Appraising performance appraisal practices: a case study of the Pakistani higher education sector

Submission note: A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the La Trobe Business School, College of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce, La Trobe University, Bundoora.

This thesis using a case study investigative approach sought to contribute to improvements in Pakistani universities’ individual Performance Appraisal Systems (PAS). Performance appraisal has been adopted and actively considered by many universities as a mean of enhancing and reinforcing individual performance and, thereby improving and enhancing institutional performance. The aim of the study was to analyse Performance Appraisal (PA) practices in Pakistan’s Higher Education Sector (HES) institutions and to evaluate factors and outcomes that influence PAS and employees’ perceptions of those systems. An exploratory mixed method design was employed to suggest improvements in PAS currently in use at universities in higher education sector in Pakistan. Drawing from systems theory (Katz and Kahn, 1978), it is assumed that PA effectiveness and improvement will be affected by the quality of the relationship between supervisors and subordinates and the social context in which it occurs, and also by the reactions of employees in terms of satisfaction, perceived utility, fairness and self-efficacy. Findings suggest that the studied higher education institutions have less consideration of the strategic importance, impact and outcomes of PAS in Pakistan. Based on the case studies, improvements are required in PAS communications strategies, feedback, employees’ engagement and involvement, management of workplace behaviours, conflict and other negative outcomes that occur because a non-systematic PA is in place. In this research, a qualitative method served as the central approach for studying the appraisal context, current performance appraisal practices and expected outcomes from higher education universities in the public sector in Pakistan. A quantitative approach was also employed to justify the quality of relationship between supervisor and subordinate and the social context in which it occurs, and employees’ reactions in terms of satisfaction, perceived utility, perceptions of fairness and self-efficacy in private sector universities in Pakistan. Overall, the study illustrates some of the reasons for introducing performance appraisal practices in the university sector. It explores managers' attitudes to their value and appropriateness as a management tool in the university and identifies factors and problems associated with the application of PA. The study was also designed to obtain and use variables that would help us to enhance our understanding about what and where improvement could be warranted. Furthermore, the study results suggest a strong relationship between social contextual factors, i.e. LMX and appraisal reactions through fairness and self-efficacy. The quantitative results suggest that aspects of rater-ratee relationship quality are strongly related to ratee reactions to performance appraisals (i.e. perceived utility and appraisal satisfaction), and perceptions of fairness and self-efficacy mediate the relationship between LMX and appraisal reactions. This suggests that the better the quality of the rater-ratee relationship in the PA process, the more likely that performance measures are perceived to be fair. There will also be less personal and common-measure bias. These results are consistent with other studies on this subject (Cawley et al., 1998; Levy and Williams, 2004; Pichler, 2012).