About
44
Publications
35,354
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
2,211
Citations
Introduction
Generally, I view myself as a performance appraisal/evaluation researcher but I also have interests in organizational justice, which I often combine with my interest in performance appraisal.
Current institution
Publications
Publications (44)
Despite expectations, assessment center (AC) participants' performance ratings often are not strongly correlated over AC exercises. Why is a puzzle? Perhaps one piece of the puzzle is that participants view AC exercises with varying levels of motivation, justice, and self‐efficacy, which relate to exercise performance, the topic of the current rese...
Preliminary research has demonstrated that not all assessment center (AC) exercises are viewed as equally just or motivating. The current research builds upon this research and investigates the relationships between six AC exercises and perceptions of self-efficacy, motivation, assessor bias, and fairness. Using a 2 × 2 × 2 experimental design (two...
We explore whether justice-related trainer behaviors can contribute to positive training outcomes, with just behaviors defined according to the organizational justice literature. We also explore possible psychological mechanisms that may explain why just trainer behaviors matter, focusing on positive affect and felt obligation. The importance of ju...
Accountability and performance management scholars have called for more attention to the micro-level consequences of performance regimes, including the effects of performance information use. Reflecting these themes, this study considers the degree to which accountability regimes in schools, imposed by U.S. states, and encouraged by the federal gov...
The value of performance ratings has recently been widely discussed. We take a big data approach to performance ratings and propose a new use for performance ratings, an approach that could be used with other types of employee performance information as well. We investigate whether employees can be grouped according to their performance ratings ove...
Individuals concerned with subgroup differences on standardized tests suggest replacing these tests with holistic evaluations of unstructured application materials, such as letters of recommendation (LORs), which they posit show less bias. We empirically investigate this proposition that LORs are bias-free, and argue that LORs might actually invite...
Individuals concerned with subgroup differences on standardized tests suggest replacing these tests with holistic evaluations of unstructured application materials, such as letters of recommendation (LORs), which they posit show less bias. We empirically investigate this proposition that LORs are bias-free, and argue that LORs might actually invite...
We explore one possible factor contributing to the proverbial glass ceiling for women—manifestation of the backlash effect, defined as social repercussions received by women who violate the female gender‐role norm, in performance feedback. Feedback phrasing may have consequences for employee commitment to the organization and intention to leave. Th...
We empirically investigated whether employees would rather not receive performance ratings, as often claimed by those advocating the elimination of ratings. We also investigated whether rating preference is colored by perceived justice/injustice and whether factors antithetical to positive reactions to ratings – politics, low previous performance r...
According to social exchange theory, felt obligation after being treated justly is key to explaining why justice perceptions influence behaviors important to organizations, such as task performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Perhaps those who believe in a just world (Just World Hypothesis, JWH) are more likely to feel obligated...
We investigated whether individualistic and collectivistic cultural values influence the extent to which raters consider task, citizenship (OCB), and counterproductive work behaviors (CWB) when evaluating overall employee performance. Participants completed a managerial role-play exercise in which they read employee performance vignettes and rated...
A survey of performance management (PM) practices in 101 U.S. organizations explored whether their PM systems, as perceived by human resources (HR) executives, reflect the best practices advocated by researchers to provide a benchmark of current PM practices. Results suggest that many of the PM practices recommended in the research literature are e...
Schiemann and Ulrich's (2017) discussion of opportunities for industrial–organizational (I-O) psychology speaks directly to the growing movement of companies eliminating their performance ratings. One of the main issues that the focal article highlights is the need for strong analytics and measurement. A core domain of industrial psychology histori...
Adler et al. (2016) provide a discussion of the pros and cons surrounding the issue of “Getting Rid of Performance Ratings.” Yet neither the pro nor the con side of the debate appears to fully consider the central role of performance ratings outside the realm of performance management.
In their focal article, Adler and his colleagues (2016) elaborate on the pros and cons of abolishing the performance appraisal process in organizations. Sherman-Garr (2014) contends that this trend is on the rise because both managers—the raters—and their subordinates—the ratees—disdain performance scores. Employees feel that performance ratings do...
Current theories of applicant motivation do not take the scoring of the selection measure into account. We propose that selection measures scored objectively versus using ratings have different motivational antecedents and consequences than selection measures scored using performance ratings. Results from two studies indicated differences between a...
Much of the prior research investigating the influence of cultural values on performance ratings has focused either on conducting cross-national comparisons among raters or using cultural level individualism/collectivism scales to measure the effects of cultural values on performance ratings. Recent research has shown that there is considerable wit...
An integrative model of social exchange relationships was used to investigate whether coworker exchange relationships, in addition to leader-member exchange (LMX), contribute to outcomes beneficial for fellow employees and their organization. Data from university alumni showed both LMX and coworker support significantly related to perceived organiz...
Supervisory ratings of individual job performance are the most frequently used and studied manner in which employee performance is assessed. Volumes have been written on performance ratings, what they mean, and how to improve them. Our goal in this chapter is to provide a broad-level summary of the literature on performance ratings. Moreover, we se...
The present study updates Woehr and Huffcutt's (1994) rater training meta-analysis and demonstrates that frame-of-reference (FOR) training is an effective method of improving rating accuracy. The current meta-analysis includes over four times as many studies as included in the Woehr and Huffcutt meta-analysis and also provides a snapshot of current...
