無關資料對績效評估的影響：對美國和香港商學生的初探實驗

Effects of Irrelevant Information on Performance Appraisals: An Exploratory Experiment of American and Hong Kong Business Majors

回顧績效評估研究的文獻指出未來的研究應多探討績效評估的環境因素和評估過程，本研究探討無關資料對績效評估的影響。在設計實驗時，我們把被評估的對象定為銷售部的主管，因此其績效是客觀的銷售額；無關資料則為一些符合或違反企業規範的行為，如衣著，參與公司的社交活動等等。此外，評估者本身的價值觀念，例如對合群的重視，很可能會影響他們對這些符合或違反企業規範的行為的評估。作為初步探索，本文邀請了美國及香港的商學生參與實驗。過去的泛文化研究顯示美國人的價值是較個人的，而華人則較重視合群，因此我們假設在績效評估時，這些無關資料對美國商學生的影響會較小。結果顯示儘管與績效無關，美國和香港的評估者均受下屬符合或違反企業規範的行為影響。不過，美國的評估者卻更受這些行為影響，這是與預期相反的。由本研究的發現，我們提出：（A）在執行績效評估時，企業應訂明何者為有關資料，及給予評估者適當之訓練；（B）未來研究可用經理人員為樣本，及探討當評估者被視為核心小組或非核心小組成員的分別；（C）關於本文發現香港人較不受下屬符合或違反企業規範的行為影響，本文提出一些解釋，包括本身價值與評估別人之間的可能分別、香港是較成果導向的社會、及不同價值的交互作用，未來研究可繼續探討這可能因素。

Reveiewers of Performance appraisal studies have concluded that the greatest need for future research on performance appraisal was on contextual factors and on the rating process. This research investigated the effects of irrelevant information on performance appraisals. Specifically, conformity behaviors which were irrelevant to performance were manipulated in an exploratory experiment. Potential effects of raters' values towards conformity behaviors were explored by comparing the American and Chinese subjects. Two hundred Hong Kong and 152 American business majors participated in an experiment. Results showed that both the American and Hong Kong raters would be affected by the conformity information even when these information were irrelevant to performance. However, contrary to our expectation, the effect of conformity information was greater for the American rather than for Hong Kong raters. Implications for future research were discussed.