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Pay-for-Performance Link. Based on your understanding of linking organization strategy to compensation and performance management, as discussed in Chapter 9, discuss how to strengthen the pay-for-performance link.

Powerful incentives can cause undesired behaviors. Suggest ways to solve this problem, using something you know a great deal about academic performance.

Oooh, fascinating question! At the end of last year I read Smartest Kids in the World by Amanda Ripley. One of the stories a South Korean boy killed his mom and hid her corpse in their apartment for months. He was under so much stress about his high school graduation exams and had so much pressure to preform well for his family that he snapped. That would be pretty extreme in the US.

Here I would expect cheating if incentives became too high. Maybe it would be in the form of buying paper. Maybe it would be in the form of parents bribing administrators or admissions counselors.

To promote ethical behavior teachers could try to promote class unity by recognizing accomplishments in a way that does not pit students against each other in competition. Maybe schools could offer teaching classes on ethics. Maybe they could lower the incentives or increase punishments for fraud and cheating.

How would you design a pay-performance system that uses powerful incentives to motivate behavior, yet keep the behavior from veering into the unethical? (Hint: You want to keep the powerful incentive effect of pay. So dont recommend eliminating incentive pay or reducing the size of the incentive component.) Whats left?

We could try increasing the punishments for unethical behavior. We could do things to promote group unity or at least keep students in pairs - oh but I had group projects. We could try peer reviews to verify that those who are receiving top incentives deserve them honestly.

How do you ensure ethical behavior?

My first thought is to hire ethical employees. Another thought is to encourage ethical behavior from the top down and to be quick to remove anyone caught committing fraud. At the end of the day, I don't think we can totally ensure other people's ethical behavior.