IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v157y2019i3d10.1007_s10551-017-3688-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Wanting More, Getting Less: Gaming Performance Measurement as a Form of Deviant Workplace Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Laura Graf

    (Technical University of Munich)

  • Wiebke S. Wendler

    (Technical University of Munich)

  • Jutta Stumpf-Wollersheim

    (Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg)

  • Isabell M. Welpe

    (Technical University of Munich
    Bavarian State Institute for Higher Education Research and Planning)

Abstract

Investigating the causes of unethical behaviors in academia, such as scientific misconduct, has become a highly important research subject. The current performance measurement practices (e.g., equating research performance with the number of publications in top-tier journals) are frequently referred to as being responsible for scientists’ unethical behaviors. We conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with different stakeholders of the higher education system (e.g., professors and policy makers; N = 43) to analyze the influence of performance measurement on scientists’ behavior. We followed a three-step coding procedure and found (1) that the participants described a variety of positive behavioral consequences (e.g., higher productivity) but mainly negative behavioral consequences (e.g., questionable publishing practices) of current performance measurement practices in academia; (2) that scientists’ behavior can be described as gaming performance measurement (i.e., achieving performance goals by reducing performance quality and focusing on those tasks that are measured); and (3) that gaming performance measurement shares the same characteristics as deviant workplace behavior (i.e., a voluntary violation of organizational norms that harms the university). We discuss that gaming performance measurement has not been considered as a type of deviant workplace behavior in the previous literature. Furthermore, we draw from research on deviant workplace behavior and goal setting to discuss psychological processes that may underlie gaming performance measurement. Our results indicate the importance of connecting literature on deviant workplace behavior and goal setting to advance our understanding of gaming performance measurement.

