the organizational culture. Reward goals may give the impression of a “performance first” environment; the responsibility of the firm lies in creating shareholder value (Barsky, 2008; Ordonez, et al., 2011). Specifically, the use of goal setting, like “management by objectives,” creates a focus on ends rather than means. Barsky (2008) argues that goal setting impedes ethical decision making by making it more difficult for employees to identify ethical issues and easier for them to rationalize unethical behavior. As a result of this “performance first” environment people become unaware of the immoral implications of their behavior. They start to unconsciously rationalize their behavior.
Eagerness can also result in consciously applying moral disengagement techniques. Not attaining the goal is in conflict with their motivational system. People do not want to experience the negative emotions associated with not attaining the goal (Higgins, 1997). Therefore, people participate in a cost-benefit analysis of engaging in unethical behavior and attaining the goal (Tsang, 2002). To make sure that they maintain their positive moral self-image they start justifying this behavior. Thus, they start to apply moral disengagement techniques such as moral justification and displacing responsibility.
In conclusion, eager individuals are able to (actively) apply moral disengagement techniques to align their unethical behavior with their moral self-image. By doing this they are able to attain the reward via unethical ways without losing their positive self-image.
H3: Eagerness leads to more to moral disengagement than no eagerness.
I predict that reward goals will lead to more unethical behavior because reward goals lead to more eagerness and this results in moral disengagement. On the contrary I believe that mere goals will not result in cheating behavior because maintaining a moral self-image is of high importance and people will be not have to rationalize their behavior because it does not interfere with one’s moral self-image.
H4: The positive indirect relationship between reward goals and cheating is sequentially mediated by eagerness and moral disengagement
Vigilance and moral disengagement
Different from an individual that is motivated by eagerness, an individual triggered by an vigilance means focuses on the process of attaining the goal (Higgins,2001). Vigilance results in being more careful when approaching a new goal (Higgins, 2001). Individuals applying a vigilance means will not make rash decisions and will try to avoid taking any risks (Higgins, 2001) Because of this focus on means, an individual that is given a punishment goal will have more difficulty to apply moral disengagement techniques to justify achieving the goal in an unethical way. If the means of goal pursuit are consistent with the preferred ends, an individual experiences a regulatory fit, inclining the actor towards positive moral value judgments (Bryant 2009).
This focus on the means instead of the end results in the fact that an individual pays greater attention toward, and may be more aware of moral issues. Individuals applying a vigilance means are unable to disconnect their own behavior from the guilt or self-censure that would otherwise be rationalized (Bryant, 2009). The individual becomes inhibited; this is manifested in the power to refrain from behaving inhumanely (Bandura, 2002). For example, a vigilant manager may be more aware of the moral issues relating to loss of reputation owing to a desecration of behavioral norms (Markus, Uchida, Omoregie, Townsend & Kitayama, 2006). Thus, individuals with a vigilance means are so focused on the process and to ensure against errors that they will have more difficulties with engaging in moral disengagement.
In conclusion, vigilance results in an inability to engage in unethical behavior. Vigilant individuals want to ensure against errors. The possibility of getting caught is similar to
quo than attain losses (Zhou et al., 2014). Moreover, engaging in ethical behavior and
focusing on the process gives an individual a greater chance not receiving a punishment. This resulted in the following hypothesis:
H5: Vigilance does not lead to moral disengagement
To conclude, punishment goals result in prevention focus for individuals. People want to ensure against not attaining the goal and thus getting the connected punishment. While, people want to ensure against errors they become motivated by a vigilance means. This results in higher carefulness and an inability to disconnect oneself of one’s own morality because of this inability people are unable to morally disengage and therefore they will not cheat. This resulted in the following hypothesis.
H6: The negative indirect relationship between punishment goals and cheating is sequentially mediated by vigilance and moral disengagement
The theory and hypotheses can be summarized in the following conceptual model (see Figure 1).
. FIGURE 1.
Conceptual model linking goal-setting to moral cheating.
Reward goals vs
Mere goals Eagerness
Vigilance Punishment goals
vs Mere goals
Moral
METHOD
Participants and design
124 graduate and undergraduate students participated in a 1 hour experiment.
Demographics showed that 60.5% of the participants were female and most participants did not identify English as their first language (80.5%). On average participants were 20.9 (SD = 2.4) years old. Participants were randomly assigned in a 3 (goal: reward vs. punishment vs. mere) between-subjects design. Participants were able to earn between €8 and €10 depending on the condition they were assigned to.
