SELF‐APPRAISAL BASED UPON SUPERVISORY FEEDBACK

Abstract

Self‐appraisals of job performance have historically proven to be weakly related to appraisals conducted by supervisory personnel. Two studies sought to facilitate rater agreement by invoking supervisory performance feedback as a frame of reference for subordinate raters. In the first study, a sample of 401 branch managers from a large lending institution performed a conventional self‐appraisal and an appraisal containing instructions referencing supervisory feedback (Feedback Based Self‐Appraisal). Feedback Based Self‐Appraisals exhibited significantly smaller leniency error, greater total rating variance, and more agreement with superior ratings than conventional self‐appraisals. FBSAs produced small improvements over conventional self‐appraisals in predicting objective criteria of managerial job performance. Study 2 examined FBSA‐supervisory appraisal agreement for two samples of military organization personnel. The relative degree of feedback available in a work environment was found to moderate FBSA‐superior agreement.