Downside of Performance Appraisals & the Potential for Deviant Behaviors

While performance appraisals are considered to be rational systems necessary for human development in organizations, they can have potentially negative consequences. The judgments involved in performance appraisals could be experienced in subjective and partisan ways. Appraisals could be experienced as dirty work and could lead to deviant behaviors inside organizations. Particularly, those who receive good appraisals could develop emotions of contempt towards those who receive poor appraisals and thus better performers may feel justified in engaging in deviant behaviors towards poor performers. Further, it is only the sense of organizational support that may help in attenuating deviant behaviors actuated as a consequence of performance appraisals.