Procedures
To test my hypotheses I conducted a laboratory study in which participants were given the opportunity to behave unethical by misrepresenting their performance. In the study I asked participants to grade their own performance on an anagram task. This anagram task was a modification of a previously conducted task from Schweitzer & colleagues (2004). Participants had to list words and check their own work. This gave participants the
opportunity to misrepresent their own performance. The laboratory study was conducted in the research lab of the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen. Participants (N=118) were asked to do the same anagram task but now they were given the goal to create at least 8 words and asked to check their words afterwards1. The experiment started with two practice rounds. For each practice round participants were asked to create as many words as possible within one minute. The practice rounds were developed to familiarize participants with the task. In the second practice round the order of the letters was different. Because of this the workbooks could be linked to the answer sheets at the end of the experiment. Next, participants were given eight rounds with seven letters for every round. They were asked to create at least eight words within a one minute time period. The participants then answered statements concerning vigilance, eagerness and moral
disengagement. They also answered questions concerning demographics such as gender and age.
On the first page of the workbook, participants were exposed to instructions that
1
To determine the average amount of words people can create within a one-minute time period I conducted a pilot study (N=51). For the anagram task, people were given ten rounds: two practice rounds and eight
established one of three conditions. In the mere goal conditions (N = 41) participants were asked to create at least eight words. The workbook stated: “the purpose of this task is to come up with at least eight words for each of the anagrams. With the exception of the two practice rounds”. For the reward condition (N= 42), participants were given the same goal but this time they were given the possibility to receive a €0.25 bonus for every anagram in which they found eight or more words. Again, participants who were in the punishment condition (N=40) were asked to come up with at least 8 words but if they were unable to create at least 8 words their compensation would be decreased with €0.25 for every round they did not reach the goal.
Participants in the reward goal condition believed they would earn €8 and if they would perform well, they would be able to increase their compensation. On the other hand, participants in the punishment condition believed they would earn €10 but only if they reached their goal for every round. Participants in mere condition knew they would be given €8 but they were not given any indication that they could increase of decrease their
compensation. At the end of the experiment, each participant was compensated with €10 no matter the condition they were assigned to.
In the second stage of the experiment, participants were asked to return to the lab-assistant with their blue pen. The lab-lab-assistant would then give them a red pen and a book with all the possible English nouns that were longer than two letters that could be created with the letter combination for each round. Participants were given 15 minutes to check if they reached their goal. After checking their words, participants were asked to tear off the answer sheet of the workbook. On the answer sheet participants indicated for every round if they created “less than 8 words” or “more than 8 words”. Already at the start of the task and again before checking their words participants were told to throw away their workbook and give the answer sheet to the lab-assistant. So, after filling in the answer sheet participants threw their workbook in the bin and returned the dictionary, pen and answer sheet to the lab-assistant. Later on, the lab-assistant was able to link the workbook with the answer sheet because of the linking mechanism in practice round 2.
Measures
Eagerness and vigilance. To measure vigilance and eagerness I used the regulatory focus measurement instrument established by Vriend, Said, Janssen, Nijstad, & Jordan (in preparation). Example items are “I was eager to take all necessary actions” for eagerness (α = .79) and “I was concerned with making mistakes” for vigilance (α = .83). For each
statement, participants indicated to what extent they agreed with it on a 7-point scale that ranged from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7).
Moral disengagement. To measure moral disengagement (α = .84) I developed 9 statements that were an adaption of Bandura’s (1997) measurement instrument for moral disengagement. I differentiated between seven mechanisms to rationalize one’s own behavior namely; euphemistic language, advantageous comparison, displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, disregarding or distorting the consequences, dehumanization, and the attribution of blame. The statements are: “Misrepresenting my performance level on a task is not the same as cheating”, “Cheating on an anagram task is not wrong”, “Sometimes, it is all right to cheat”, “Everybody cheats sometimes”, “I do not harm anyone if I lie about something as small as a reaching target of an anagram task”, “It is okay to tell small lies (like reaching your goal) because they don’t really harm anyone”, “Compared to the illegal things people do, saying I reached my goal is not that bad”, “If the assistant did not want me to cheat: he/she shouldn’t have asked to throw away my workbook”, “Cheating was the only way to reach the goal”. For each statement, participants indicated in what way they agreed with it on a 7-point scale that ranged from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7).
Unethical behavior. I measured unethical behavior by coding the congruence between participants’ actual productivity and the claims they made about their productivity. This was done by counting the number of times that participants had lied about having solved 8 words or more. This score could range from never cheated (0) to cheated in all 10 rounds (10).
