PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL PRACTICES: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SERVICE AND MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY

This study analyses performance appraisal (PA) practices in mid-sized Indian firms and explores the differences in PA practices of service and manufacturing industry. With the help of a questionnaire, data was collected from 56 mid-sized firms, having a formal human resource (HR) department and employing 50 to 250 personnel. The results show that adoption of performance appraisal system (PAS) and its level of formalization in mid-sized Indian firms is relatively low. Also, the results do not indicate significant differences among firms' approaches towards PA practices, as far as different types of industries are concerned. However, a few differences exist in aspects of ‘criteria' used for evaluation of employees and ‘purpose' of appraisal results but there are no significant differences in rest of the appraisal system dimensions.