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theses

Performance appraisal is an important management tool that has two important functions: to support administrative decisions, and support employee development (Murphy and Cleveland 1990). This dissertation explores the view of public (non-management level) employees in assessing their perspective on performance appraisal. This paper assumes that once employees find the value in performance appraisal processes, the efficacy will be enhanced and affirmed. Given the importance of employees’ acceptance of their performance appraisal, this dissertation will examine under which contextual circumstances employee acceptance of performance measurement may be heightened using the data in a mixed-methods study that includes data from the Merit Principle Protection Board Survey (2005) merged with data from the Central Personnel Data File in 2005, New Jersey local employee survey, and focus groups including semi-structured interviews. Using previous theoretical frameworks, which identify three constructs namely, procedural justice, distributional justice, and instrument validity, this dissertation will measure public employees’ acceptance of performance appraisal. Findings show that there is an increase of public employees’ acceptance of performance appraisal in terms of procedural justice, distributional justice, and instrument validity in the following conditions, when: performance appraisal is used more for employees’ job performance improvement and capacity development to identify areas of improvement; there is an a direct alignment between employees’ tasks and agency’s objectives; employees are offered an opportunity to voice their concerns or rebut decisions; they participate in setting performance standards and goals; and there are quality and trust-worthy relationships between supervisors as rators and employees as ratees. Of particular illumination on the effect of demographic characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, gender, age, and education, the findings show mixed results. However, when the organization is diversified in terms of race/ethnicity, employee acceptance of performance appraisal in terms of procedural justice turns out to be uniquely higher, and partially supports the theory of relational demography. Equally important finding is the effect of unionized workforce environment as well as the existence of rigid civil service system might have contrasting effects on employee acceptance of performance appraisal processes. This study contributes to the current literature on performance appraisal by advancing our understanding of the process, refining related theories on performance appraisal, and capitalizing on public employees’ perceptions and perspectives.

ETD_5653

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

Includes vita

by Taehee Kim

doi:10.7282/T3KS6PTM

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.