Abstract:

Performance assessment has been one of the most popular research topics in the field of human resource management. In these performance assessment researches, while typical dependent variables are usually results of the performance assessments, several different independent variables are analyzed to understand their effects on these results. The main purpose is to detect factors that should be considered for effective performance assessments. Because of that it is a necessity to find out and control biases and errors that negatively affect the rationality of the assessment process. According to this view, gender of rates and raters are one of the most important independent variables that should be studied. In this context finding out whether there is a relationship between performance assessments and gender and the way of this relationship have a critical importance. Another factor that should be considered from the point of assessment errors and biases is the purpose of performance assessments. Different purposes can affect the evaluations and decrease the reliability of the results. It is possible to find many different studies in the literature that examine gender and purpose of estimates separately; but there are very few studies that consider the interaction of these two variables. In this paper written to contribute to this shortcoming, the relationship between gender and performance assessment will be studied in terms of reliability of the assessment results. Beside, in this study data from real organizational environment was used unlike most studies that were conducted in laboratory settings. In this context firstly the effect of gender on performance assessment results was examined and it was seen that males get higher scores that females for both general performance results and different dimensions of performance. After that the relationship between ratees' gender and appraisals was analyzed and it was found that both male and female are tending to give higher scores to employees with the same-sex. Moreover the effect of performance purpose on assessment results was taken into consideration and it was found that assessments are free from the purpose of performance. Lastly gender and the purpose of performance were analyzed together. According to results while gender has no effect on performance results when the purpose is administrative, it affects performance estimates when the purpose is developmental

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