The relationship between participation in the performance appraisal process and various employee reactions was explored through the meta-analysis of 27 studies containing 32 individual samples. The overall relationship (p) between participation and employee reactions, corrected for unreliability, was .61. Various conceptualizations and operationalizations of participation and employee reactions also were discussed and analyzed. Overall, appraisal participation was most strongly related to satisfaction, and value-expressive participation (i.e., participation for the sake of having one's "voice" heard) had a stronger relationship with most of the reaction criteria than did instrumental participation (i.e., participation for the purpose of influencing the end result). The results are discussed within the framework of organizational justice.Performance appraisal is frequently performed in organizations for a variety of purposes, including administrative decisions (e.g., raise, promotion), feedback and development, and personnel research. Thus, performance appraisals are among the most important human resource systems in organizations insofar as they represent critical decisions integral to a variety of human resource actions and outcomes (Judge & Ferris, 1993). Because of its prevalence and importance in organizations, performance appraisal is also one of the most widely researched areas in industrial/organizational psychology (Murphy & Cleveland, 1995).Of great concern to scientists and practitioners has been the issue of appraisal effectiveness and its measurement.

In this study, the authors attempted to comprehensively examine the measurement of performance appraisal reactions. They first investigated how well the reaction scales, representative of those used in the field, measured their substantive constructs. A confirmatory factor analysis indicated that these scales did a favorable job of measuring appraisal reactions, with a few concerns. The authors also found that the data fit a higher order appraisal reactions model. In contrast, a nested model where the reaction constructs were operationalized as one general factor did not adequately fit the data. Finally, the authors tested the notion that self-report data are affectively driven for the specific case of appraisal reactions, using the techniques delineated by L. J. Williams, M. B. Gavin, and M. L. Williams (1996). Results indicated that neither positive nor negative affect presented method biases in the reaction measures, at either the measurement or construct levels.

Building on prior work showing that abusive supervision is a reaction to subordinates' poor performance, we develop a self-control framework to outline when and why supervisors abuse poor performing subordinates. In particular, we argue poor performing subordinates instill in supervisors a sense of hostility towards the subordinate, which in turn leads to engaging in abusive supervision. Within this self-control framework, poor performance is more likely to lead to abusive supervision when (a) the magnitude of the hostility experienced is higher (e.g., for those with a hostile attribution bias), or (b) the translation of hostility into abusive supervision is unconstrained (e.g., for those who are low in trait mindfulness). In two experimental studies with full-time supervisors where we manipulated the independent variable (Study 1) and the mediator (Study 2), and in a multi-wave and multi-source field study with data collected from supervisorsubordinate teams (50 supervisors and 206 subordinates) at two time points (Study 3), we found overall support for our predictions. Implications for how to reduce the occurrence of abusive supervision in the workplace are discussed.

No abstract