The Effects of Collective versus Individual Performance Assessment on Work Teams: The Case of a French Quick-Service Restaurant
The effects of the change from a collective performance evaluation to an individual one, or vice versa, on work teams and their effectiveness are studied in a real work setting in which two work teams recently experienced a change in evaluation procedures, from a collective one to an individual one for the first work team and from an individual one to a collective one for the other. While evaluation individualization led to the individualization of work activity in both teams, the effects on perceptions, interpersonal relations and performance were mixed. When evaluation criteria made the identification of individual contributions impossible without individual evaluation, collective evaluation was associated with increased suspicion between team members and reduced performance, when compared with individual evaluation. In contrast, when evaluation criteria enabled possibilities for mutual support within the work team, collective evaluation was more positively perceived and associated with better relationships and increased performance, when compared with individual evaluation. While individual performance evaluation is usually preferred to collective evaluation, this study lends some empirical support to research which usually postulates that collective evaluation of work teams may increase global performance when compared with individual evaluation of their members because the former enhances cooperation and collective regulation. However, results highlight that the positive impact of collective evaluation when compared to individual evaluation is only observed when evaluation criteria enable collective regulation. This study helps to identify these two elements: 1- when one or the other evaluation procedure is associated with positive outcomes; and 2- which evaluation criteria should be selected in order to enhance the positive effects of collective evaluation on performance generated by cooperation and collective regulation.