Wang et al. (2017) explore the use of performance management, a western-based HRM practice, to manage employee performance in a Chinese public sector organisation (PSO). Their analysis is interesting as it includes cultural, political and institutional influences. It demonstrates organisational and managerial impacts on performance management but goes much wider to evidence how institutional factors, such as employment legislation, enable discrimination in relation to both age and gender. Culturally, it demonstrates that Confucianism (religion), national politics and ancient systems of deference all impact on the operation of performance management systems. For example, the respect afforded to senior people makes the giving and receiving of feedback difficult, as do cultural norms, which frown on discussing others. Similarly, guanxi, a reliance on personal social networks, means that favouritism can dominate in performance management and this is problematic for organisational justice, which has been identified as central to an effective performance management system. The research also demonstrates that vague performance criteria are applied and appraisals place greater reliance on moral and/or political character. Further, reliance on guanxi and social connections means that many with poor performance are able to avoid penalty. Subjective rather than objective approaches clearly dominate.

Questions

1. What are the key contextual factors outlined here?

2. How do these factors make performance management processes more subjective than objective?

3. To what extent do you think that this is likely to be problematic for the effectiveness of a performance management system?