Performance Management: Perceiving Goals as Invariable and Implications for Perceived Job Autonomy and Work Performance

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21680
• Published date: 01 May 2016
• Date: 01 May 2016
• Author: Bård Kuvaas,Robert Buch,Anders Dysvik

Human Resource Management, May–June 2016, Vol. 55, No. 3. Pp. 401–412

© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI:10.1002/hrm.21680

Correspondence to: Bård Kuvaas, BI Norwegian Business School, Department of Leadership and Organizational Man-

agement, Nydalsveien 37, 0484 Oslo, Norway, Phone: +4746410731, Fax: +4746410701, E-mail: bard.kuvaas@bi.no

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT:

PERCEIVING GOALS AS INVARIABLE

AND IMPLICATIONS FOR

PERCEIVED JOB AUTONOMY

ANDWORK PERFORMANCE

BÅRD KUVAAS, ROBERT BUCH, AND ANDERS DYSVIK

In this study, we investigated whether perceiving goals as invariable is nega-

tively related to work performance and whether this relationship is mediated

by perceived job autonomy. Perceiving goals as invariable refers to the extent

to which employees believe that the goals in a performance management sys-

tem represent absolute standards that they must meet without exception, even

if they think other factors are more important (e.g., situational factors or fac-

tors that are not associated with goals). In support of our hypotheses, we found

a negative relationship between perceiving goals as invariable and work per-

formance and that perceived job autonomy mediated this relationship. Theoreti-

cal and practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

©2014Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Keywords: performance management, job autonomy, work performance

Performance management refers to a

broad set of activities aimed at improv-

ing employee performance (DeNisi &

Pritchard, 2006). It typically involves

three interrelated activities: setting goals,

evaluating goal attainment, and providing perfor-

mance feedback. Ideally, performance manage-

ment should be viewed and implemented as a

continuous process (Aguinis, Joo, & Gottfredson,

2011). Still, in many organizations, these activities

are often organized as formal and discrete events

that occur once or twice a year. For instance,

in explaining why performance management

is broken, Pulakos and O’Leary (2011, p. 146)

argued that “a significant part of the problem is

that performance management has been reduced

to prescribed, often discrete steps within for-

mal administrative systems that are disconnected

from the day-to-day activities that determine per-

formance management effectiveness.”

Numerous challenges are associated with

performance management activities that are

not connected to one another or to day-to-day

activities (for reviews and examples, see Aguinis

etal., 2011; DeNisi & Pritchard, 2006; Pulakos &

O’Leary, 2011). A particularly practically relevant

challenge is that of timing and lack of dynamism

and flexibility (Murphy, 2008; Pulakos & O’Leary,

2011). When goals,1 objectives, targets, key per-

formance indicators, performance standards, and

the like are established or agreed upon once or

twice a year or even quarterly, a chance exists that