Social ties and subjective performance evaluations: an empirical investigation

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.IZA Discussion Paper No. 4913 April 2010 ABSTRACT Social Ties and Subjective Performance Evaluations: An Empirical InvestigationWe empirically investigate possible distortions in subjective performance evaluations. A key hypothesis is that evaluations are more upward biased the closer the social ties between supervisor and appraised employee. We test this hypothesis with a company data set from a call center organization which contains not only subjective assessments but also several more objective measures of performance. Controlling for these performance measures, we find strong evidence that evaluations are upwards biased in smaller teams and some evidence that supervisors give better ratings to employees they themselves have evaluated before.JEL Classification: D03, M52

Sunny Ways or Somber Weather? International Management Consultants and Appraisal of Policy Capacity

“…If, by that frame of reference, they perceive their organization to be operating towards the high end of a scale, it will manifest as a rosy interpretation of the situation. It is a halo effect to be sure but one not necessarily attributable to either a defensive position, nor to any firm commitment to organizational solidarity (Breuer, Nieken & Sliwka, 2013). Likewise, when the "outsider" comes from a (very) high capacity organization and set of experiences, s/he may have a skewed perception of capacity at the other © 2017 The author and GRDS Publishing.…”

Halo Effect in Subjective Performance Evaluation Bias

“…Subjective performance evaluation is used as a complement to objective measurement because not all aspects of performance can be measured by using quantified objective measurements (Breuer et al 2013). Otherwise, the researchers acknowledged that the subjective measurement is more reliable for contract design, arranging training of employees, and can be used as a reference in the recruitment of employees (Goldman and Bhatia 2012).…”

“…However, objective performance evaluation is defined as judgment based on personal impressions that is unquantified such as innovation, creativity, loyalty, the ability to work together, sharing knowledge, leadership, or the ability to communicate (Baker et al 1994;Bella Vance et al 2013, Bol 2008). Both models are interplay one another (Bol and Smith 2011), can be adopted by the company simultaneously (Prendergast 1999), and actually not mutually exclusive but rather complementary (Breuer et al 2013;Bommer et al 1995;Prendergast and Topel 1996).…”

“…Subjective performance evaluation is more reliable in formulating and designing incentive systems contracts (Ittner et al 2003;Gibbs et al 2004;Breuer et al 2013), developing training programs (Goldman and Bhatia 2012) or to promote employee positions (Gibbs et al 2004;Kren and Tyson 2009). However, previous studies also revealed the weakness of the subjective performance evaluation model.…”

Delegating Performance Evaluation

“…In particular, forced rankings are criticized for forcing managers to assign low rankings even when all workers are performing well: "What happens if you're working with a superstar team? You've just forced a distribution that doesn't 10 For example, Bol (2011) andBreuer, Nieken, and find evidence of leniency bias which depends on the strength of the employee-manager relationship. Bol (2011) cites studies documenting leniency bias going back to the 1920s, while citations to similar findings in the 1940s can be found in Prendergast (1999).…”