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Effects of upward accountability and rating purpose on peer‐rater inflation and delay: a field experiment
Author(s) -
Beckner David,
Highhouse Scott,
Hazer John T.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
journal of organizational behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.938
H-Index - 177
eISSN - 1099-1379
pISSN - 0894-3796
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-1379(199803)19:2<209::aid-job880>3.0.co;2-o
Subject(s) - accountability , psychology , supervisor , inflation (cosmology) , accounting , distortion (music) , field (mathematics) , inter rater reliability , social psychology , economics , rating scale , political science , management , law , computer science , developmental psychology , mathematics , amplifier , physics , theoretical physics , pure mathematics , computer network , bandwidth (computing)
Procedural influences on peer‐rater distortion and delay were investigated in a field experiment. Employees ( N =123) of a business information firm were randomly assigned to conditions in a 2 (upward accountability versus no accountability) by 2 (administrative purpose versus research purpose) experimental design. Results revealed evidence for an accountability by purpose interaction on rater delay. Specifically, raters delayed rating their peers when the purpose was research‐only and they had to explain their ratings to a supervisor. When the rating purpose was administrative, no differences in delay due to accountability were obtained. We found no effects for upward accountability and rating purpose on peer‐rater inflation. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.