Up for Review

We study whether organizations that reward individual performance should give autonomy or should control how managers evaluate their subordinates. The normal way to establish control is to formalize the evaluations, so that managers cannot choose when and how to evaluate. We argue that organizations face a trade-off because formalization helps reduce biases but also introduces rigidities. Using linked employer-employee data, we study the link between formal performance appraisals and firm financial performance.Jaime Ortega acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economics, Industry and Competitiveness (grants ECO2012-33308 and ECO2015- 2 69615-R). Rocio Bonet acknowledges financial support from the European Commission grant WSCA-Grant Agreement No. 239217-7FP-People-IRG

Performance Appraisal Criteria and Innovative Work Behaviour: The Mediating Role of Employees’ Appraisal Satisfaction

Digitalization of work has recently rekindled the debate about the effectiveness of performance appraisal in encouraging innovative work behaviour. This study addresses this issue by hypothesizing that employees’ satisfaction towards their performance appraisal plays a mediating role in this relationship. Data collected from a sample of 865 Italian employees are used to estimate the mediation model. The main findings show that performance appraisal focused on the employees’ achieved results and new-developed competences boosts innovative behaviour more than traditional forms of evaluation based on time spent at the workplace, assigned tasks, working hours. Moreover, the employees’ satisfaction with the appraisal system and their performance rating agreement totally mediate the above relationship