Understanding the Ethical Cost of Organizational Goal-Setting: A Review and Theory Development

• Published in: Journal of business ethics Vol. 81; no. 1; pp. 63 - 81
• Main Author: Barsky, Adam
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer 01.08.2008; Springer Netherlands; Springer Nature B.V
• Series: Journal of Business Ethics
• Subjects: Applied ethics; Behavior; Business and Management; Business Ethics; Corporate crime; Corporate responsibility; Corruption; Economic performance; Education; Empirical research; Employees; Environmental ethics; Ethical behavior; Ethical justification; Ethics; Goal setting; Management; Morality; Motivation; Normative ethics; Organizational behaviour; Payroll costs; Philosophy; Productivity; Quality of Life Research; Regulation; Scandals; Self regulation; Social ethics; Studies; self-regulation; business ethics; corruption; motivation; goal-setting

Goal-setting has become a popular and effective motivational tool, utilized by practitioners and substantiated with decades of empirical research. However, the potential for goal-setting to enhance performance may come at the cost of ethical behavior. I propose a theoretical model linking attributes...