Document Review: Journal Articles, Performance Evaluations, and Organizational Citizenship Terminology

Abstract

The purpose of conducting the document analysis was to visually compare various performance review documents with topical literature noting the exclusion of language that identifies and measures organizational citizenship behaviors among employees informal performance evaluation processes. A document analysis consisted of reviewing 56 publicly accessible, recent, and random performance review documents and 30 peer-reviewed journal articles identifying terms related to organizational citizenship behaviors. The expectation was to support the argument that most publicly accessible organizational performance evaluation documents exclude any significant terms related to organizational citizenship behaviors exhibited by employees. Findings from the document review supported the research inquiry of exclusion of terms listed in historical literature generally related to organizational citizenship behaviors in current performance evaluations. The inclusion of terms related to organizational citizenship behaviors in literature was extremely high. Emerson’s social exchange theory provided the theoretical foundation for the research. Podsakoff’s organizational citizenship behavior research was the principal impetus for comparison of performance evaluations and current literature, focusing on related terms for organizational citizenship behaviors in the workplace. Implications are that the belief and feeling of employee value, as based on formal performance evaluations, requires organizational leaders to provide a document worthy of measuring all aspects of expected and unexpected work behaviors. This paper addresses a need for organizational leaders to revise formal performance evaluation documents to ensure altruistically and above and beyond citizenship behavior terms from the literature are also part of the reward and recognition process. Changes in the formal performance evaluation process are necessary for future organizational success. Keywords: Altruism; Organizational Citizenship Behaviors; Performance Evaluations; Recognition and Rewards; Social Exchange Theory.

Exploring Updates to Performance Evaluation Terminology

“…Search terms specific to performance evaluations: Organizational citizenship behaviors, history of human resources, job satisfaction, employee motivation, job productivity, job performance assessment, human resources, performance evaluations, and employee retention, brought forth no existing research regarding updating performance evaluation documents. Samples of performance evaluation documents were readily available, most notably from recent research targeting performance evaluation document terminology (Conzelmann, 2020a;Quantum Workplace, 2020). The following sections comprise the supporting literature for this topic and the first step toward increasing existing literature and knowledge about changes to the performance evaluation process.…”

“…Recent research supported revising formal performance evaluation documents to include organizational citizenship behavior terms to capture and measure employees' altruistic, over and above, contributions (Conzelmann, 2020a(Conzelmann, , 2020b. In addition, various sources substantiated that recognition of organizational citizenship behaviors, in addition to the usual job-related tasks, during performance evaluations increases employee satisfaction, job performance, and ongoing exhibition of altruistic and above and beyond contributions (Conzelmann, 2020a(Conzelmann, , 2020bSharma, 2018;Tourigny et al, 2019). However, no new performance evaluations existed measuring both facets of employee contributions.…”

“…In addition, particular organizations use evaluations, and many are generic, available for fair use by any organization. However, with the ease of obtaining literature wherein, leaders agree organizational citizenship behaviors are important to organizational and employee success (Conzelmann, 2020a(Conzelmann, , 2020b Tourigny et al, 2019). It was disappointing not to find any updated, publicly accessible performance evaluations.…”

“…Organizational citizenship behavior is a widely researched topic. With a notable beginning in the 1960s, research increased exponentially over the next 50 years; however, most research focused on person-to-person interactions (Blau, 1964;Conzelmann, 2020aConzelmann, , 2020bEmerson, 1976). The initial problem was the continued lack of leadership recognition of organizational citizenship behaviors during employee performance evaluations.…”

“…The current issue extends further to the lack of updated documentation to measure organizational citizenship behaviors, that is, employee contributions that go above and beyond the usual job-related tasks expected of employees (Conzelmann, 2020b). After researching publicly accessible performance evaluation documents and the terminology used for deciding employee rewards and retention, the data revealed a need to update documents used by human resource leaders (Conzelmann, 2020a). As noted in prior research, terminology in performance evaluations is limited to only 11 specific, job-related terms − excluding organizational citizenship behavior terminology.…”