Professor Maier suggests that the lack of agreement he found between

of the dialogue is of paramount importance, such that both superior and subordinate should play their roles with equal
openness and frankn~ss, establishing clear targets of performance to which both superior and subordinate are committed. Unfortunately for advocates of annual appraisals, many outstanding men are notably deficient in tact. In a few cases performance reviews stimulate sadistic desires to strip subordinates bare for other than altruistic reasons. Similar beliefs have led to the recommendation or separation of performance and reward, i.e. to look upon appraisal as a tool for career development with the superior committed to follow up failings exposed in the process, by giving time or training to correct the weakness.
Not only can subordinates experience difficult in being critical of their more influential superiors but also superiors can be reluctant to criticize as the following quote from a manager to whom I talked indicates: 'Some of my subordinates may complain about some people all the year round but when it comes to appraisal time they
tend to say. "Oh, they're a lot better recently". They are very reluctant to criticize or act the headmaster.'
Professor Maier suggests that the lack of agreement he found between superior-subordinate pairs over job details questions the validity of appraisal and the willingness of the subordinate to accept this system. Perhaps, significantly, none of the companies he studied used 'participative appraisals.
Meyer et ai., Kay et ai., and French et al. confirm
this belief. in an extended study of ninety-two superiorsubordinate pairs at a general electlic plant the authors found: