The dark side of consecutive high performance goals: Linking goal setting, depletion, and unethical behavior

• Consecutive high performance goals diminish self-regulatory capacity.
• Consecutive high performance goals increase unethical behavior.
• Depletion mediates the relationship between goal structures and unethical behavior.
• The number of consecutive goal periods moderates this mediated relationship.

Over 40 years of research on the effects of goal setting has demonstrated that high goals can increase performance by motivating people, directing their attention to a target, and increasing their persistence (Locke & Latham, 2002). However, recent research has introduced a dark side of goal setting by linking high performance goals to unethical behavior (e.g., Schweitzer, Ordóñez, & Douma, 2004). In this paper, we integrate self-regulatory resource theories with behavioral ethics research exploring the dark side of goal setting to suggest that the very mechanisms through which goals are theorized to increase performance can lead to unethical behavior by depleting self-regulatory resources across consecutive goal periods. Results of a laboratory experiment utilizing high, low, increasing, decreasing, and “do your best” goal structures across multiple rounds provide evidence that depletion mediates the relationship between goal structures and unethical behavior, and that this effect is moderated by the number of consecutive goals assigned.