Some Ideas, Issues and Predictions about Performance Management

Abstract

This article begins with the author's ideas about the meanings of human performance, success and failure. The process of managing performance is then sketched. Fourteen significant issues associated with the different phases of the process are next discussed. The article concludes with some predictions and prescriptions for performance management in the future.

A Case for Performance Management in the Public Sector in Nigeria

“…To increase our understanding of performance management, we draw from the definition of the word performance by Brumbach (1988) that: performance means both behavior and results. Behavior emanates from the performer and transforms performance from abstraction to action.…”

Functions and Implementation of Performance Appraisal Systems in New Zealand Organizations

“…Functions of Performance Appraisal Since their inception, performance appraisals have been used for two primary purposes (Brumback, 1988): to help make administrative decisions, especially regarding pay and promotions, and to meet developmental objectives, such as coaching staff and determining their training needs. Through two seminal articles in the Harvard Business Review, McGregor (1957) and later Meyer, Kay and French (1965) suggested that these two purposes are incompatible, because they force managers to play two conflicting roles of judge and coach simultaneously in their performance appraisal discussion with the employee.…”

“…Much of the subsequent literature has favoured this view and recommended that the issues of performance-based pay and performance coaching/ development be discussed with employees at separate meetings. More recently, however, the assumption that these are incompatible roles has been challenged, both conceptually (Brumback, 1988;Prince & Lawler, 1986) and empirically (Ilgen, Peterson, Martin, & Boeschen, 1981).…”

“…While these surveys indicate some serious problems in implementing performance appraisal, more specific information about the nature of these difficulties is needed. Concern expressed recently about performance appraisal research not addressing the problems perceived by practitioners suggests that a better understanding of the difficulties managers face with performance appraisals is needed to focus future research (Banks & Murphy, 1985;Bretz & Milkovich, 1990;Brumback, 1988;Napier & Latham, 1986).…”

Performance Management: Putting Research into Action edited by James W. Smither and Manuel London

“…The book's authors seem to think that performance management wasn't on the horizon until the 1990s, an error that reflects sloppy scholarship. I can't be certain but I may have been the first I‐O psychologist to start developing policies and procedures on performance management, and they were for the U.S. government in the 1970s (e.g., Brumback, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1988ab, 1993ab, 1994ab, 2000, 2002, 2003ab). Performance appraisal regulations are the cornerstone of the Civil Service Reform Act enacted in 1978, but performance management is not mentioned in it.…”