Performance Appraisals Jeffrey Spence's 2011 article "Conscious rating distortion in performance appraisal: a review, commentary, and proposal framework for research" discusses the relationship between managers and employees and how managers use conscious rating distortion as a means to evaluate individuals that they are in charge of. Performance appraisal is one of the principal topics that the paper relates to as the writer tests several theories with the purpose of determining the techniques that managers use and their tendency to adopt particular attitudes. In order to increase productivity, managers make use of a wide range of methods, but they are not necessarily motivated by their determination to obtain accuracy from their employees.

While managers are generally focused on influencing their employees in obtaining positive results, they are also aware that a successful company consists out of groups of individuals who have strong relations and who work as a team. It would virtually be absurd to overstress particular persons in order to have them working to their full potential. Spence prefers to support this position, but this practically means that he ignores the many cases involving managers who are solely interested in accuracy and consider that employees are easily replaceable. A great deal of managers in the contemporary society believes that it is essential for the companies to achieve success and is thus unsympathetic regarding employees. This is especially worrying, given that numerous employees end up being treated like machines and managers coerce them in performing stressing jobs. It is difficult to determine whether this is wrong, considering that conditions today are critical when concerning relations between managers and their employees. In an era when competition...

Even with that, Spence describes goals that each manager is likely to consider at a certain point in his or her career with the purpose of maximizing profits without affecting the well-being of the company and its employees: "(1) achieving/maintaining a positive relationship with a subordinate, (2) achieving/maintaining a positive image of themselves and their workgroup, and (3) achieving/maintaining behavior that is supportive of organizational norms/goals" (Spence, 93).
Chapter four supports Spence's perspective in regard to the relationship between managers and employees and highlights the fact that interpersonal affect is essential within a company because it makes it possible for employees to be more efficient and for managers to work without experiencing stress. Even with this, interpersonal affect in the workplace is different from typical social likeability because it strictly focuses on the job. In order to achieve positive results, managers need to refrain from employing personal convictions in assessing an employee. Although Spence and Chapter four both relate to the importance of strong relationships between managers and their employees, they also promote the concept regarding how objectivity needs to dominate the workplace in order for these relations to have a positive effect on the company.

Through applying the regular focus theory Spence demonstrated that managers take into consideration a great deal of concepts as they assess their employees and that accuracy is not their principal goal. They apparently believe that impartiality is a key feature in assessing an employee.

"Rating Leniency and Halo…