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SAGE Journal User Guide

Article 1

Asmuß, B. (2008). Performance appraisal interviews: Preference organization in assessment sequences. Journal of Business Communication, 45(4), 408–429.

Topics in this article:

• Performance appraisal interviews play a crucial role in internal communication. Most of the research on performance appraisal interviews has focused on strategic aims and interview design, but less attention has been given to the way in which performance appraisal interviews actually take place.
• In this study, the focus was to investigate how one of the crucial and most delicate activities in performance appraisal interviews—namely, giving critical feedback—is conducted. In particular, the way critical feedback is given is predominantly through negative assessments. The results indicate that there is an orientation to critical feedback as a socially problematic action despite the institutional character of the talk. Moreover, it can be seen that the more the supervisor shows an orientation to negative assessments as being socially problematic, the more difficult it becomes for the employee to deal with negative assessments.

Questions from this article:

1. What is the critical role of performance appraisals both internally (for the organization and SHRM) and externally (in terms of factors external to the organization)?
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of negative and positive feedback in the performance appraisal process?
3. According to the article, what are the factors that play the most constructive role in providing the best feedback structure for employees?

Article 2

Heslin, P. A., & VandeWalle, D. (2011). Performance appraisal procedural justice: The role of a manager’s implicit person theory. Journal of Management, 37(6), 1694–1718.

Topics in this article:

• In this field study, it was determined that a manager’s implicit person theory (IPT; i.e., extent of assumption that people can change) predicted employees’ perceptions of the procedural justice with which their last performance appraisal was conducted.
• These procedural justice perceptions in turn predicted employees’ organizational citizenship behavior, as partially mediated by their organizational commitment.

Questions from this article:

1. What are the key advantages to organizational citizenship behaviors specifically as they relate to HRM issues?
2. How can a manager’s procedural justice predicted by his or her implicit person theory (IPT)—that is, the manager’s assumptions about the malleability of the personal attributes (e.g., ability and personality) that guide human behavior—impact the evaluation of his or her subordinates’ performance?
3. How can managers convince employees that they are engaging in procedural justice practices as it relates their performance appraisals?