Motivating raters through work design: Applying the job characteristics model to the performance appraisal context

In general, raters are responsible for evaluating their subordinates’ performance and delivering their final performance ratings. As most organizations prefer accurate ratings, past research has focused on encouraging raters to produce more accurate appraisals. Extant research on rater motivations has highlighted the various factors affecting rating accuracy, but the job characteristics of appraisals represent an unexplored area. The current study attempts to extend the rater motivation research by introducing a work design perspective of appraisal and exploring the ways in which the job characteristics of appraisals can be used to motivate raters. First, rater motivation theory and Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics model (JCM) are reviewed. Then, the current study illustrates how the JCM can be applied to the performance appraisal context