Goal Displacement: Assessing the Motivation for Organizational Cheating

Abstract

A major problem in assessing bureaucratic performance is the difficulty in judging the final social outcomes stemming from the work of public agencies. As a result, public agencies are frequently evaluated based on the outputs they produce. Agency outputs (such as, criminal cases solved, inspections) are easier to measure than the actual contributions agencies make to social outcomes (such as, preventing workplace discrimination, protecting the environment). When agency performance is evaluated in terms of numerical outputs, bureaucrats have an incentive to maximize outputs, regardless of whether maximizing outputs is the preferred strategy for achieving desired social outcomes (a form of goal displacement). This incentive to maximize outputs may lead to organizational cheating, in which public agencies purposely manipulate output levels to portray their work in the best light possible.* This study examines the problems of goal displacement and organizational cheating in Texas public schools. Specifically, we examine the degree to which school districts cheat to manipulate student pass rates on standardized exams. School districts "cheat" by liberally exempting certain students from these exams in hopes of raising overall district pass rates. Scarce institutional resources and extreme task demands are associated with cheating. From a management perspective, this study demonstrates the problems in implementing performance standards. From an academic perspective, it provides the first theory about when and why organizations cheat.Policy making at all levels of government has become much more complex over the past three decades. Governments are responsible for maintaining economic stability, combating racial discrimination, providing a safety net for the poor, educating citizens, and protecting consumers from unfair business practices. Political actors identify problems and create public policies to address them, but lack the time and expertise to become day-to-day implementers of policy. Rather than implement programs themselves, political actors rely on bureaucracies to translate abstract public policies into functioning programs.While time constraints and lack of expertise in particular policy areas cause political actors to give bureaucratic organizations the authority to translate public policies into functioning programs, the involvement of political actors in the policy-making process does not stop once this discretionary authority has been granted. With grants of authority comes the expectation that public agencies will perform well in translating public policies into working programs. Concern over bureaucratic performance has spawned various tools for monitoring the work of public agencies. Legislatures often scrutinize the performance of agencies through oversight hearings and review of agency

Through A Glass, Darkly: Understanding the Effects of Performance Regimes

“…Goal displacement may increase as employees pursue measured objectives that do not fully reflect program goals (Bohte & Meier, 2000), and reduce attention to non-mission based values such as equity, due process rights, or citizenship (Piotrowski & Rosenbloom, 2002;Radin 2006;Rosenbloom 2007;Wichowsky and Moynihan 2008).…”

Implementing Results-Based Management in the Public Sector of Developing Countries: What Should be Considered?

“…Organisations that concentrate only on outputs could end up with goal displacement, which could lead to organisational cheating (Curristine et al 2008;Curristine 2005a). In this case public agencies purposely control their output levels to reveal their work in the best possible light (Bohte & Meier 2000). Bohte and Meier (2000) state that goal displacement and cheating often occur when organisations are faced with unrealistic task demands and when they have inadequate resources for performing the task.…”

The Effects of Community Quality of Life on Local Policy Decisions

“…Despite the increasing use and value of performance information in budget decisions, several scholars report challenges in both fostering the use of performance information and determining reliable performance measures (Bohte & Meier, 2000;Moynihan, 2008;Sterck & Scheers, 2006;Yang & Holzer, 2006). For instance, Sterck and Scheers (2006) describe how policy objectives are overly abstract and vague and generally do not establish causal relationships between inputs, outputs, and outcomes.…”

“…In this regard, public agencies frequently are evaluated based on the outputs they produce. Performance measures can create conditions of "goal displacement," where the means replace the goal itself (Bohte & Meier, 2000). Given that community QoL allows local governments to capture how citizens experience, perceive, and evaluate the consequences of a policy, its use enables outcome-and results-based performance management to establish better performance measurement systems.…”