When Performance Appraisals Fail: Emotion Regulation and the Direction of Organizational Routines

Abstract Despite their ubiquity, there is much uncertainty as to whether performance appraisals work, and considerable evidence as to their shortfalls. Drawing on the sociological literature on routine dynamics, we examine the embeddedness of the performance appraisal, the role of emotions, exploring what goes on during the process, and how as a routine, appraisals may be diverted onto a trajectory increasingly incompatible with organizational goals. Previous studies have explored how managers may successfully intervene when routines become dysfunctional; we explore when and how this becomes difficult or impossible. We assess how negative emotions introduce a layer of backstage complexity to the appraisal routine. It is based on professional service firms' subsidiaries in a Middle Eastern context, where informal rules and network ties may subvert formal organizational ones. The study identifies distancing, working around, and buffering, as key responses to current and anticipated future negative affective events. It highlights how emotions are not simply antecedents or consequences in the appraisal process; they are experienced throughout the process, accompanying each action, interaction, and event. This study extends routine dynamics and performance appraisal literature by highlighting the emotional dimension's intervening role and examining actors' contending subjectivities. We emphasize how actors shape appraisal routines in diverse and individualistic ways at the micro‐level.