DELVING INTO THE DARK SIDE - THE POLITICS OF EXECUTIVE APPRAISAL

Politics is common to organizations, particularly at the top levels, where decisions, actions, and performance carry the most weight. The most politicized event of all is executive performance evaluation. Ln this article, Dennis A. Gioia and Clinton O. Longenecker explore the dynamics of politics in the executive appraisal process. They find that executives strongly believe their performance evaluations are vulnerable to political activity, and that a wide variety of factors-including personal connections, reputation, a superior's personal agenda, the ambiguous nature of executive work, and the overall political atmosphere of an organization-can affect performance ratings as well as subsequent pay raises, promotions, and perks. The authors point to some of the consequences of politically influenced appraisals, then lay out their recommendations for reducing the negative effects.