Fostering societal impact and job satisfaction: the role of performance management and leader–member exchange

ABSTRACT

Performance management (PM) can alienate employees from experiencing societal impact. This is problematic since societal impact influences employees’ job satisfaction. To avoid such unintended effects, we investigate two conditions under which PM could instead benefit the societal impact and job satisfaction of employees: consistency and leader-member exchange. Results show consistent PM fosters job satisfaction, mediated by societal impact and moderated by leader–member exchange. Public organizations should streamline expectations communicated through PM and constructive leader relationships could reinforce this process. By examining the conditions under which PM can avoid unintended effects on employees, we add to the debate on PM effectiveness.

KEYWORDS:

• Performance management
• societal impact
• job satisfaction
• leader–member exchange
• higher education

Acknowledgements

We thank the participants of the 2017 conferences of the European Group of Public Administration Annual (EGPA) and the Dutch HRM network, as well as two anonymous reviewers for feedback on earlier drafts of this paper. Also, the feedback of Bert George and Bram Verschuere was helpful in improving the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work by supported by the Ghent University Special Research Fund (BOF) under BOF.STA.2015.0032.01-BOF15/STA/049.

Notes on contributors

Robin Bauwens

Robin Bauwens, MSc., MA, is a doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University (Belgium). His research focuses on performance management, organizational behaviour and employee well-being in the public, non-profit, and social profit sector.

Mieke Audenaert

Mieke Audenaert, PhD, is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University (Belgium). Her research focuses on employment relationships, and individual performance management in the public, non-profit, and social profit sector.

Adelien Decramer

Adelien Decramer, PhD, is an associate professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University (Belgium). Her research focuses on organizational behaviour, general management, and individual and organizational performance management in the public, non-profit, and social profit sector.