Performance appraisal and management: The developing research agenda

Abstract

Performance appraisal has widened as a concept and as a set of practices and in the form of performance management has become part of a more strategic approach to integrating HR activities and business policies. As a result of this, the research on the subject has moved beyond the limited confines of measurement issues and accuracy of performance ratings and has begun to focus more of social and motivational aspects of appraisal. This article identifies and discusses a number of themes and trends that together make up the developing research agenda for this field. It breaks these down in terms of the nature of appraisal and the context in which it operates. The former is considered in terms of contemporary thinking on the content of appraisal (contextual performance, goal orientation and self awareness) and the process of appraisal (appraiser‐appraisee interaction, and multi‐source feedback). The discussion of the context of appraisal concentrates on cultural differences and the impact of new technology. In reviewing these emerging areas of research, the article seeks to explore some of the implications for appraisal practice at both organizational and individual levels.

Employee development:an organizational justice perspective

“…It is the feedback, and not the mere method itself, which enables the appraisee to make sense of information received and to further his/ her development. Indeed, the usefulness of sole performancerating based appraisal has long been disputed (Fletcher, 1997(Fletcher, , 2001). The results further link to other findings about workplace feedback sources (Bastos & Fletcher, 1995), which highlighted the importance of feedback-giver specific variables, such as the credibility of the feedback source.…”

“…One technique for developing individuals is through the social and motivational aspects of appraisal or review processes (Fletcher, 2001). The terms are often used interchangeably, although it seems to be conventional to use the term appraisal in relation to the formal rating of performance in the literature, whereas the term review is used widely in human resource practice, and tends to also encompass the developmental aspects of appraisal.…”

Performance management practices within emerging market multinational enterprises: the case of Brazilian multinationals

“…They also have far reaching consequences in assessing and developing employee competence, enhancing performance and distributing rewards (Cascio, 2006;Fletcher, 2001;Schuler, Fulkerson, & Dowling, 1991). In addition, research in the German context found performance and bonus systems to be central in standardisation efforts (Muller, 2001) owing to their strategic significance in the organisational value chain (Festing & Eidems, 2011).…”

Publishing at the interfaces of psychology and strategic management

“…appeared in a special issue of the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology that celebrated 100 years of the field's achievements at the turn of the 21 st century (Patterson, 2001). Unlike the other contributors to this particular volume -whose papers offered state-of-the-art reviews of the literature pertaining to some of the field's central topics such as personnel selection and assessment (Robertson and Smith, 2001), Performance and appraisal and management (Fletcher, 2001), and wellbeing and occupational health (Sparks, Faragher, and Cooper, 2001) -our paper was intentionally framed more broadly, in an attempt to stimulate a wider-ranging conversation across the IWO psychology community as a whole regarding what we argued was a growing divide between research and practice, with a view to encouraging a re-strengthening of the scientist-practitioner model, arguably the bedrock of the field . Deliberately provocative, our goal was to engender feelings of discomfort among our readers, with a view countering what we saw as some unfortunate consequences of the effort-reward mechanisms in play among the academic and practitioner wings of the profession.…”