Conflicting interests, dominance and power relations on coercive and enabling controls of performance appraisal practice: An empirical study of a private university

Abstract

This paper reports on a case study of the actual practice of internally enacted performance appraisal system in a Sri Lankan private university (University Bravo). The study investigates the impacts stemming from the interplay between three forms of episodic, dispositional and systemic power circuits through which organisational agents influence or transform the coercive and enabling aspects of performance appraisal process by which appraisals are agreed at different levels of departments/faculties. The paper further documents how various agents negotiate their views with both superiors and subordinates who are positioned at different hierarchical levels with varying degrees of freedom and influence the conduct of other officials in operating performance appraisal practice.