Attitudes toward performance and the performance evaluation process: Issues of nationality, organizational size, and job level

• Main Author: Kovach, Robert Charles
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-1999
• Subjects: Labor relations; Management; Occupational psychology
• ISBN: 0599334800; 9780599334809

Management practices regarding human resources seem to be the most vulnerable to cultural relativity. This is because they are often designed by members of one culture to handle other members of that culture. Therefore a human resource management system may be meaningful and effective in one country but ineffective in another country. The purpose of this research was to investigate the extent to which nationality, organizational size, and job level affect perceptions of the performance evaluation process. This study investigated the relationships nationality, organizational size, and job level have with two outcome variables: beliefs about the nature of employee performance and satisfaction with various sources of performance appraisal information. A survey was administered to members of small, medium, and large organizations in both the U.S.A. and Hungary. The sample resulting from the survey procedures consisted of 1123 employed individuals from small, medium, and large organizations. The results revealed that, for this sample of subjects, there exist some nationality, organizational size, and job-level differences in their perceptions of the performance evaluation process. In terms of nationality differences, Americans rated individual performance measures as more applicable than Hungarians and felt that supervisors can accurately assess those differences in employee performance and that such evaluations are useful in improving employee productivity. Hungarians favored traditional manager to subordinate appraisal more than Americans while Americans favored self review to a greater extent than Hungarians. This study made two important contributions to the literature on the performance appraisal process: (a) to be the first to empirically examine certain nationality effects on perceptions of the appraisal process and various feedback sources and, (b) to make a cursory examination of the impact of organizational structural variables and their impact on the perceptions of performance appraisal.