Communication Competencies as Discriminators of Superiors' Ratings of Employee Performance

Abstract

This study focuses the role of communication competencies in the appraisal process by which superiors make overall judgments about the performance of subordinates. The study is based on the hypothesis that superiors' perceptions of specific communication competencies of subordinates are related to the superiors' overall perceptions of subor dinate performance. The results support this hypothesis. A multivariate analysis reveals that employees rated highly for overall performance were also rated significant ly higher on the combined communication competencies than were their more lowly- rated counterparts. The discriminant model including the four communication competencies account for 59 percent of the variance with superiors'ratings of overall employee performance.