Perverse Incentives and Peccable Behavior in Professionals - A Qualitative Study of the Faculty

This study aims at finding out the effect of incentives on the behavior of faculty, through a qualitative analysis of the views of the respondents, supported by evidence from the literature. Development of codes at two levels, such as descriptive and inferential codes, leads to the generation of patterns. Data were collected from six universities and terminated into a cross-case analysis for the purpose of comparison and contrasting the findings. The study found that the incentive system of higher education institutions is disassociated from the cultural and contextual aspects of the workplace – elevating the wrong dimensions of the employee’s performance. Such peccable or susceptibility of behaviors has further increased the tendency among the faculty towards opportunistic behavior. The findings will help administrative leaders and incentive system designers to align enticements with the bigger goals of higher education, instead of achieving short term benefits.