Performance appraisal: Verisimilitude trumps veracity

Public Personnel Management

Volumn 28, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 557-575

  Bowman, James S ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0033236758     PISSN: 00910260     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/009102609902800406     Document Type: Article

References (38)

1. 1 Longenecker, C O. and S. J. Goff, "Why Performance Appraisals Still Fail," Compensation and Benefits Review. November-December,1990, 36-41 and Schellhardt, T. D. "Annual agony: it's time to evalute your work and all involved are groaning," Wall Street Journal, November 19, 1996,. A1, A5.
2. 1 Longenecker, C O. and S. J. Goff, "Why Performance Appraisals Still Fail," Compensation and Benefits Review. November-December,1990, 36-41 and Schellhardt, T. D. "Annual agony: it's time to evalute your work and all involved are groaning," Wall Street Journal, November 19, 1996,. A1, A5.
3. 2 Halachmi, A "The practice of performance appraisal," in Rabin, J. et al. (eds.), Handbook of Public Personnel Administration (New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc, 1995), 321-355.
4. 3 Daley, D (1992). Performance Appraisal in the Public Sector: Techniques and Applications (Westport, CT: Quorom/Greenwood, 1992).
5. 4 Nigro, L G. and F.A. Nigro, The New Public Personnel Administration (Itasca, IL: F. E. Peacock Publishers, Inc., 1994), 113.
6. 5 Riley, D D., Public Personnel Administration (New York: Harper Collins College Publishers, 1993), 115.
7. 6 Cox, R W., J.J. Buck and B.N. Morgan, Public Administration in Theory and Practice (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall., 1994)., 70.
8. 7 It is neither feasible nor desirable, therefore, to discuss all of these instruments; to do so would be to encourage the notion that the problem of performance measurement is merely one of technique
9. 8 Despite all of these problems, the technique has obvious intuitive appeal since traits may simply be a shorthand way of describing a person's behavior This may explain why some psychologists contend that personality rating scales are not only reasonably valid and reliable, but also that they are more acceptable to evaluators ((re: Cascio, W.F., Applied Psychology in Human Resource Management 5th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998)).
10. 9 Halachmi, opcit.,p. 326.
11. 10 0Ibid, p. 330.
12. 11 Gomez-Mejia, L R., D. B. Balkin, and R.L. Cardy, Managing Human Resources (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995).
13. 12 Wiersma, U and G. Latham, "Practicality of behavioral observation scales, behavioral expectation scales, and trait scales," Personnel Psychology vol. 39, 1986, 619-628.
14. 13 Borman, W C., "Job behavior, performance, and effectiveness," in M. D. Dennette and L. M. Hough (eds.), Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, vol. 2. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press, 1991, 271-326.
15. 14 Fondly known as "massive bowel obstruction," precisely because such a rational system could, in the view of critics, never work with human beings.
16. 15 Rogers, R and J Hunter, "Impact of Management by Objectives on Organizational Productivity," Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 76, 1991, 322-326.
17. 16 Wanguri, D M., "A Review, An Integration, and a Critique of Cross-disciplinary Research on Performance Appraisals, Evaluations, and Feedback," Journal of Business Communications, Vol. 32, 1995, No. 3, 267-293 and Milkovich, C. T. and A. K. Urgdor, Pay for Performance: Evaluating Performance Appraisal and Merit Pay (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1991).
18. 16 Wanguri, D M., "A Review, An Integration, and a Critique of Cross-disciplinary Research on Performance Appraisals, Evaluations, and Feedback," Journal of Business Communications, Vol. 32, 1995, No. 3, 267-293 and Milkovich, C. T. and A. K. Urgdor, Pay for Performance: Evaluating Performance Appraisal and Merit Pay (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1991).
19. 17 Hauser, D and C.H. Fay, "Managing and Assessing Employee Performance," in H. Risher and C. H. Fay (eds.), New Strategies for Public Pay (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass), 185-206.
20. 18 Cardy, R L. and G.H. Dobbins, Performance Appraisal: Alternative Perspectives (Cincinnati, OH: South-Western Publishing Co., 1994).
21. 19 Nigro and Nigro, op cit., p. 135.
22. 20 Murphy, K R., and J.N. Cleveland, Performance Appraisal: An Organizational Perspective (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1991).
23. 21 Daley, op cit.
24. 22 National Performance Review, From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government that Works Better and Costs Less (Washington, DC: US. Government Printing Office, 1993), 32
25. 24 Grote, D Complete Guide to Performance Appraisal (New York: AMACOM, 1996).
26. 24 Early examples include (a) data entry personnel who, when evaluated by the number of key strokes, pressed the space bar while making personal calls and (b) telephone operators, when expected to fulfill a quota in a given time period, would hang up on people with complex problems. The National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety estimates that two-thirds of all video display terminals are electronically monitored (Ambrose, M.L., G.S. Alder, and T.W. Noel, "Electronic Performance Monitoring: A Consideration of Rights," in Schminke, M. ed., Managerial Ethics: Moral Management of People and Processes (Mahwah, NJ: Laurence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 1998, 61-80).
27. 25 Several comprehensive studies have found that racial and sex discrimination, once common in evaluations, are no longer pervasive (Pulakos, E.D., et al., "Examination of Race and Sex Effects on Performance Ratings," Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 74,1989, 770-780 and Waldman D. A. and B.J. Avolio, Race Effects in Performance Evaluations: Controlling for Ability, Education and Experience," Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 76,1991, 897-911.
28. 25 Several comprehensive studies have found that racial and sex discrimination, once common in evaluations, are no longer pervasive (Pulakos, E.D., et al., "Examination of Race and Sex Effects on Performance Ratings," Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 74,1989, 770-780 and Waldman D. A. and B.J. Avolio, Race Effects in Performance Evaluations: Controlling for Ability, Education and Experience," Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 76,1991, 897-911.
29. 26 Leniency (a.k.a. "grade inflation") in academe is "the refusal by faculty members to behave like adults, that is like people with enough integrity to disappoint other people. It is as though some professors want to believe that everybody deserves to be first. Everybody doesn't" (Carter, S. Integrity (New York, Basic Books, 1996), 79).
30. 27 Longenecker, C O. and D, Ludwig. "Ethical Dilemmas in Performance Appraisals Revisited," Journal of Business Ethics Vol. 9, 1990, 961-969.
31. 28 The saying, "When you point your finger at me, remember that your other fingers are pointing back at you," is appropriate here
32. 29 Nigro and Nigro, op cit., pp. 114-116.
33. 30 Halachmi, op cit., p. 325.
34. 31 McGregor, D (1957). An Uneasy Look at performance Appraisal. Harvard Business Review, Vol. 35, 1957, 90
35. 32 The pervasiveness of this problem accounts for the use of the term "personnel appraisal," not "performance appraisal" in this essay.
36. 33 In the private sector, those companies that emphasized frequent feedback outperformed those that did not in all financial and productivity measures (Campbell, R.B. and L.M. Garfinkel, "Strategies for Success in Measuring Performance," HR Magazine, June, 1996, 98-104).
37. 34 Wexley, K, "Appraisal Interview," in Berk, R.A. (ed.), Performance Assessment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986),. 167-185.
38. 35 US. Merit Systems Protection Board, Federal Supervisors and Strategic Human Resources Management (Washington, DC: The Board, 1998).