ABSTRACT
The statement by Cleveland and her associates has been a truism for almost as long as performance appraisal has been an essential management activity. A survey cosponsored by Sibson Consulting and WorldatWork of 750 senior-level human resource management (HRM) professionals revealed that the top challenge confronting organizations is managers’ lack of courage to have difficult performance discussions (Sibson Consulting, 2010). Because managers routinely fail to devote sufficient time to the preparation of appropriate comments regarding their subordinates’ job performance, and are often reluctant to conduct candid performance reviews, the appraisal interview (AI) is the “Achilles’ heel” of performance management (Kikoski, 1998, p. 491). Despite the institutional character of the task-for example, organizations make managers responsible for providing corrective feedback following poor subordinate job performance-there is an orientation to critical feedback as a socially problematic action (Asmuß, 2008). Indeed, the prevalence of this problem, viz., “dysfunctional performance appraisals,” was deemed sufficiently noteworthy for inclusion in the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management (Longnecker, 2005), a comprehensive compilation of the most significant concepts, terminology, and techniques of management theory and practice. Nevertheless, because the consequences of not conducting AIs can be dire, performance feedback remains a staple of HRM. There is increasing attention in the literature to performance management and appraisal programs, in part due to their relationship to organizational performance (Posthuma, Campion, Masimova, & Campion, 2013).