Suggested Citation

  • Laura Graf & Wiebke S. Wendler & Jutta Stumpf-Wollersheim & Isabell M. Welpe, 2019. "Wanting More, Getting Less: Gaming Performance Measurement as a Form of Deviant Workplace Behavior," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 157(3), pages 753-773, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:157:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s10551-017-3688-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3688-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-017-3688-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-017-3688-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schubert, Torben, 2009. "Empirical observations on New Public Management to increase efficiency in public research--Boon or bane?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 1225-1234, October.
    2. Sebastian Goebel & Barbara Weißenberger, 2016. "The Dark Side of Tight Financial Control: Causes and Remedies of Dysfunctional Employee Behaviors," Schmalenbach Business Review, Springer;Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft, vol. 17(1), pages 69-101, April.
    3. Yoav Vardi & Yoash Wiener, 1996. "Misbehavior in Organizations: A Motivational Framework," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 7(2), pages 151-165, April.
    4. Jenny M. Lewis, 2014. "Research productivity and research system attitudes," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(6), pages 417-424, November.
    5. Ghysels, Eric, 2000. "Some Econometric Recipes for High-Frequency Data Cooking," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 18(2), pages 154-163, April.
    6. Amit Saini & Mike Krush & Jean Johnson, 2008. "Anomie and the Marketing Function: The Role of Control Mechanisms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 83(4), pages 863-863, December.
    7. Amit Saini & Mike Krush, 2008. "Anomie and the Marketing Function: The Role of Control Mechanisms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 83(4), pages 845-862, December.
    8. Elizabeth E. Umphress & John B. Bingham, 2011. "When Employees Do Bad Things for Good Reasons: Examining Unethical Pro-Organizational Behaviors," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(3), pages 621-640, June.
    9. Adam Barsky, 2008. "Understanding the Ethical Cost of Organizational Goal-Setting: A Review and Theory Development," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 81(1), pages 63-81, August.
    10. Michael C. Jensen, 2003. "Paying People to Lie: the Truth about the Budgeting Process," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 9(3), pages 379-406, September.
    11. Latham, Gary P. & Locke, Edwin A., 1991. "Self-regulation through goal setting," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 212-247, December.
    12. Hicks, Diana, 2012. "Performance-based university research funding systems," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 251-261.
    13. Auranen, Otto & Nieminen, Mika, 2010. "University research funding and publication performance--An international comparison," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 822-834, July.
    14. Shana Clor-Proell & Steven Kaplan & Chad Proell, 2015. "The Impact of Budget Goal Difficulty and Promotion Availability on Employee Fraud," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(4), pages 773-790, November.
    15. Ulrich Schmoch & Torben Schubert & Dorothea Jansen & Richard Heidler & Regina von Görtz, 2010. "How to use indicators to measure scientific performance: a balanced approach," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 2-18, March.
    16. Daniele Fanelli, 2009. "How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(5), pages 1-11, May.
    17. Jessica Christian & Aleksander Ellis, 2014. "The Crucial Role of Turnover Intentions in Transforming Moral Disengagement Into Deviant Behavior at Work," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 119(2), pages 193-208, January.
    18. Stefanie Ringelhan & Jutta Wollersheim & Isabell M Welpe, 2015. "I Like, I Cite? Do Facebook Likes Predict the Impact of Scientific Work?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(8), pages 1-21, August.
    19. Pierce, Jason R. & Aguinis, Herman, 2015. "Detrimental Citizenship Behaviour: A Multilevel Framework of Antecedents and Consequences," Management and Organization Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(1), pages 69-99, March.
    20. Karen Niven & Colm Healy, 2016. "Susceptibility to the ‘Dark Side’ of Goal-Setting: Does Moral Justification Influence the Effect of Goals on Unethical Behavior?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 137(1), pages 115-127, August.
    21. Raelin, Joseph A., 1994. "Three scales of professional deviance within organizations," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 15(6), pages 483-501.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nuraddeen Abubakar Nuhu & Kevin Baird & Sophia Su, 2022. "The association between the interactive and diagnostic use of financial and non-financial performance measures with individual creativity: The mediating role of perceived fairness," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 371-402, September.
    2. Ester Clementino & Richard Perkins, 2021. "How Do Companies Respond to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) ratings? Evidence from Italy," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 171(2), pages 379-397, June.
    3. Clementino, Ester & Perkins, Richard, 2020. "How do companies respond to environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings? Evidence from Italy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103046, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christoph Endenich & Rouven Trapp, 2020. "Ethical Implications of Management Accounting and Control: A Systematic Review of the Contributions from the Journal of Business Ethics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 309-328, May.
    2. Gary M. Fleischman & Eric N. Johnson & Kenton B. Walker & Sean R. Valentine, 2019. "Ethics Versus Outcomes: Managerial Responses to Incentive-Driven and Goal-Induced Employee Behavior," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(4), pages 951-967, September.
    3. Yumei Fu, 2023. "The impact of government funding on research innovation: An empirical analysis of Chinese universities," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(1), pages 285-296, January.
    4. Sandström, Ulf & Van den Besselaar, Peter, 2018. "Funding, evaluation, and the performance of national research systems," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 365-384.
    5. Gibson, Elizabeth & Daim, Tugrul U. & Dabic, Marina, 2019. "Evaluating university industry collaborative research centers," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 181-202.
    6. Lorko, Matej & Servátka, Maroš & Zhang, Le, 2023. "Hidden inefficiency: Strategic inflation of project schedules," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 313-326.
    7. Annika Hillebrandt & Daniel L. Brady & Maria Francisca Saldanha & Laurie J. Barclay, 2023. "The Paradox of Paranoia: How One’s Own Self-Interested Unethical Behavior Can Spark Paranoia and Reduce Affiliative Behavior Toward Coworkers," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 184(1), pages 159-173, April.
    8. Tasso Brandt & Torben Schubert, 2014. "Is the university model an organizational necessity? Scale and agglomeration effects in science," Chapters, in: Andrea Bonaccorsi (ed.), Knowledge, Diversity and Performance in European Higher Education, chapter 8, pages iii-iii, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Karacic, Domagoj & Miskulin, Ivan & Serdarusic, Hrvoje, 2016. "State Investment In Science And Scientific Productivity Of Universities," UTMS Journal of Economics, University of Tourism and Management, Skopje, Macedonia, vol. 7(1), pages 37-48.
    10. Raymond O. S. Zaal & Ronald J. M. Jeurissen & Edward A. G. Groenland, 2019. "Organizational Architecture, Ethical Culture, and Perceived Unethical Behavior Towards Customers: Evidence from Wholesale Banking," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 825-848, September.
    11. Чернова Е. Г. & Ахобадзе Т. Д. & Малова А. С. & Салтан А. А., 2017. "Модели Финансирования Высшего Образования И Эффективность Деятельности Университетов Эмпирическое Исследование Европейского Опыта И Отечественная Практика," Вопросы образования // Educational Studies Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics, issue 3, pages 37-82.
    12. John Rigby & Barbara Jones, 2020. "Bringing the doctoral thesis by published papers to the Social Sciences and the Humanities: A quantitative easing? A small study of doctoral thesis submission rules and practice in two disciplines in ," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1387-1409, August.
    13. Tasso Brandt & Torben Schubert, 2013. "Is the university model an organizational necessity? Scale and agglomeration effects in science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(2), pages 541-565, February.
    14. Civera, Alice & Lehmann, Erik E. & Paleari, Stefano & Stockinger, Sarah A.E., 2020. "Higher education policy: Why hope for quality when rewarding quantity?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(8).
    15. Cadsby C. Bram & Song Fei & Tapon Francis, 2010. "Are You Paying Your Employees to Cheat? An Experimental Investigation," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-32, April.
    16. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2015. "Evaluating university research: Same performance indicator, different rankings," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 514-525.
    17. Migheli, Matteo & Zotti, Roberto, 2020. "The strange case of the Matthew effect and beauty contests: Research evaluation and specialisation in Italian universities," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    18. Tomasz Gigol, 2020. "Gender Differences in Engagement in Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior—Two Studies in Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, December.
    19. Benedetto, Lepori & Geuna, Aldo & Veglio, Valerio, 2017. "A Typology of European Universities. Differentiation and resource distribution," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201705, University of Turin.
    20. Joonha Jeon & So Young Kim, 2018. "Is the gap widening among universities? On research output inequality and its measurement in the Korean higher education system," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 589-606, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:157:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s10551-017-3688-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.