Quality or Quantity; When Incentives Don’t Match Your Values
SWS Marketing Ethics
What do you see as the ethical dilemma?
Some of the ethical dilemmas I see in this case is that Silicon Valley Tech is setting up their representatives to fail, either professionally or morally. They are doing this by creating these quotas that may be unrealistic and pressuring the representative meet them. Although they are trying to be inspiring, by offering a bonus incentive, it just creates more pressure. Also, these representatives are getting pressure from their managers because they too get an incentive. Forcing the representative to decide between their morals or their profession. Than representatives get to personally count how many quality leads they have passed on. The ethical question becomes, will they be honest and put down the exact number? Also, the managers may ask or tell the representative to up the number when counting, so they can achieve the incentive together.
What factors would weigh into your decision?
Focus on quality leads and potentially miss your monthly quota or pass low quality leads and get your incentive, that is the question. The factors that would weigh into my decision of whether to be honest and risk missing my quota would be, what happens if I do not meet my quota and what happens if I were to continuously not be meeting my quotas. Do I get reprimanded, can I potentially lose my job, will this hinder me from obtaining future promotions? Also, what if I had a family or if I was a single parent, if I were to lose my job it not only affects me, it affects them and now there is the added pressure to make sure I keep my job at all costs. If I were to get reprimanded it would not be a big deal, I can han...
