Relationships Between Attitudes Toward Organizations and Performance Appraisal Systems and Rating Behavior

Abstract

Data collected in seven separate samples in three countries (the USA, Canada and Israel) were used to examine the relationships between perceptions of one's organization (climate, commitment), beliefs about appraisal systems (self-efficacy, uses of appraisal) and raters' orientations to appraisal systems (confidence and comfort) and specific rating behaviors. We obtained good fits for structural models suggesting that attitudes and beliefs accounted for substantial variance in raters' likelihood of giving high or low ratings, willingness to discriminate good from poor performers, and willingness to discriminate among various aspects of job performance when completing actual performance ratings. Proximal attitudes and beliefs (i.e., those directly related to the performance appraisal system) appear to have stronger links to rating behavior than do more distal attitudes (i.e., attitudes toward the organization in general).R ecent models of the appraisal process (e.g. Cleveland and Murphy 1992; Cleveland 1991, 1995) have suggested that a number of characteristics of both the appraisal system and the organizational context in which it resides are critical for understanding the rating process. So-called`rater errors' and other shortcomings of appraisals may in fact represent conscious decisions on the part of the rater to distort performance ratings in order to help attain personally or organizationally-valued goals. For example, a supervisor who wishes to motivate a particular subordinate might give that person higher ratings than his or her performance merits.In order to understand the processes involved in deciding how to complete performance evaluations, it is necessary to consider both the rater's attitudes and beliefs that are immediately relevant to the task of evaluating performance (e.g., beliefs about how performance appraisal is used in an organization) and his or her more general beliefs and attitudes toward the organization (e.g., perceptions of the climate of the organization). Empirical research on the roles of attitudes and beliefs about appraisal systems and the organizational contexts in which they reside in shaping rating behavior is just starting to appear. For example, Tziner and Murphy (1999) and Tziner et al. (1998) report links between such beliefs and the ratings supervisors actually give when completing performance appraisals. The aim of this article is to extend and integrate the findings of these initial studies.A major theme of recent performance appraisal research is that performance ratings cannot be adequately understood outside of the organizational contexts in which they are assigned, and that raters' beliefs about the organization and about the appraisal system are a critical determinant of their subsequent rating behavior. The current article reports and integrates the results of a number of studies examining the influence of three broad categories of attitudes and beliefs identified in the research literature as important for understanding performance appraisal: (a) attitudes to...

Examination of Performance Appraisal Behavior Structure

“…Discrimination among dimensions was represented by the variability of the mean score assigned to each performance incident statement by each rater ( M = 0.76; SD = 0.36). It is worth noting that all the scales and measures of this study demonstrated reasonable psychometric qualities in a stream of previous publications (e.g., Tziner et al, 2001). …”

“…Previous studies have confirmed links between organizational climate and rating behavior (e.g., Tziner et al, 2001). In this study we examined, in particular, organizational citizenship, a concept which is defined here as employees' cooperative behavior that is discretionary (rather than compulsory); it is not formally rewarded, and it contributes to the smooth functioning of the organization (Organ, 1988).…”

“…( M = 4.57; SD = 0.60). Following earlier studies of this nature, the index of ratee discrimination was derived from the standard deviation of the ratee means obtained from each rater (see Tziner et al, 2001; M = 0.94; 0.52). Discrimination among dimensions was represented by the variability of the mean score assigned to each performance incident statement by each rater ( M = 0.76; SD = 0.36).…”

Contextual and Individual Difference Factors Predicting Individuals’ Desire to Provide Upward Feedback

“…In the performance appraisal literature, job attitudes, such as organizational commitment, have also been shown to relate to the quality of supervisor ratings. For example, affective commitment has related positively with rating level (Tziner et al, 1998(Tziner et al, , 2001Tziner & Murphy, 1999), both positively (Tziner et al, 2001;Tziner & Murphy, 1999) and negatively (Tziner et al, 1998) with rater ability to discriminate among ratees, and positively with rater ability to discriminate between performance dimensions (Tziner et al, 2001). Similarly, organizational climate has related positively with rating level (Tziner et al, 1998) and negatively with rater ability to discriminate among ratees (Tziner et al, 1998(Tziner et al, , 2001).…”

Testing a model of performance appraisal fit on attitudinal outcomes.

“…1999; Lefkowitz, 2000;Lievens, 2001;Mero, Motowidlo, & Anna, 2003;Noonan & Sulsky, 2001;Schleicher & Day, 1998;Srull & Wyer, 1989;Tizner, Murphy, & Cleveland 2001). Fletcher (2001), in his review article on the extant performance appraisal research and where it is headed, stated that the research was beginning to shift from a focus on rating accuracy to social and motivational concerns.…”