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Focus on results and accountability in public performance management is now firmly entrenched. Governments around the world, at all levels, have invested significant time and resources into measuring and reporting performance, with very mixed results. In 2000, Ontario became the first state or province in North America to mandate a municipal performance measurement program for all municipalities. One measure of the system's effectiveness is the documentation produced to show citizens how their government is doing - in this case, an annual performance report. Although the legislation is clear in terms of measurements and some reporting standards, there are clear differences in the overall quality of the annual reports produced by each of the 445 municipalities. This article will focus on the reports as the primary communication tool between the municipalities and citizens. The primary question that frames this research is the current quality of municipal performance reports in Ontario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'performance management' has an aversive 'managerial' aspect, is unappealing to many public sector staff and has an 'image problem'. Perhaps as a consequence, it has failed to make a significant impact on Irish public sector workers, notably mental health nurses. In this paper, performance management is introduced and examined within an Irish healthcare context and with reference to its use in other countries. Some of the challenges faced by Irish mental health nurses and the potential benefits of working within a performance managed workplace are discussed. The paper concludes that performance management is likely to increasingly affect nurses, either as active agents or as passive recipients of a change that is thrust on them. The authors anticipate that the performance management 'image problem' will give way to recognition that this is a fundamental change which has the potential to enable health services to change. This change will bring high standards of transparency, worker involvement in decision making, an explicit value base for health services and individual teams. It provides the potential for clear practice standards and high standards of transparency as well as worker welfare in all aspects, including supporting employment and career progression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the approaches for and benefits of CUSUM as a tool for ongoing assessment of clinical performance. CUSUM which stands for the cumulative sums method has been the most commonly used process control methods in medicine along with the sequential probability ratio test and the exponentially weighted moving average. Key considerations, processes and implications of CUSUM for improving clinical performance are cited.

This study uses data collected using a 360°-assessment instrument to investigate the structural equivalence of 360°-assessment ratings, according to rater type, controlling for organizational level. Data from 533 managers and their raters were employed in the study, which used multi-group structural equations modeling. Issues central to the implementation and use of 360°-assessment data are also considered within the context of current research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the effects of rater personality (Conscientiousness and Agreeableness), rating format (graphic rating scale vs. behavioral checklist), and the rating social context (face-to-face feedback vs. no face-to-face feedback) on rating elevation of performance ratings. As predicted, raters high on Agreeableness showed more elevated ratings than those low on Agreeableness when they expected to have the face-to-face feedback meeting. Furthermore, rating format moderated the relationship between Agreeableness and rating elevation, such that raters high on Agreeableness provided less elevated ratings when using the behavioral checklist than the graphic rating scale, whereas raters low on Agreeableness showed little difference in elevation across different rating formats. Results also suggest that the interactive effects of rater personality, rating format, and social context may depend on the performance level of the ratee. The implications of these findings will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last decade has witnessed a resurgence of organizational socialization research. However, a critical question has been neglected: Is there a common underlying pattern to organizational socialization? We investigated newcomer learning, job satisfaction and intent to quit as common indicators of socialization, in research with 222 newcomers at two organizations during the crucial post-entry period. The results support a learning-dependent model of newcomer adjustment, with learning in specific domains related to improved attitudinal outcomes. Some aspects of organizational socialization were not uniform across the two organizations, suggesting a need for further development of socialization models and greater accounting for this in organizational socialization research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined predictors of 150 managers' attitudes toward a 360-degree feedback system and their degree of involvement in on- and off-the-job development activity in response to the feedback, as reported an average of 10 months following receipt of feedback. Three sets of predictors were: (a) feedback ratings from four sources (supervisor, peer, subordinate, self), (b) individual characteristics of the feedback recipients and, (c) perceived characteristics of the feedback recipients' work contexts. Despite adequate statistical power, few relationships were observed between feedback ratings and subsequent involvement in development activities and attitudes toward the feedback system. Three exceptions were a positive relationship between subordinate and peer ratings of managers and managers' attitudes toward the system as well as an interaction between self and peer ratings: the more unique or different peer ratings were compared to self-ratings, the more favourable ratee attitudes toward the system were. Other predictors of these dependent variables were: (I) a work context that includes people who are supportive of skill development (i.e. social support) and, (2) beliefs by feedback recipients that it is not only possible for people to improve their skills (i.e. incremental implicit theory of skill malleability), but also that they themselves are capable of improving and developing (i.e. self-efficacy for development). These results suggest that there are variables which are just as important (or possibly even more important) than differences in feedback level for predicting attitudes toward the feedback system and subsequent involvement in development activity following feedback. Practical implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Performance appraisal has widened as a concept and as a set of practices and in the form of performance management has become part of a more strategic approach to integrating HR activities and business policies. As a result of this, the research on the subject has moved beyond the limited confines of measurement issues and accuracy of performance ratings and has begun to focus more of social and motivational aspects of appraisal. This article identifies and discusses a number of themes and trends that together make up the developing research agenda for this field. It breaks these down in terms of the nature of appraisal and the context in which it operates. The former is considered in terms of contemporary thinking on the content of appraisal (contextual performance, goal orientation and self awareness) and the process of appraisal (appraiser-appraisee interaction, and multi-source feedback). The discussion of the context of appraisal concentrates on cultural differences and the impact of new technology. In reviewing these emerging areas of research, the article seeks to explore some of the implications for appraisal practice at both organizational and individual levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely accepted that the structure of performance depends on the relationship between task demands and information processing resources. This relationship is affected by many factors including practice. For instance, it is claimed that while use of task-specific knowledge, an information-processing resource, may benefit performance in the long term, the costs of its use in the short term are quite high. It is difficult to find any studies which can be used to test this claim, as those which have been undertaken typically measure gross performance only, Jack any measure of the subjective costs of resource investment, and are of relatively short duration. In this paper an experiment is reported which looks at effects of task-specific knowledge on gross and process performance, and on a number of subjective indices over a longitudinal time frame. The results are discussed in terms of the relationships between the context of performance, the perception of control, and strategies of resource management. Finally, the argument that the data suggest a need for the reconceptualization of demands and resources is mooted and some methodological implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A performance appraisal procedure called rated ranking is described in which alternation rankings are followed by a rating of the individuals ranked within the limits imposed by the initial rank orders. This procedure was used by 21 foremen in evaluating 185 semi-skilled mine and plant employees of a single company. the results of this application were used to investigate the value of the rated ranking procedure including reliability, nature of the distributions, differences between groups and individuals, halo, construct validity and potential bias in the evaluation. the results provide an encouraging picture of ranking procedure when the rated ranking process is incorporated. The approach has demonstrated value for the purpose of validating selection procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]