Performance appraisal has been well established as an important management tool for improving individual and organisational performance, and has attracted considerable research interest over the past fifty years. Many previous studies of performance appraisal have been conducted either in laboratory settings, or have tended
to focus narrowly on raters and/or the appraisal process, or of necessity have excluded from consideration the group dynamics prevalent in large organisations. Additionally, although it has long been recognised that the purpose of performance appraisal can affect ratings, little appears to have been done in situ on performance appraisal as a part of a complex personnel management system. One consequence of this approach has been a degree of uncertainty on the utility of laboratory and other findings to working appraisal systems. Moreover, previous examinations have focused on civilian
organisations even though military organisations have an equally long history of using performance appraisal for a range of purposes. Using a sample (N = 577) of senior air force officers from three adjacent rank levels, this study examined the relationships between performance appraisal rating leniency, the perceived causes of leniency, and two personnel selection processes based on appraisal data. Rating leniency was perceived to be widespread, and was found to be associated with a lack of confidence (or mistrust) in several aspects of the performance appraisal system and related officer selection processes. While officer groups did not show any practically significant
differences in perception of the prototype of the ideal commander (the leader), raters used a range of prototypes for estimating officers' promotion potential and suitability for command. Officers from one employment specialisation tended to stand apart in their view of the appraisal system and personnel selection processes, and the lower ranking officers surveyed tended to be more critical of the performance appraisal system and selection processes than were the higher ranking officers. In terms of selection process outcomes, 21.7% of officers were not satisfied with the management and leadership style of their commander, and officers at the lower organisational levels were found to be significantly (p<.005) more satisfied with their commander that those at the highest level. Satisfaction was found to be predicted by a multiple regression equation (R2=.72, p<.001), with the elements of the equation reinforcing the importance of a human-relations orientation for effective leaders. This study suggests that the behaviour of a working performance appraisal system can be predicted by established theory and that a model of system effectiveness may be possible, embracing rating errors, rating format, reliability factors (such as dyadic quality and period of observation), criterion validity of the appraisal instrument, and rater trust in the system. Additionally, this study suggests that upwards appraisal may be a useful input to the process for selecting leaders, if only to indicate which appraisal dimensions are perceived by subordinates to be important.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/218579 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | Elsbury, O. James, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Applied Science |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright O. James Elsbury |
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