Articulating appraisal system effectiveness based on managerial cognitions
| Pages | 206-230 |
| Date | 13 February 2007 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/00483480710726118 |
| Published date | 13 February 2007 |
| Author | Robert P. Wright,Frenda K.K. Cheung |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Articulating appraisal system
effectiveness based on
managerial cognitions
Robert P. Wright and Frenda K.K. Cheung
Department of Management and Marketing,
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Abstract
Purpose – The aim of this article is to investigate how managers see, interpret and make sense of
their performance management system experiences and recommend the way forward for both policy
and practice, in what makes effective appraisal systems.
Design/methodology/approach – The study applied the repertory grid to elicit the personal
constructs of how managers make sense of their appraisal experiences. The cognitive mapping
methodology allows the researcher to go deep into the respondents’ “theories in use” to provide new
insights on how they “think”. This, in turn, allows a better understanding of the language managers
use to make sense of the experiences.
Findings – Core conceptual dimensions, cognitive maps and cluster diagrams were generated,
providing implications for research, practice and new directions for future research.
Research limitations/implications – Although the application of the grid technique was
time-consuming, the finer grain level of analysis provided a deeper appreciation of managers’
“theoriesin use”. The study provides a cross-sectional viewof the current state of managerialcognitions.
Findings open up new ways of thinking and new way of doing in appraisalresearch and practice.
Practical implications – The findings provided very meaningful insights on what managers look
for in appraisal system effectiveness, along with the documentation of how they make connections
between their own elicited personal constructs on system effectiveness.
Originality/value – The paper makes a modest contribution to both theory and practice from the
perspective of managerial cognitions about the entire appraisal systems using a method originating
from clinical psychology.
Keywords Performance management systems, Performance appraisal, Management effectiveness,
Cognition, HongKong
Paper type Research paper
I will state my belief that cognitive appraisal research will continue to be a viable, vibrant
area for research, although I think that the cognitive research in the future will need to be
different from the cognitive research in the past (Angelo DeNisi, 1996, p. 173).
Introduction
In the midst of both regional and global economic turbulence, organizations are facing
an unprecedented need to downsize, restructure and re-engineer in order to remain
competitive and to survive (Grote, 1996; Stivers and Joyce, 2000). With changing
paradigms of the way we do business and manage people, issues of productivity and
the evaluation of performance have risen to the top of every decision-making agenda.
In this respect, performance management systems have come to play an even mor e
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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PR
36,2
206
Received 26 July 2004
Revised 19 July 2005
Accepted 21 September
2005
Personnel Review
Vol. 36 No. 2, 2007
pp. 206-230
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/00483480710726118
indispensable role in helping organizations reach their goals of productivity. When
implemented and managed properly, appraisal systems as a value-added service can
give a company a competitive edge by helping it achieve its business strategies (Allan,
1994; DDI, 1994; Kotter and Hesketh, 1992; Martin and Bartol, 1998; Murphy, 1993;
Orpen, 1997; Roberts, 1996; Stivers and Joyce, 2000).
Yet, in view of their rise to importance, effective and successful appraisal systems in
organizations are not common as one might assume given the plethora of research
undertaken in this area of human resource management (Bretz et al., 1992; Murphy and
Cleveland, 1995). Most appraisal systems fail (Carson et al., 1991; Deming, 1986; DeNisi,
1996; Longnecker and Goff, 1992; Phillips, 1987; Schay, 1993; Schweiger and Sumners,
1994; Wright and THC, 1999). Many studies, though noteworthy in advancing the field,
have been conducted based on a limited focus on the mechanics (or aspects) of the
system rather than the system as a whole (Bernardin and Pence, 1980; Ilgen et al. ,1979;
Latham and Yukl, 1976, Allan, 1994; Malinauskas and Clements, 1987; Meyer et al.,
1965; Smith, 1986). Hence, never fully presenting the bigger picture of how the core
activities of the appraisal process hang together in relation to each other. Perhaps we
have been too preoccupied at the micro level and not enough due diligence on how
appraisals and performance management in their entirety impacts upon corporate
initiatives and business strategies (DeNisi, 1996; Huselid, 1995). Similarly, relative to
the volumes of research on appraisal and appraisal system effectiveness, not much is
known about how organizational actors (both raters and ratees), party to the appraisal
process, construe and make sense of their appraisal experiences within the bigger
framework of the performance management system. Research of this kind in the past,
have purely focused on the rater (per se) in their decision making role when making
judgements about employee performance. We believe the type of cognitive research
advocated in this paper, built on the solid foundation of past works, makes a modest
advancement to the field. Investigating managerial mental frames of reference will
allow us to go deeper into better understanding what people look for in appraisal
system effectiveness and hence, design.
As such, this paper extends the present mainstream research on appraisal
cognitions by investigating the following fundamental research questions:
RQ1. How do practicing managers see, interpret and make sense of their
performance management experiences?
RQ2. In what way can these managerial cognitions of appraisal system experience
lead to a deeper understanding of the way forward in designing more
effective performance management systems?
Why managerial cognitions of appraisals?
Landy and Farr’s (1980) classic review gave birth to the “cognitive era” in appraisal
research. Prior studies purely focused their attention on appraisal rating scales and
rater error training as means of increasing the accuracy of performance evaluations.
But Landy and Farr (1980) advocated the real important part of the appraisal equation
was the “rater” and how they collected and used performance information to make
appraisal decisions. They convincingly argued that raters engaged in cognitive
processes closely related to the decision making process and that if we are to fully
comprehend how raters make appraisal decisions, we would be able to make ap praisals
Appraisal
system
effectiveness
207
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