Exploring the Factors Associated with Employees’ Perceived Appraisal Accuracy

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Western employment practices have increasingly been used in emerging markets, but little is known about the factors influencing non-Western employees’ views regarding Western employment practices. This paper presents a study that investigates the factors associated with Chinese employees’ perceived appraisal accuracy. Based on the extant literature, the study tests six aspects of a performance appraisal system: employees’ perceptions of distributive justice, procedural justice, interactional justice, administrative purpose, developmental purpose and the use of multiple raters. A mixed methods approach was used to collect the data. Quantitative data collected from a survey of 194 Chinese employees were used to test the hypothesized relationships; qualitative data collected from interviews with 8 respondents were used to help explain the underlying logic behind the relationships. The results of the hypotheses testing show that employees’ perceived accuracy of performance appraisal is positively associated with the three types of justice and the two purposes of performance appraisal. The findings from the interviews indicate that employees’ perceptions of appraisal accuracy are influenced by certain Chinese cultural characteristics and management traditions. The implications of the findings for research and practice are discussed.