Performance appraisal justice and employees' work engagement in the public sector: Making the most of performance appraisal design

Abstract

Regarding organizational justice, performance appraisal (PA) systems are among the most crucial mechanisms shaping the employee work experience. Nonetheless, research has mostly neglected to explain the relationship between the characteristics of PA systems, employees' perceptions of PA justice, and work engagement in the public sector. Based on a combination of observational and experimental data from 11 public sector organizations in Italy, this article aims to unfold the nature of these relationships. Following the recent calls for diversified methodological designs, a combination of structural equation modeling with a discrete choice experiment is provided. The results show that designing PA systems with rater–ratee feedback sessions and calibration mechanisms leads to fairer perceived PAs, with PA justice being associated with public employees' work engagement.