Putting the System Into Performance Management Systems: A Review and Agenda for Performance Management Research

Abstract

It has been 13 years since the last comprehensive review of the performance management (PM) literature, and a lot has changed in both research and practice in that time. The current review updates (identifying new research directions post 2004) and extends this previous work by creating a systems-based taxonomy and conceptual model of PM. We then use this model to interpret and integrate the extensive work in this area and to identify fruitful and systems-based directions for future PM work. As input to our conclusions, we reviewed the last 36-plus years of PM research (1980-2017) and conducted a comprehensive coding of all empirical PM articles. We offer several specific directions for future PM research, with the ultimate goal of improving PM in practice.

Managing employee performance in transition economies: A study of Vietnamese public organizations

“…The above shows research relates the above strategies to increased work motivation, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and organizational performance. However, few studies examine effects of multiple employee PM efforts (Schleicher et al, 2018), and, as we argue above for mutually reinforcing effects, we extend extant studies by examining effects of this study's combined employee PM construct. Specifically, employee PM may increase motivation due to employee participation and goal-based appraisal (Locke, 1968;Posthuma & Campion, 2008;Roberts, 2003), which, when combined with positive rewards, constructive feedback and addressing other poor performers may increase job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Lawler, 2003;Walker, Damanpour, & Devece, 2010;Cerasoli, Nicklin & Ford, 2014).…”

Advancing Theory with Review Articles

“…Theorizing with system theory can revitalize a well‐established stream of research. For example, Schleicher and colleagues’ () observe in their review of the performance management (PM) literature that while scholars conceptualize PM as a process involving a set of interrelated components (i.e., system), the field lacks a parsimonious model for theorizing resulting in ‘many unanswered questions about its [PM] effectiveness’ (p. 2210). To address this concern, they reason that adopting a systems perspective to PM theorizing provides a way to parsimoniously organize the interrelated components of PM and identify novel research directions.…”

How affordances of chatbots cross the chasm between social and traditional enterprise systems

“…Given this use of chatbots to facilitate timely feedback, they can be seen as a complementary alternative to computer-mediated digital feedback systems such as dedicated feedback apps . Therewith, our findings respond to calls for research to increase our understanding of informal day-to-day feedback and to investigate technology usage for performance management (Ashford and Cummings 1983;Levy et al 2017;Schleicher et al 2018). For example, the chatbot in organization Beta calculates velocity measures and posts the relative movement of each project to conversational threads (see Fig.…”

“…Fourth, our results have implications for performance feedback literature. Both academic literature (Levy et al 2017;Schleicher et al 2018) and practice-oriented literature (Armitage and Parrey 2013;Buckingham and Goodall 2015;Cappelli and Tavis 2016) emphasizes that traditional performance management lacks to be in line with current business cycles in providing timely feedback. The identified affordances reveal how chatbots (1) enable computer-generated feedback through automated information flows, and (2) facilitate computer-mediated feedback between employees through reactions and discussions.…”