Browsing by Author "Maaniemi, Johanna Elina"

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Just not fair - Employees’ Injustice Experiences in the Performance Appraisal Process
(2007) Maaniemi, Johanna Elina
Helsinki University of Technology | Licentiate thesis
Performance appraisal is often perceived as "technical tool" and both the social side and the applied procedures of the appraisals are left to the minor attention. However, previous literature suggests that a good measure of a pay system's success is how those appraised and rewarded perceive the fairness of the performance appraisal program. Individuals are concerned not only about the fair (or accurate) outcome of the appraisals, but also about the process through which decisions are made, i.e. procedural justice, and how they have been treated in this process, i.e. interactional justice. Previous literature suggests justice rules that should be followed in order to promote justice experiences in any decisions process, for example the performance appraisal process. This study examines employees' experiences concerning the performance appraisal process in terms of procedural and interactional justice: 1) What kinds of injustice experiences do employees have with respect to the performance appraisal process? 2) How are these injustice experiences related to the justice rules defined in the previous literature? Also, in contrast to the traditional approaches, this study approached procedural justice in the performance appraisal process as a socially construed and socially contested phenomenon. The data consisted of semistructured interviews of 27 employees from a single governmental sector organization. The data analysis was carried out in two phases; the first research question was answered by using the grounded theory analysis approach. The second analysis phase was more theory-driven; a link between the injustice experiences found and the justice rules defined in the previous literature was proposed. According to the results, employees' injustice experiences were related either to 1) the performance appraisal interview (style and motives of the subordinate, motivation and goals of the supervisor, quality of interaction), 2) measurement of the performance (information and knowledge about performance, appraisal scale, performance criteria) and 3) artificial commensurability (restrictive guidelines, afterwards scaling). The sources of injustice experiences changed from individual agents (other employees or supervisors) to the pay system itself, pay system support functions and management. The first category was proposed to have a link to all the justice rules defined in the literature. The second category was proposed to have a link to justice rules of accuracy and consistency. The third category was proposed to have a link to the justice rules of accuracy, ethicality and representativeness. According to the results, justice rules are highly relevant in the determination process of performance-based pay because they were all found in some form in the employees' experiences. In particular, the rule of consistency and accuracy seem to be important in the context of appraisals. Injustice experiences focused on behaviors or operations on many organizational levels. This emphasizes that the perceived fairness of a pay system is dependent on many factors other than the technical pay system itself. A fine technical pay system by itself does not guarantee the functionality of the system. Implementing individuals are in the key role when the fairness of the pay system is evaluated. The findings emphasize the role of human processes and procedures related to perception of a fair pay system.