The performance evaluation context: Social, emotional, cognitive, political, and relationship components

There is perhaps no more central human resources practice than performance evaluation. Scholars have engaged in active research in this area for decades, initially focusing almost exclusively on instrumentation, and, only within the past 25 years or so, considering ‘process issues.’ In this paper, we suggest that performance evaluation is a formal accountability mechanism nested within a complex social, emotional, cognitive, political, and relationship context, which needs careful consideration and comprehension in order to fully sort out performance evaluation challenges and leverage possibilities. Performance evaluation research is critically reviewed, emphasizing this accountability mechanism against the backdrop of the social, emotional, cognitive, political, and relationship contextual components. The status of prior theory development in this area also is considered, and we propose a framework for this area of scientific inquiry, which is grounded in Affective Events Theory and Emotion Cycle Theory. Implications of this conceptualization for future theory and research regarding the social, emotional, cognitive, political, and relationship context of performance evaluation are discussed.