| IS STRETCH GOAL ALWAYS A GOOD THING? FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTIFICATION THEORY |
Received:October 15, 2017 Revised:October 15, 2017 |
Key Words: stretch goals, competitive psychological climate, ambivalent identification, unethical behavior |
| Author Name | Affiliation | | chang chen* | Xi'an JiaoTong University |
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Abstract: |
| Practitioners and academics have highly advocated the use of stretch goals to promote organizational performance. While, is stretch goal always a good thing? Not exactly. Recent research has uncovered the dark side of stretch goals by finding that stretch goals are associated with unethical behavior. Yet we know less about the underlying mechanism by which stretch goal influence unethical behavior, and under what conditions the disruptive effect of stretch goal become worse. Drawing on the organizational identification theory, we present an integrated model that examine why and when stretch goal is associated with unethical behavior. Using Hayes’ PROCESS macro to assess a moderated mediation model, the results support our hypotheses that stretch goals are associated with employees’ ambivalent identification, which, in turn, influence unethical behavior. The findings further indicate that competitive psychological climate moderates the relationship between stretch goals and ambivalent identification. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. |
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