No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis investigates training evaluation in the police service. It explores the challenges facing the police in undertaking such an evaluation. In recent years, there have been a number of national strategic papers from the Home Office on this subject. This move towards enhanced performance and measurement of outcomes from training is part of a wider cultural change facing the police. There is an extensive body of literature on the subject of training evaluation, but in contrast training evaluation within the police service has not been extensively researched. This research adopts a case study methodological approach focusing upon two constabularies. The methods include semi- structured interviews, observation of training, plus the collection and study of police policy documents. There is increasing pressure on the police service to meet targets and become more performance driven. Training evaluation has therefore taken centre stage. With the prospect of police budgets being restricted, evidence of increasing efficiency, greater performance and results from the training contribution need to be made clearer. This research will contribute to knowledge on training evaluation and inform police policy debates. Investigation found that the police use the Kirkpatrick model to evaluate training. This research identified challenges for the police specifically at levels three and four of the Kirkpatrick model, due to a number of reasons including the lack of clearly defined performance measures. The research discovered a gap in the literature between the link on training evaluation and the appraisal scheme. This was reinforced by the findings from the two case studies. As a result of the emergent themes, an Enhanced Evaluation model was created. This involves a six-phased approach to training evaluation as a cycle and encompasses the in-house police appraisal scheme known as Performance Development Review. Future research could investigate this Enhanced Evaluation model both in the police service and wider public sector.

A remarkable number of research are coming to suggest that the approach driving the current human resource (HR) performance evaluation in the organisations with a quality orientation is fundamentally in sharp conflict with total quality management (TQM) requirements. This inconsistency, in turn, impedes the transition to a stable total quality (TQ) environment, or actively encourages regression to the traditional ways. Are human resource management (HRM) departments meeting TQM requirements with a good foundation for measuring HR performance? Are the criteria that organisations traditionally have used in measuring HR performance sufficiently robust that they can still be applied to the TQM-driven organisations? This research project argues that, although some of the characteristics of the current HR performance evaluation continue to be applicable to the quality organisational environments, many are not. The research sketches out a way to think about the differences between TQM and HRM approaches to performance management for organisations with a TQM orientation. To this end, the initial research is built on the findings of the literature available in both areas of quality management and HR performance evaluation in order to establish the context for the following empirical work. Then, the study employed a mixed methodology design consisted of two separate but linked methods: a questionnaire survey and a semistructured interview survey. While over half of the organisations surveyed were awarded different quality prizes, and some of them have become popular and feature among the most successful companies in the UK, however, their HR performance evaluation systems continue to focus on the non-TQM measures for assessment of employees' performance rather than the ongoing task of renewing and revisiting these criteria compatible to the organisational context. Such focus may be insufficient as TQM-driven HR performance management expands beyond the traditional approach to HR performance evaluation. Also, as frequently cited in the literature, Deming (1986) established that 95% of variance in the performance is due to system factors. Very few organisations, however, have included such factors as their approach to identifying the variance in the performance. Instead, the survey results found 'management of individual performance' as the most agreed criterion of the performance evaluation systems in place; however, this is entirely opposed to the TQM philosophy. Further, the findings suggest that improvement of employees' performance, customer care, active involvement of employees, and approaching performance evaluation as a quality management effort are the most generally agreed components of a TQM-driven HR performance evaluation. Overall, the reality in respect of quality-focused HR performance evaluation is that, for the majority of the organisations surveyed, the experience of HR performance evaluation practices over the last two decades, is more like the performance appraisal that it was many years ago i. e. traditional HR performance evaluation. The findings indicate what Deming has said many years ago that performance evaluation practices - as the third of his seven deadly diseases - are a root cause of quality management problems. Attempts to redesign and administer the current performance evaluation systems in such a ways to resolve this problem have, so far, been unsuccessful. The conclusion, unpalatable though it may be, is that HR performance evaluation in the majority of surveyed TQM-based organisations is locked into a vicious circle of individual performance, control approach, HR dissatisfaction, and a low degree of success for TQM programmes. These findings suggest resurgence in the value attached to the HR performance evaluation, reflecting the heightened pressures faced by all types of organisations, particularly TQM organisations, in designing an HR performance evaluation congruent with the organisational context in the interest of both the TQM organisation and the employees. A TQM approach to HR performance evaluation, inspired in detail by TQM researchers, slightly appears to be shifting towards a more balanced outlook where all people in any organisational position will be responsible for quality, but that there is still a long way to go.

The use of performance appraisal (PA) schemes is now almost ubiquitous in modem organizations, yet the academic literature on the subject must contend with a number of empirical studies which suggest that those who implement appraisal systems consider them to have failed. This suggests a need for more comprehensive examination of what happens when PA is implemented in practice. Taking a broadly realist approach, this thesis argues that such an examination must give a more comprehensive picture of how each of the different groups involved in PA participate in such schemes, with such participation seen not as determined by appraisal systems, but as meaningful choices taken by agents, which are influenced by such systems. This thesis focuses on the understandings (or 'theorizations') of PA held by different groups, arguing that these are the basis of the choices they make about how to participate. Employees at two local authorities in England were interviewed about their understandings and experiences of PA, and connections were drawn from the distinctive rationalities of each group about the organization in general, through their understandings of PA in particular, to the way they actually participate in appraisal. The latter topic is not a major focus of the thesis, but was studied by examining how PA forms at the two authorities had been designed to produce certain outcomes, and how some appraisers and appraisees had completed those forms. From this examination, two main conclusions are drawn. Firstly, the studied schemes reflected their designers' wish for them to perform multiple and contradictory functions. Secondly, appraisers and appraisees participated in PA enthusiastically, but often in ways against the design of the PA scheme, reflecting the fact that, whilst they accepted the legitimacy of their organization's PA schemes, their understandings of PA were very different to those of the designers.