Analysis
To assess the hypotheses, I conducted various linear regressions (see Table 2) in which conditions were coded through two dummy variables: mere goals (0) vs. reward goals (1) and mere goals (0) vs. punishment goals (1). First, I regressed eagerness on the conditions.
RESULTS
Table 1 gives an overview of the descriptive statistics and correlations of the variables researched in this paper
Note: N=118** p < 0.01* p < 0.05
TABLE 1. Correlations Correlations
Variables Mean SD Mere/reward Mere/punishment Vigilance Eagerness Moral Disengagement Cheating
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The table showed one positive correlation between the mere/reward condition and mere/punishment condition (r= -.45, p= .00). This is conflicting with research of Higgins (1997) that stated that a promotion focus is associated with an eagerness motivation not a vigilance motivation.
Eagerness. Hypothesis 1a predicted that reward goals would increase eagerness in comparison to mere or punishment goals. To test the hypothesis, I conducted a linear regression analysis in which eagerness was the dependent variable (see Table 2). Results indicate that reward goals do not lead to more eagerness than mere goals (B=-.39, p = .15). Thus, Hypothesis 1a, which stated that reward goals lead to more eagerness than mere goals, is not supported.
Vigilance. Hypothesis 1b predicted that punishment goals would induce more vigilance than reward or mere goals. To test this, I conducted a linear regression analysis. Again, the independent variables were mere versus reward and mere versus punishment goals. In which 0 = mere goal and 1 = punishment/reward. Results indicate that punishment goals do not lead to vigilance than mere goals (B =.48 p = .13). Thus, Hypothesis 1b, which stated that punishment goals lead to more vigilance than mere goals, is not supported.
Moral disengagement. To test if eagerness would lead to more moral disengagement I conducted another linear regression. Results indicated that eagerness does not lead to moral disengagement (B =.07 p = .33). Thus, Hypothesis 3, which stated that eagerness leads to moral disengagement is not supported. On the other hand, I predicted that vigilance would not lead to moral disengagement. The results indicate that vigilance does not lead to moral disengagement (B = -.01 p = .93). Thus, Hypothesis 5, which stated that vigilance leads goals lead to moral disengagement is not supported.
Cheating. Hypothesis 2 predicted that moral disengagement would lead to more unethical behaviour. To test this, I conducted a linear regression analysis. The independent variable for this analysis was moral disengagement. Results indicate that moral
disengagement does not lead to cheating (B =.07 p = .10). Thus, Hypothesis 2, which stated that moral disengagement would lead to more cheating was not supported. Hypothesis 4 predicted that there was a positive indirect relationship between reward goals and that
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TABLE 2
Unstandardized Regression Coefficients and Bootstrapped Indirect Effects Unstandardized Regression Coefficients
Eagerness Vigilance
Moral
disengagement Cheating
Constant 4.62*** (.19) 3.84*** (.23) 2.74*** (.46) -.11 (.23)
Manipulation: mere (= 0) vs. reward (
= 1) -.02 (.27) .48 (.33) -.70 (.21) -.05 (.08) Manipulation: mere (= 0) vs. punishment = 1) .39 (.28) .32 (.29) .29 (.21) .09 (.08) Eagerness .09 (0.71) .04 (.00) Vigilance -.08 (.07) -.00 (.03) Moral disengagement .06 (.04) R² .22 .20 .03 .05
Bootstrapped indirect effects
Estimate 95% -.08 95% .30
Mere vs. Reward → Eagerness → Moral disengagement → Cheating Mere vs. Punishment → Vigilance → Moral disengagement → Cheating
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DISCUSSION
In this research, I studied the effects of goal-setting on unethical behaviour. The goal of this research was to understand if goals that are connected to reward or punishment would induce different degrees of unethical behaviour compared to goals that had no such
implications. I predicted that reward goals would result in more eagerness than mere goals. I predicted that this eagerness would result in a focus on end instead of means and therefore individuals would be more likely to (un)consciously apply moral disengagement techniques to justify engaging in unethical behaviour. This prediction was not supported.
Additionally, I proposed that punishment goals would -in comparison to mere goals- induce a vigilance means. Individuals become careful; this results in a focus on means instead of ends. I predicted that this vigilance means would result in an inability to apply moral disengagement techniques: individuals would become focused on the means of attaining a goal. This would result in an inability to apply (unconscious) morally disengagement
techniques. As a result, punishment goals would not result in unethical behaviour. However, this prediction was again not supported.
THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS
This research extends prior work on ethical decision making by highlighting the influence of regulatory focus on unethical behavior, and by investigating the influence of using moral disengagement techniques to justify unethical behavior. Prior research has focused on individual-level factors (e.g., age, gender, and values) that influence people’s actual and reported performance. For instance, men and women have been found to differ in the way they identify and resolve moral and ethical dilemmas (Dawson, 1997; Peterson, Rhoads, & Vaught, 2001). In this research I focused on a particular factor, a person’s
regulatory focus. I explored how situationally induced regulatory focus may lead to dishonest behavior. One’s regulatory focus was the result of specific goal setting. I argued that
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shaped by people’s membership in and interactions with the organizational environment. Therefore, it is important to take in to account (Gino, et al., 2011).
For this research, I argued that adding a loss or reward to a goal would result in either vigilance for the punishment goal condition or eagerness in case of the reward condition. However, the results did not show a relation between reward- or punishment goals and a specific type of (extrinsic) motivation. One possible explanation for these results is the effect of intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation stems from the enjoyment of a task as such; intrinsically motivated individuals get engaged in a task because they enjoy doing it (Kunz, 2015). Intrinsic motivation is essentially autonomous, as the acting person views the locus of causality regarding the performed task to be internal. “Extrinsic motivation, in contrast, requires an instrumentality between the activity and some separable consequences such as tangible or verbal rewards” (Gagné and Deci, 2005, p. 331). Individuals who are intrinsically motivated believe they are competent and therefore able to reach their goal
(Gómez-Miñambres, 2012). However, when during the task people start to notice that they won’t reach their goal, they have to decide whether or not they want to engage in unethical behavior. Schweitzer and colleagues (2004) showed that even though there was a difference between the people who were asked to just “do their best” and people who were given a specific goal but that there was no difference in between goals (e.g. mere goals and reward goals). So, both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated individuals engaged in unethical behavior.
Correspondingly, in my study 25 percent of the participants cheated, however it did not depend on the condition they were in. It is possible that intrinsic motivation has the same ability as extrinsic motivation to provoke unethical behavior.
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another instance of moral behavior. Focusing on this study, it is possible that participants in this research tried to compensate their immoral behavior during the experiment.
Consequently, participants who cheated in round one, may have tried to compensate their behavior by not cheating in the second round and so on. Over time, this can result in people not noticing their behavior violated their moral self-image because they constantly
compensated immoral behavior with moral behavior. As a result, they were able to maintain their positive moral self-image and therefore there was no need to apply moral disengagement techniques.
MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS
The aim of this research was to show the dark side of goal-setting for organizations. More specific, I wanted to show the different effects of mere-, reward- and punishment goals. Even though people did cheat during the anagram task (25%), it is unclear why as this study showed that it was not the result of eagerness, vigilance, or moral disengagement. Therefore, I argue that organizations should still be cautious with the development of goals. For example, managers should still pay attention to the reward system messages that they convey to employees and think about the differential impact of these messages on their employees, while every employee is different.
In addition, organizations should consider how they might be creating personal gain situations. The reward and punishment connected to the goals in this study were small and therefore did not increase a situation that would lead to moral disengagement reasoning. For example, sales commission systems or year-end bonus system that offer the majority of one’s compensation based on performance levels may create the perfect circumstances for moral disengagement. If these performance goals are impossible to achieve without engaging in unethical behavior individuals may be likely to use moral disengagement techniques to justify one’s behavior. Thus, when creating reward systems, managers should take in account if the system is likely to create such conditions and, if the answer is yes, they should attempt to alter them. Thus developing a reward system that is built upon attainable goals.
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potential harm to stakeholders. Thus, developing a “do no harm” policy. This will reduce the likelihood of personal gain opportunities that may lead to moral disengagement
(Kish-Gehphart et al, 2010). If at all possible, organizations should just avoid offering excessive pay incentives, especially those that cannot routinely be achieved without compromising ethical standards, because under such conditions there may be just about nothing that will inhibit the tendency to morally disengage(Kish-Gephart et al., 2010).
LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH
A matter of concern in this research is the rewarding system. In the reward condition, participants were given the possibility to earn €0.25 extra per round they would reach their target of eight words. In the punishment condition, participants were told they could lose €0.25 per round they were unable to reach their goal. As a result, participants were rewarded or punished for their performance in a specific round and not for their total performance e.g. (€2 in total instead of €0,25 for every round, Schweitzer, et al., 2004). Rewarding or
punishing a participant with a “big” reward/punished is believed to result in different
behaviour. Only cheating once during the experiment would have resulted in earning or losing everything. Not reaching the goal means not getting the financial incentive connected to the goal, in this scenario, unethical decisions are rewarded (Bazerman & Tenbrussel, 2011). Future research should reward participants for the overall performances. People are able to earn or lose everything and therefore more (un)willing to engage in unethical behaviour. This research directly compared the framing of ethics; it involved positive and negative messages in the same study. Therefore, this study compared the likelihood to act unethically on the valence of the message conveyed through the ethics framing that is
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orthogonally from promotion versus prevention focus, and further study the role of risk in these relationships. Future research could build on Sitkin and Pablo’s (1992) research that distinguishes between risk perception and risk propensity. Regulatory focus and framing effects may differentially influence these two risk dimensions.
Another point of concern was the fact that previous research using anagram tasks to predict unethical behaviour was conducted in a group setting. In my research, participants were asked to perform the task in an individual setting. To receive the necessary material to perform the anagram task, they had to leave their working area. This may have reduced the sense of hostility as participants came in frequent contact with the lab-assistant.To limit the amount of contact between the lab-assistant and the participants, future research should again be conducted in a group setting since it will reduce one-on-one contact with the lab-assistant and therefore increase the relative distance between participant and lab-assistant (Schweitzer, et al., 2004). In addition, this research was conducted in a laboratory study at the faculty of Economics and Business. As a result, almost all participants were undergraduate students. Most of the participants, also participated in other (deceiving) research and therefore they may have been more cautious and therefore less likely to cheat.
In line with existing models of ethical decision making I presumed that unethical behavior triggers negative feelings (Gaudine & Thorne, 2001; Schweitzer & Gibson, 2008; Warren & Smith-Crowe, 2008).Ruedy, Moore, Gino and Schweitzer (2013) challenged the assumption that unethical behavior triggers negative affect and that the negative affective consequences of engaging in unethical behavior promote ethical decision making. Their research showed that some unethical behaviors not only fail to trigger negative affect but can in fact trigger positive affect. As a result of these findings, I argue that future research should not just assume that unethical behavior is related to negative affects and try to specific when unethical behavior results in either positive or negative affect.
Bandura’s theory (1986) on moral disengagement does not explicitly discuss when moral disengagement occurs—before, during, or after behavior. Other scholars were unable to agree on this and argued that this type of reasoning can occur pre- or post-unethical action (e.g., Ashforth and Anand 2003; Sykes and Matza 1957). This research focused on
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Schweitzer et al. 2004), but has not empirically studied the relationship between self-interest and morally disengaged reasoning (Bersoff 1999). While this research focused on self-interest, I call for research of situational harm to others as a driver of ethical reasoning (Trevino et al., 2014).
Future research should consider other situational factors that may act as countervailing forces that minimize the relationship between reward and punishment goals and moral
disengagement reasons. For example, Graham et al. (2011) noted that next to concerns about harm, fairness is an extremely powerful moral standard and motive that operates across cultures. This study did not focus on the effects of fairness and therefore future research could focus on the unfair treatment of stakeholders.
Future work could also employ different measures of ethical and unethical behavior. The operationalization of unethical behavior in my studies involved committing an error of commission (e.g. actively cheating or lying on an answer sheet). Further studies could employ measures of unethical behavior that do not involve actively lying, but instead involve
passively not correcting an error. Using such measures could lead to a pattern of results different from that observed in my study. In fact, Camacho, Higgins & Luger (2003) found that individuals in a promotion experienced more guilt for committing ‘‘sins of omission,’’ while individuals in a prevention focus felt guiltier for committing ‘‘sins of commission.’’ Future studies can test if individuals’ decisions about whether to act dishonestly or not follow a similar pattern.
Lastly, I did not take in to account the effect of intrinsic motivation on unethical behavior. Intrinsic behavior is believed to be very motivational for goal-attainment (Gómez-Miñambres, 2012). Therefore, future research should include the effect of intrinsic motivation on unethical behavior. I expect that if people who are intrinsically motivated are in a situation in which they are unable to attain their goal, they are willing to cross the same ethical
boundary as people who are extrinsically motivated.
CONCLUSION
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influence the cognitive processes that may result in unethical behavior. Taken together, this study did not show a relationship between the types of goal-setting and unethical behavior. Despite of these results, we should not stop studying unethical behavior. While knowledge of triggers of unethical behavior can help us explain why people continue to engage in destructive behavior and as a consequence try to reduce the instances of it. The consequences can be unlimited. As Michael Josephson (1944-), a famous ethicist and law professor once said “honesty doesn’t always pay, but dishonesty always costs”.
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