Employee Motivation and Ethics

The components of an organization’s motivational environment, such as the presence of goal setting, performance appraisals, and the use of incentive-based reward systems, have a direct connection with the level of ethical or unethical behaviors demonstrated within the company. Although a large number of companies successfully use goal setting and rewarding employees based on goal accomplishment, there can be unintended consequences to using goals. For example, when goal accomplishment is rewarded, and when rewards are desirable, employees will have two basic options: work hard to reach the goals, or cheat.