An empirical investigation of contemporary performance management systems

This dissertation provides a comprehensive empirical analysis of contemporary performance management systems (PMS), with a focus on how evolving feedback practices—particularly narrative and demand-driven feedback—shape employee outcomes and organizational decision-making. Through a multi-study research design based on rich field data and rigorous econometric analyses, this work explores both the structural and psychological dimensions of performance evaluation, offering new insights into the design and impact of modern PMS mechanisms. Study 1 investigates the architecture and effectiveness of contemporary PMS structures, with particular attention to calibration committees and their role in ensuring rating consistency across organizational units. Using multi-wave survey data, the study explores the effects of these mechanisms on employee satisfaction and perceived fairness. The results highlight a dual dynamic: while calibration processes can enhance legitimacy and standardization, they may also reduce perceptions of individual agency and introduce tension during crises. Additional analyses underscore the mediating role of job satisfaction and identify significant variation in perceived fairness across departments. Study 2 focuses on the performance effects of narrative feedback, analyzing how specific textual features—such as feedback specificity and the use of causal language—affect subsequent performance evaluations. The study employs a robust text-as-data approach combined with panel regression models to measure the downstream impact of written feedback. Results show that specific, causally grounded feedback is positively associated with performance improvement, especially for mid-tier employees. Furthermore, analyses of standard–feedback gaps and feedback content across performance dimensions reveal nuanced dynamics in how narrative feedback is interpreted and acted upon by both evaluators and recipients. Study 3 turns to demand-driven feedback, a growing trend in which employees actively solicit feedback to influence their evaluations. This study examines who requests feedback, when, and with what consequences for performance and potential assessments. Findings suggest that feedback requests are more common among high-performing and high-potential employees and that such requests positively bias evaluators’ perceptions. However, demand-driven feedback can also lead to overexposure and lower evaluations when used strategically but inappropriately. Additional analyses address the career implications of feedback solicitation, the temporal patterns of requests, and textual characteristics of the resulting feedback. The general discussion (Chapter E) synthesizes insights across all three empirical investigations and outlines three central contributions. First, the dissertation advances understanding of how PMS design features interact with organizational processes to influence employee outcomes. Second, it highlights the importance of textual and behavioral signals—embedded in narrative and demand-driven feedback—for shaping performance evaluations beyond numeric ratings. Third, it provides novel evidence on how PMS function during periods of uncertainty, such as organizational crises. Limitations include the observational nature of some analyses and the reliance on a single organizational context, though mitigated by multi-method robustness checks. The dissertation concludes with suggestions for future research, including exploration of algorithm-assisted feedback, cross-cultural differences in feedback interpretation, and the long-term motivational effects of evolving PMS designs. Overall, this work contributes to the scholarly understanding of how performance is managed, narrated, and perceived in modern organizations, offering actionable implications for HR professionals, managers, and policymakers seeking to design fairer, more effective, and more transparent evaluation systems.