Question

What negative behaviors may result within an organization from tournament-based promotions?

Answer 1

Solution

Tournaments are used in many organizations for promotions, motivating employees or giving bonuses etc. These tournaments can motivate employees to put in extra efforts which can be beneficial for both the organization as well as individual. It can also help organization to select the achievers from laggards. Though there are many benefits from such tournaments yet it does brings some cons with it too.

Firstly if these tournaments have monetary implications then there will be some who will have monetary gains while others will not. This will lead to inequality in payoff which can lead to a discontent in the employees. Also if the incentives are given on relative comparison basis they can lead to “discouragement effect” i.e. the workers with a relatively lower ability may further cut down their effort which can again lead to loss for organization

In relative incentive structure or tournaments, the employees treat each other as competitors and resort to selfish behavior, which hampers the team play attitude of the departments and in the long run loss for organization. In extreme cases this competition can lead to employees indulging in counterproductive behaviors such as sabotage and cheating etc.

Thus we see that such tournaments etc. though may have some benefits but has some negatives too ,thus the organizations should be very careful while implementing such policies