Academic teachers and performance appraisal system

Overview & Synopsis

The dissertation concerns problems of shaping employees’ attitudes towards performance appraisal system at university. The main dissertation thesis is that the attitudes towards performance appraisal system are related to its understanding and acceptance and affect motivation to participate in this process and willingness to make changes in the behaviour or mode of duties execution. Attitudes towards performance appraisal system could be improved. Still it is necessary to know these cases and the factors related to them. Essential goal is to create a model of factors correlated to the attitudes towards performance appraisal system and to work out the recommendations on how to build positive attitudes towards performance appraisal system in universities. Idiographic approach was adopted in this empirical research. The method was a case study. There were 3 research techniques: documents exploration, interview and survey. Interviews were conducted with 49 people from 12 departments of University X. Survey was also performed in 12 departments. 704 out of a total of 2500 questionnaires were filled in, so rate of return was about 35%. According to the research, it is noticed that the strongest differentiators of attitudes were as follows: participation in the process of creating or modifying performance appraisal system, opinion on the work of the appraisal commission, opinion about the role of superior in the performance appraisal system, comprehensibility of the scientific criteria of the appraisal, compatibility between appraisal criteria and the important aspects of someone’s work, frequency of the appraisal, comprehensibility of the appraisal rules, opinion about the requirements in the field of the scientific achievements, opinion about the appraisal sheet, sense of justice in scientific achievements evaluation. The results of the research lead to preparing the set of recommendations on how to build positive attitudes towards performance appraisal system. These recommendations could be split into four main categories like goals and connections between performance appraisal system and HR decisions, appraisal process, communication process and performance appraisal system modifications.