Goal Setting As a Motivator of Unethical Behavior

Goal Setting As a Motivator of Unethical Behavior

Introduction

The main focus of Schweitzer, Ordonez and Douma (2004) is to find that whether there is any relationship that exists between goal setting and unethical behavior. The research also represents an important idea that how important goal setting is in life. It is also evident from this research that people who often don't set goals in their everyday life or people who set them but don't try to achieve them are most likely to possess unethical behavior. This research also indicates that people work with persistent hard work to achieve difficult goals in comparison with easier goals (Locke &Latham, 1990).

It is also learnt from the research, that it is not necessary for the return to be an economic incentive, as in some cases the incentive is personal satisfaction as well. An important feature that should be kept in mind is that goal setting should be used carefully in order to ignore any potential negative effects.

Hypothesis 1. People with specific, unmet goals will be more likely to overstate their performance than people without specific goals (such as people attempting to “do their best”)

Hypothesis 2. People with unmet reward goals will be more likely to overstate their performance than people with unmet mere goals"

Discussion

The research is based on various hypothesis, hypothesis 1 determines the existence of 2 kinds of goals specific unmet goals & mere goals which are not specific. According to the first hypothesis specific goals are the ones which are targeted to some specific achievement, for example a set benefit or any benefit that has is presumed, however those goals which are not specific are the ones which are not clear and they may bring some personal satisfaction. The first hypothesis emphasizes that both goals have a does impact the ethical behavior and phsycological link. The people will be more motivated towards achieving their goals if they know exactly what are they going to achieve by that.

The second hypothesis determines the existence of two types of goals reward goals and mere goals. According to the first hypothesis rewards goals are the ones which have some economic value attached to them for example a monetary benefit or any benefit that has an economic value, however mere goals are the ones that exclude the economic factor and bring more personal satisfaction. The second hypothesis emphasizes that both ...