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Contents
- Abstract
- Subordinates’ Reactions to Performance Appraisal
- Employee Participation in Performance Appraisal
- The Present Study
- Method
- Meta-Analytic Method
- Literature Review and Decision Rules
- Classification of Studies
- Participation
- Reaction criteria
- Predictor and Criterion Reliabilities
- Results
- Overall Relationship Between Participation and Subordinate Reactions
- Overall Participation by Type of Reaction
- Overall Reactions by Type of Participation
- Type of Reaction by Type of Participation
- Satisfaction
- Motivation to improve
- Utility
- Fairness
- Type of Satisfaction by Type of Participation
- Discussion
- Type of Participation
- Type of Reaction
- Implications for Future Research
- Limitations
- Conclusion
- Appendix A
Figures and Tables
Abstract
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 (ρ) 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. Appraisal effectiveness refers to how well the appraisal system is operating as a tool for the assessment of work performance. It is perhaps best regarded as a multidimensional construct or an ultimate criterion (Cascio, 1991) that cannot be directly measured but rather is assessed through the measurement of other subordinate criteria (Cardy & Dobbins, 1994)....