The dual purpose of performance evaluation is to motivate future effort and to assess past performance. There is considerable accounting research on performance evaluation. Accounting researchers have investigated performance measurement tools such as budgets (e.g., Fisher, Frederickson, and Peffer 2000), budgetary slack (e.g., Fisher, Maines, Peffer, and Sprinkle 2002), and balanced scorecards (e.g., Ittner, Larker, and Meyer 2003; Lipe and Salterio 2000). It is within this extensive domain of literature that Cravens, Oliver, Oishi, and Stewart (2015) set their investigation of performance evaluation and positive work environment.
Cravens et al. (2015) investigate an inconsistent result in the literature regarding the impact of performance evaluation on different work performance metrics—specifically, that in some instances, “a seemingly well designed performance measurement system is not effective” (Cravens et al. 2015). They explore a potential missing link—that a positive workplace culture mediates the relationship between performance evaluation and...
