ABSTRACT
With the internationalisation of business, it becomes more important to understand how culture may influence responses to appraisal. Assumptions about performance appraisal based on experience and research in predominantly Western countries may not hold good when transferred to other cultures. For example, individuals from cultures high on Individualism and low on Power Distance may have a very different attitude to appraisal compared to people who have been raised in Collectivist and high Power Distance cultures; such differences can impact on an individual's willingness to give feedback, to question feedback, to claim achievements for themselves rather than the team and so on. However, with an increasingly multinational workforce, there may be a wide range of cultural backgrounds represented within a single organisation, and both appraisers and appraisees need to be sensitised in appraisal training about some of the possible differences and resulting outcomes.