Purpose
This paper explores how well raters’ self-judgments of their rating and behavioral accuracy reflect reality. We also explore the role of motivation in determining the quality of raters’ self-judgments and their rating and behavioral accuracy.
Design/Methodology/Approach
In this study, 327 participants watched two videotaped lecturers and pr...
A meta-analysis of the relationship between class attendance in college and college grades reveals that attendance has strong relationships with both class grades (k = 69, N = 21,195, ρ = .44) and GPA (k = 33, N = 9,243, ρ = .41). These relationships make class attendance a better predictor of college grades than any other known predictor of academ...
When providing performance ratings, it is commonly assumed that raters agree more on rating items that are behaviorally based and observable than on items that are vague and less behaviorally based. This study empirically investigated the relationships between agreement among raters, raters' perceptions regarding their difficulty in providing ratin...
The primary goal of this study was to develop and test a social exchange model of employee reactions to electronic performance monitoring (EPM) to help managers use EPM more effectively. This study proposed that certain EPM practices are related to perceptions of interpersonal and informational justice, which in turn build trust in the manager, alo...
Letters of recommendation (LORs) are a widely used selection tool with many issues associated with their use. To address some of these issues, 575 professionals in personnel-related professions reported their experiences with LORs. We separated items into consensus, polarized, or neither categories. Experts reached consensus that letter inflation i...
This study investigated whether 2 well-known biases, gender and physical appearance, influence readers' perceptions of different types of letters of recommendation (LORs; inflated vs. noninflated). Based on 244 participants, a main effect for letter type was found. Applicants with inflated letters were more likely to be hired and were predicted to...
The success of a productivity intervention may depend on the fit between the intervention and the country in which it is implemented. In particular, a country's horizontal collectivism may influence the intervention's effectiveness. Results based on a database of 90 organizational units from seven different countries in which ProMES, a productivity...
The authors explored whether accountability has implications for performance ratings and investigated factors that may influence both accountability and performance ratings. Specifically, they investigated (a) whether feelings of accountability are directly related to performance ratings, (b) whether experimental manipulations that have been propos...
The choice of performance rating format may influence employees' fairness perceptions. Participants in two studies, one consisting of 208 participants and the other of 393 participants, evaluated the fairness of common relative and absolute rating formats. The participants in the second study also evaluated the fairness of two rating formats, one a...
Electronic performance monitoring and control systems (EPMCSs) are raising fairness and privacy concerns in many organizations. Researchers typically have treated different types of EPMCSs as equal, yet various EPMCS types (e.g., computer monitoring, eavesdropping, surveillance) may exert differential influences on fairness and privacy perceptions....
This study explores the importance of anticipated group discussion, the consensus decision rule, and rater motivation in determining how well rater teams identify ratee behaviors, i.e., behavioral accuracy. Results, based on 382 raters in 111 teams, suggest that the anticipation of group discussion can improve behavioral accuracy, but it appears th...
Very little research has explored the importance of discussion and consensus among raters in determining both behavioral and rating accuracy; yet groups of raters are routinely used in personnel practices such as assessment centers and panel interviews. Results, based on 225 raters in 75 three-person teams, show that not only does the anticipation...
The authors used exchange theory to clarify distinctions between organizational justice types and considered the implications of recent conceptual developments regarding justice associated with interpersonal treatment (interactional justice) and the inclusion of justice associated with outcomes (distributive justice) for an exchange model of justic...
Purpose – Managers frequently complain that performance ratings are inflated; thus, this study aims to explore what extent two motivational factors theoretically associated with accountability, rating audience and incentive, can influence rating inflation. Design/methodology/approach – One hundred and forty-nine raters were assigned to one of four...
The effects of communication medium and member familiarity on decision time, member satisfaction, and decision accuracy were explored. The study represents the first known attempt to examine the role of member familiarity on the study variables in face-to-face (FTF) and computer-mediated (CM) mediums. The results of 71 three-person groups revealed...
This paper investigated three factors, two related to accountability and one an individual difference factor, which may influence rating level: (1) identifiability, (2) to whom one feels accountable (audience), and (3) conscientiousness. In study 1, results from students who rated their instructors indicated that not only did raters relatively high...
The authors investigated the role of communication medium on the relationship between team member perceptions and decision success. Seventy-three 3-person groups participated in a consensus intellective task either face-to-face (FTF) or via computer-mediated communication (CMC). The participants also assessed their group's decision success and team...
This study investigated three controversial issues regarding frame of reference training (FOR), a type of rater training: (1) Does it improve behavioral recall, (2) Can it be improved by incorporating behavior observation training (BOT), and (3) Can its effects persist over time? Results suggested that even though FOR training increases the number...
Two studies were conducted to test a two-stage model of the psychological mechanisms underlying the overconsumption of scarce resources in small groups. The model proposes that members of groups sharing resources first anchor their consumption choices on an “equal-division” heuristic and then, given sufficient cognitive capacity, adjust their choic...
This study investigated the relationship between environmental uncertainty and social value orientation in a replenishable resource dilemma paradigm. One hundred seventy-two undergraduates harvested units from a common resource pool over 20 trials. Two levels of social value orientation (cooperative, noncooperative) were crossed with two levels of...
Based on expectancy theory, goal-setting theory and control theory we propose a model in which perceived fairness mediates the relationship between characteristics of employee performance management systems and their perceived effectiveness by employees. The model was tested on a sample of 3192 employees, using structural equation modelling. The fi...