The focus of this Thesis is on examining and explaining the effects of performance monitoring on employee performance and well-being outcomes. The use of monitoring, organisational systems and practices for managing employees' performance behaviours, is extensive, despite an ongoing and unresolved debate over its effects on employees. Job design, goal-setting and feedback, leadership and organisational justice theories were used as a basis for constructing a more comprehensive and integrative research model on performance monitoring and its effects than has been examined to date. Herein, characteristics of the monitoring process were hypothesised to motivate cognitive and attitudinal reactions in employees, in turn affecting outcomes. The role of managers was further positioned as antecedent to the employee experience of monitoring. To test the model, survey data from around one thousand call centre employees and managers were collected within two longitudinal field studies, and analysed statistically using multiple regression, structural equation modelling and latent growth modelling. Findings from the main cross-sectional analyses supported that performance monitoring had both direct and indirect effects on employee performance and well-being as a function of its utility, and that manager support was a critical factor. Learning, mental-effort, and perceptions of the fairness and privacy invasiveness of monitoring were established as explanatory mechanisms. This was the first field research to document a monitoring-performance relationship. The model was further explored on a longitudinal basis, providing limited support for the direct effects of monitoring over time. Overall, performance monitoring that developed employees was found to have the most global benefits. The theoretical and practical implications of this research are discussed, and directions for future research presented.

No description available.

No description available.

Evidence shows that an organization will function more effectively if the various components of its human resource management system are aligned and acting in a mutually supportive way (Baird and Meshoulam, 1988; Semler, 1997; Bowen and Ostroff, 2004). According to some authors a competency-based performance management system supports the concept of alignment by defining and rewarding the behaviour that is expected and associated with effective performance (Grote, 2000; Boam and Sparrow, 1992; Richards and Howard, 2004; Hopen, 2004; Mosley and Bryan, 1992). The assumptions underpinning the competency-based approach to performance management have, however, been questioned by a number of other authors, including Burgoyne (1989), Jacobs (1990), Morgan (1997) and Day, (1988). The motivation for this research study resulted from a perceived misalignment between (1) the desired leadership behaviour espoused by the top team members of a major UK multinational organization, (2) the behaviour prescribed in the organization’s leadership competencies, and (3) the behaviour that was rewarded in practice. The study takes an unusual opportunity to conduct an in-depth study of the application of a competency based approach to performance management. In the first of three linked research projects, one-to-one interviews were conducted with the organization’s six top team members using an approach that combined repertory grid and laddering techniques. The aim was firstly, to identify the top team members’ criteria 'in use' for assessing and rewarding leadership behaviour in the context of the organization's decision to utilise a competency-based approach to performance management, and secondly, to test the degree of alignment of these criteria among the top team members. The data revealed a good degree of alignment regarding the competencies required, but a poor degree of alignment on their definitions of the behaviours needed to support those competencies. It was also found that two competencies mentioned by the top team members were missing from the organization’s new formal leadership competencies. In the second project the output of Project 1 was used in a web-based questionnaire that was distributed to the 301 members of the organization’s Global Services Leadership Team (GSLT), whose performance appraisals were based on the leadership competencies. The purpose of Project 2 was firstly, to test the degree of alignment between the GSLT's views of what constituted appropriate behaviour and the views of the top team revealed in Project 1, and secondly, to test the degree of alignment of how the desired behaviours identified by the top team were seen to support the leadership competencies. The results showed a good degree of alignment across the GSLT with the top team views of what constituted appropriate behaviour but a poor degree of alignment of understanding of how those behaviours supported the formal competencies. The results also identified a degree of ambiguity within and between the competencies. In the third and final project I conducted a series of participative feedback sessions with key organizational stakeholders based on the results of Projects 1 and 2. Using principles taken from action research, Project 3 was a joint exploration of the problems identified with the performance management system exposed in Projects 1 and 2. The purpose of Project 3 was to stimulate the organization to make changes to improve the alignment and effectiveness of the performance management system. Project 3 identified that it was deemed unrealistic and inappropriate to try to define a unified set of competencies that could be applied in all contexts and applied to all of the different challenges facing the organization. The principle proposal resulting from this study is the need for a modification to alignment theory. It is proposed that extant competency literature appears to be overly prescriptive and fails to take account of contextual factors and the particular challenges facing individuals. The proposed modification to alignment theory requires the inclusion of the process of dialogue and the need for the active involvement of the leadership team members in facilitating understanding and effecting organizational alignment when applying a competency-based approach to performance management. It is proposed therefore that effective leadership action is critical to the creation of alignment that ultimately leads to more effective performance at the level of the individual, the process and the organization. Suggestions for further research to explore these proposals are made.