Not Just Because it is Fair - The Role of Feedback Quality and Voice in Performance Evaluation

This paper investigates the role of feedback quality and voice in performance evaluation. A model is developed and tested in which feedback quality and voice enhance procedural fairness perceptions (procedure effects), and procedural fairness perceptions in turn lead to different positive reactions (fair process effects). Voice is distinguished in instrumental and non-instrumental voice. The findings based on questionnaire data from 60 early career accountants show that the two components of voice and feedback quality are uniquely associated with procedural fairness perceptions, and through procedural fairness with distributive justice, trust in superior, and satisfaction with the appraisal review. Beyond these fairness effects, feedback quality is directly associated with satisfaction with the appraisal review and distributive justice, while instrumental and non-instrumental voice are directly associated with interpersonal trust in supervisor. Thus, feedback quality is mainly associated with outcome-based effects, while voice primarily enhances relational effects. These findings show that feedback quality and voice serve important but different roles in performance evaluation and help promote positive attitudes and behaviour of employees beyond fair process effects

Within- and Between-group Agreement in Supervisor’s Evaluative Behaviours: Do evaluative ‘styles’ exist?

Several management accounting studies have investigated the behavioural impact of evaluative style, a concept that generally refers to the manner in which supervisors use accounting information to evaluate the performance of subordinates. Although most studies study this behavioural impact at the individual level of the subordinate, the term “evaluative style” suggests that evaluative behaviours and attitudes of single supervisors will show (some) consistency across subordinates. This paper investigates whether “evaluative styles” exist by examining within-group and between-group agreement in evaluative behaviours by subordinates reporting to the same supervisor. The findings from two empirical studies indicate that evaluative behaviours in both organisations show both within-group and between-group variability. These findings suggest that evaluative behaviours of supervisors are more appropriately analysed at the level of individual subordinates than at the level of groups, although a dyadic level of analysis should be considered as well. An implication of these findings is that the concept of “evaluative style” is misleading. A suggestion is made to use the term “evaluatorship” instead as an umbrella concept to refer to evaluative behaviours and attitudes of supervisors at different levels of analysis in future research

Management Control Systems, Evaluative Style, and Behaviour

Organisations develop and implement performance measurement and performance evaluation systems to motivate employees to take actions that -in the end- improve organisational (financial) performance. But do these systems really influence employee behaviour as intended? This thesis shows that to answer that question not only the design of the system should be considered, but also the manner in which managers within an organisation use the system. This book describes a study on the influence of evaluative style of leaders on subordinates’ behaviour. Evaluative style refers to the manner in which a leader evaluates the performance of subordinates, controlling for the specific design of the performance evaluation system and the broader organisational context. This study improves our understanding of the concept of evaluative style by defining evaluative style, similar to leadership style, as a (behavioural) characteristic of leaders. The study also improves our understanding of the influence of evaluative style on subordinates’ behaviour. A literature review first reveals six topics that help improve this understanding. Subsequently, these six topics are investigated in an empirical study at Van den Bergh Netherlands (VDBN) that involves twelve leaders and their subordinates. The findings show that different evaluative styles exist within VDBN. These styles influence subordinate’s trust in superior and perceived fairness of evaluation, but no effect is found on functional (learning) or dysfunctional behaviour. These findings are context-specific and cannot be generalised outside the context of VDBN. However, the six topics and the way in which these topics have been investigated within a specific organisational context can be generalised and are relevant for future research

Contextual Influences on Evaluative Style and its Effectiveness: Three Avenues for Future Research

Many accounting studies have investigated the effects of differences in evaluative style on subordinate managers’ attitudes and performance. These studies have usually based the distinction of different evaluative styles on the extent to which a superior uses and relies on accounting performance measures when evaluating subordinate managers’ performance. The literature on this concept of evaluative style has become known as RAPM (reliance on accounting performance measures). Recently, this literature has been subject to severe criticism. This paper argues that to gain relevance for the accounting and management community, future research on evaluative style needs to (1) incorporate the development in management accounting and control towards a broad array of information, (2) recognize the importance of organizational context and control system d

Accountability: Papers from master theses 2009

Last year, we presented the book “Accountability 2008: papers from master theses”. The book contained eleven papers. Each paper was based on a thesis in the field of Accounting, Auditing and Control, on which these students received a Master’s degree in Economics & Business from the Erasmus School of Economics in 2008. We intended this book to be the beginning of an annual book series. The fact that you are now reading the preface of a second volume shows that this intention seems to become reality. In fact, we are confident that these two volumes are really the beginning of a series of books with papers of master theses in accounting. We have at least three reasons to be this confident. First, we believe that the two purposes of starting this book series will remain as important in the future as they are now. These two purposes are first, to provide a wider audience for theses that deserve that, and second, to offer some help to current and future master students in the streams of Accounting & Finance or Accounting, Auditing, and Control in writing their theses by presenting “good practices” from earlier theses. Second, as last year, the students who were invited to submit a paper for this year’s edition, without any exception, were all very enthusiastic to contribute to this book. Even though they had already finished their master theses and received their master’s degree, they were still willing to put in additional effort to turn their thesis into a paper that should not exceed 7.000 words. The fact that (almost) all contributors succeeded to not only do that but also before the deadline, shows that this book is seen as a good opportunity for students to disseminate the results of their master theses to a wider audience. Third, despite the economic crisis, we found some sponsors for this book, which is promising for the future

Cohort profile:the 'Biomarkers of heterogeneity in type 1 diabetes' study-a national prospective cohort study of clinical and metabolic phenotyping of individuals with long-standing type 1 diabetes in the Netherlands

PURPOSE: The 'Biomarkers of heterogeneity in type 1 diabetes' study cohort was set up to identify genetic, physiological and psychosocial factors explaining the observed heterogeneity in disease progression and the development of complications in people with long-standing type 1 diabetes (T1D). PARTICIPANTS: Data and samples were collected in two subsets. A prospective cohort of 611 participants aged ≥16 years with ≥5 years T1D duration from four Dutch Diabetes clinics between 2016 and 2021 (median age 32 years; median diabetes duration 12 years; 59% female; mean glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) 61 mmol/mol (7.7%); 61% on insulin pump; 23% on continuous glucose monitoring (CGM)). Physical assessments were performed, blood and urine samples were collected, and participants completed questionnaires. A subgroup of participants underwent mixed-meal tolerance tests (MMTTs) at baseline (n=169) and at 1-year follow-up (n=104). Genetic data and linkage to medical and administrative records were also available. A second cross-sectional cohort included participants with ≥35 years of T1D duration (currently n=160; median age 64 years; median diabetes duration 45 years; 45% female; mean HbA1c 58 mmol/mol (7.4%); 51% on insulin pump; 83% on CGM), recruited from five centres and measurements, samples and 5-year retrospective data were collected. FINDINGS TO DATE: Stimulated residual C-peptide was detectable in an additional 10% of individuals compared with fasting residual C-peptide secretion. MMTT measurements at 90 min and 120 min showed good concordance with the MMTT total area under the curve. An overall decrease of C-peptide at 1-year follow-up was observed. Fasting residual C-peptide secretion is associated with a decreased risk of impaired awareness of hypoglycaemia. FUTURE PLANS:Research groups are invited to consider the use of these data and the sample collection. Future work will include additional hormones, beta-cell-directed autoimmunity, specific immune markers, microRNAs, metabolomics and gene expression data, combined with glucometrics, anthropometric and clinical data, and additional markers of residual beta-cell function. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT04977635.</p