 In this topic, we are going to talk about some additional aspects of the performance appraisal process. And in previous topics, we have discussed about individual aspects. In this topic, we have combined two free topics, additional aspects about the performance appraisal. Now the first one is the standardized appraisal forms. Whether to use standardized appraisal forms which are developed by the headquarters, by the parent country and apply them all over the world. There are advantages of that. Advantages are that the performance appraisal process is going to be standardized. The performance is going to be evaluated on the same criteria all over the world. And therefore it is something which can be then clubbed together and can be compared. But there are definitely disadvantages because, you know, you cannot standardize something on a global level. There could be different types of requirements of a job in one country and the requirements may totally be different in another country. For example, the requirement of a manager in a US or UK firm would be something else. And the requirement of the manager in a Pakistani firm would be something else. In UK US firms, the performance has to be objective. The person has to be performance oriented. Over here in Pakistan, the person has to be first of all relationship oriented and then the performance is going to follow. So the task of being relationship oriented is very much important and required in the Pakistani context. So how can a standardized form be applied to all contexts in the entire world? So there are disadvantages of those standardized forms. But however, it is something which is easier to implement and then develops a comparable data. So maybe for the technical and for the operative kind of jobs, the standardized forms can be developed. But as the job or the task or the role becomes more subjective, the requirement is more subjective, the goals are more subjective. Then maybe the standardized forms may not be applicable. So it is something which may vary in different situations. Then another aspect is that of the frequency of appraisals. Mostly the appraisals are conducted on a yearly basis. However, an ideal appraisal system includes continuous informal and formal appraisal. So in an ideal system, it is not something which should be an intermittent activity, something which happens just after a year. This has taken form in the educational system in the form of semester system in which students are required to perform and they are evaluated continuously. So their class participation is evaluated, their midterm, final term performance is evaluated, their quizzes are evaluated. So it is a continuous form of informal and formal evaluation in appraisal. This also has to be applied in the organizational aspect as well, in the organizations as well. And those organizations who implement a formal and informal system of appraisal are more successful than the other organizations which only conduct it only once a year. And it has also been found that firms who conducted yearly appraisals employed hard criteria for evaluation. So that means that they did not take into account the subjective aspects of performance which are really very, very important for making the performance appraisal a comprehensive and an overarching framework of appraisal. Then is the aspect of feedback. Feedback on performance is most important element because unless you do not get the feedback, you are not able to improve your performance. So the objective of performance appraisal and performance management is that the performance of a person will be maintained, sustained and improved. So you will not be able to improve if the feedback is not given. The problem of feedback in the international context is that performance management, performance appraisal is conducted in one country and then the data is sent to the other country to the headquarters. And then feedback on that would then come after a certain time period. So the time gap and the geographical distances, they create a problem for this feedback loop. And challenge for an expatriate is that mostly feedback is available on hard criteria because expatriate performance, if it is being measured by the headquarters, they cannot observe the performance of that person on the subjective nature. They cannot observe his performance. They can only get measurement statistics on the performance of that person. And that is also a challenge for the virtual assignees. Where do they get the feedback from? Will they get the feedback from, because virtual assignees are those who are sitting in one place and they are also looking after the functions of some aspect of a subsidiary in another place as well and virtually looking after that. So whose feedback they will take into account? Will they take into account the feedback of the subsidiary unit manager or the parent country manager? And finally, a very important aspect of this performance appraisal process is that performance appraisal of home country nationals. So we talked about the parent country nationals, the third country nationals who are the expatriates. But what about the performance appraisal of people working in a multinational who are the citizens of the country where the multinational has established the subsidiary unit? So the performance appraisal must include cultural applicability. Unless the cultural applicability is not there, the cultural applicability is not taken into account. As we discussed in the context of Mexican and American context, it will not be an appropriate and objective feedback. Then local responsiveness may affect standardization and global orientation. So the organization has to balance between the local responsiveness. How much do you leverage the home country citizens? How much cultural requirements do you take that into account? And how much do you impose your rules and your culture on them? So if you show a lot of local responsiveness to them and adopt their culture, then where will your organization's culture go and where will your objectives go? So you need to make a balance between that. And home country nationals may be involved to develop the appraisal system. If you involve them in this process, then their representativeness will improve and they will feel that they are owning the appraisal process themselves. So the performance appraisal of post-country nationals of the citizens of the country who are working in your subsidiary unit, that is also an important aspect. So how the home country national roles they are conceived? As we saw in the case of parent country nationals and third country nationals, they were cultural boundaries. So over here, the cultural boundary is between the parent company and the HCN manager. So there is one cultural boundary. The HCN manager who is the role recipient is receiving the role from the parent country which is affected by the cultural boundary. But the stakeholders, host country stakeholders who are also the role senders, their expectations, they do not pass through a cultural boundary. So the host country national manager will be more responsive towards the host country stakeholders and will be more aligned with the host country stakeholders. Host country stakeholder role expectations, whereas the parent country role expectations may pass through a cultural boundary and therefore create a little bit of complication. So that is how the role of a host country national is perceived and therefore the performance appraisal of a host country national must consider the cultural applicability of this process of role conception.