Chapter 4: Performance Appraisal Discomfort of Critical Incidents

Performance appraisals are a widely used behavioral maintenance mechanism, occurring in roughly 90% of organizations (Coens & Jenkins, 2000). Where as the notion underlying performance appraisals posits that desired employee behaviors are to be reinforced through administrative rewards such as merit increases, promotions, and job stability, Long-necker, Sims, and Gioia (1987) found that individuals at the top of the hierarchical food chain are not always concerned with performance rating accuracy. Executives do recognize the inherent benefits of performance appraisals in organizational settings, but combat the possibility of negative consequences arising from assigning undesirable ratings to subordinates, for instance, by intentionally elevating ratings (leniency) (Longnecker et al., 1987). The current research is a replication and extension of earlier studies (Bernardin & Villanova, 2005; and Villanova, Bernardin, Dahmus, & Sims, 1993) that was interested in filling the knowledge gap in rater sources of leniency, and why certain managers are more likely to rate in a lenient fashion. We hypothesize that the ratings of raters scoring higher on the PADS would evidence greater leniency than those who scored lower on the PADS. Furthermore, we hypothesize from previous research that differences in sex will not account for differences in rater self-efficacy, but instead managerial experience will reflect greater disparity in the types of critical incident responses. Self-efficacy can be inferred from the types of managerial responses, and the critical incident taxonomy should allow the researchers to make this distinction.