Week 5 Video Episodes Exercises: Part 1
Questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Warren gives Nick high marks on "Ability to Get Along with Others" because he seems to get
along well with his co-workers. On the very next factor, "Knowledge of Order Fulfillment
Procedures" Warren also gives him a high rating, because he assumes that Nick is probably
doing well on this factor as well. This is an example of
a. leniency error.
b. strictness error.
c. attribution error.
d. halo effects.
As Warren conducts the performance appraisal interview with Nick, it is clear that he is very
uncomfortable. Warren is basically a nice guy and he's not sure how he would handle a
confrontation with Nick if he were to give him a low rating on one of the job skills. So he decides
to just give him high ratings on most of the job skills. This is an example of
a. leniency error.
b. strictness error.
c. attribution error.
d. halo effects.
Based on what you've seen, it appears that Warren's performance appraisal of Nick is based
primarily on
a. objective measures of performance.
b. subjective measures of performance.
c. both objective and subjective measures of performance.
d. neither objective nor subjective measures of performance.
We get a sense from the beginning of the video that Gail feels that Nick is not such a good
employee. Suppose that she is upset that he gets paid the same as her, has the same size office,
etc. Thus, she might feel that there is <blank> injustice at CanGo.
a. procedural
b. distributive
c. both procedural and distributive
We've seen that Gail is pretty upset when she hears that Nick's appraisal went well. She knows
that the appraisal forms that Warren uses contain no space for the ratings of the activities that
she knows are important to the job - keeping the computer servers from crashing and getting
the orders filled correctly. Thus, she probably feels that there is <blank> injustice at CanGo.
a. procedural
b. distributive
c. both procedural and distributive
Answer Key:
d – This is a halo effect. It might sound like a leniency error, but the key here is that Warren's
assessment on one dimension affects his rating on another. That's a halo effect.
a – Leniency error occurs when the rater is not willing to give candid feedback about performance
problems to the person whose performance is being evaluated. The leniency error in this situation is
driven by Warren's tendency to be a nice guy and over his embarrassment about giving negative
feedback to Nick.
b – Warren uses a system primarily based on casual observation and impressions rather than on hard
performance criteria such as the number of errors per day. This is typical of subjective measures of
performance.
b – Gail is upset because the way the rewards are given out around CanGo seems to be unfair. Some
have the same rewards as others, even though they don't seem to be as valuable to the company.
That's distributive injustice.
a – This is a good example of procedural injustice. Gail knows that the procedure used for informing
employees of their strengths and their weaknesses is inadequate. This could lead to decreased
morale and commitment to the organization.