CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
Performance appraisal systems began as simple methods of income justification. That is,
appraisal was used to decide whether or not the salary or wage of an individual employee
was justified (Armstrong, 1988). The process was linked to outcomes. If an employee's
performance was found to be less than ideal, a cut in pay would follow. If their
performance was better than the supervisor expected, a pay rise was in order. Performance
appraisal results are used either directly or indirectly to help determine reward outcomes.
That is, the appraisal results are used to identify the best performing employees who
should get the majority of available merit, pay increases, bonuses, and promotions. Also,
appraisal results are used to identify the poorer performers who need training demoted or
dismissed.

Performance appraisal is good because it makes employees to work hard and fulfil their
responsibilities hence, contribute to the overall performance of the organisation. But,
unless performance appraisal is performed effectively, it may not help the organization to
achieve the objectives of conducting it in the first place that is, to improve organisational
performance.

There is an increasing body of critical literature addressing the role and theory of
appraisal. According to Torrington (2005) performance appraisal is designed and imposed
by the HR function hence it sometimes leads to having little ownership of the system by
line managers. It seems like a process of form filling exercise for someone else’s benefit
and with no practical value to performance within the job.

Hence this throws some lights on the use and effectiveness of performance appraisal in
organisations. Scholars stipulate that although many appraisal systems are still inexistence
and continue to be updated, performance management systems are increasingly seen as the
way to manage employee performance and have incorporated than appraisal/review
process (Ibid.)
 Statement of the Problem

The success of every institution depends on the quality and commitment of its human
resources. In order to ensure continued efficiency and effectiveness of

members of staff, each organization has to carry out employee performance appraisal from
time to time so as to keep them in check and replace, motivate, retrain or take any other
appropriate action.
There has been little research in this field of performance appraisal. Most studies
discuss performance appraisal that allows employees to develop their skills and to meet
business goal. Rich (1996) introduced a skill-based method of performance management
that creates a work environment that allows employees to develop the skills they need to
meet business goals. The skill-based management measures skills and tracks and combines
them into job descriptions, identifies employee specific skill gaps and then provides
resources to upgrade abilities. Murray (1980) proposed using customer satisfaction
measure as a basis of performance reviews and management rewards which results into
more objective performance reviews, more effective employees, more satisfied customers
and better business performance.

The majority of empirical studies on performance appraisal (PA) systems focus on the
search for the perfect form in which subjective traits are replaced by objective and job-
relevant measurable behaviours. Organizations using a performance appraisal system to
evaluate their employees, struggle with issues of implementation, adoption and linkage
with other human resource systems. To make a performance appraisal a viable
management tool from a broader perspective, organizations and researchers must invest
time in training managers in performance appraisal skills, in developing system
evaluations which take into account reliability, validity and managerial goals as well as
designing systems to meet specific organizational conditions and expectations. In addition,
research in these three areas will help to develop more acceptable and successful
performance appraisal System.

Besides, there is a lot of competition amongst themselves as well as with well-established

Public and Private Media organizations. To ensure them become more competitive, these
organizations need to retain high calibre staff both journalists and non-journalist staff
through effective performance appraisals.
 Objective of the Study
A performance appraisal objective is an organisation's goal or an intended outcome from
the performance appraisal process. These objectives typically seek to address employee
development, goal setting, performance feedback or compensation and rewards.

General Objective

The general objective of the study was to assess the effects of performance appraisal
systems on employees’ performance in the selected radio stations.

Specific Objectives

The study had the following specific objectives:

i) To examine the extent to which employees’ awareness on appraisal system leads to

effective employees’ performance in community radios

ii) To explore the extent to which employees’ knowledge of the appraisal system leads to
effective employees’ performance in community radios. iii) To assess the extent to which
performance appraisal management leads to effective employees’ performance in
community radios.

Research Questions

The study was guided by the following research questions.

i) To what extent does employees’ awareness on appraisal system lead to effective

employees’ performance in community radios?

ii) To what extent does employees’ knowledge of the appraisal system lead to effective
employees’ performance in community radios?

iii) To what extent does performance appraisal management lead to effective employees’
performance in community radios?

Significance of the Study

It is expected that findings from this study will be of importance to the management and
members of staff at Upendo, WAPO and Tumaini Radio stations and other media houses to
understand how performance appraisal should be conducted. The findings of this study
will also assist the management of Upendo, WAPO and Tumaini radio stations in decision-
making regarding how to use performance appraisal system to improve the overall
performance of the radio stations. However, the study will be submitted to the Open
University of Tanzania (OUT) in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of
master’s degree in Business Administration. Also, the findings of the study will serve as a
stepping stone for future researchers who will be interested in this study or other related
studies.

Limitations of the Study

There were certain limitations while conducting the research work. The study was carried
out only on WAPO, Tumaini and Upendo employees posted in Dar es Salaam with a
limited sample size of 100 employees. It was a time-consuming exercise due to difficulty
in extracting information from them. Again, some senior executive had no time to fill the
questionnaires on time. Moreover, some employees were reluctant to reveal the complete
information.

To curb these challenges, the researcher sampled the 100 respondents carefully in order to
get the information required for the study. The use of respondents with experience from
other organizations aimed at getting the information which will cut across different
organizations operating within and outside Dar es Salaam. Therefore, WAPO, Tumaini,
and Upendo radio stations represent other stations within and outside Dar es Salaam. Also
the problem of time was solved by proper involvement of the researcher in collecting data
and ensuring confidentiality to respondents. Being an employee of Upendo radio station it
was possible to get enough information from Upendo radio station as well as other stations
because of good relations among employees in these community radios.

The Scope of the Study

Geographically, the scope of this study was delimited to WAPO Radio, Upendo Radio and
Tumaini radio in Dar es Salaam, the commercial city of Tanzania. The research was
limited to the identification of the effects of performance appraisal on employees’
performance in community radios. The existing performance appraisal was analysed to
ascertain its effects.
CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW

This study focuses on the effects of performance appraisal system in employees’

performance in Tanzania specifically in community radios. There are several concepts
used in this study. Some of those concepts have retained their normal meanings and some
of them have specific meanings relevant to this study. To avoid ambiguities the concepts
such as performance appraisal and community radio need to be defined here as they relate
to this study.

Performance Appraisal

Performance appraisal is a process of identifying, observing, measuring and developing

human performance in organisations and has attracted the attention of both academicians
and practitioners. The process is also viewed as making an important contribution to
effective human resource management as it is closely interlinked to organisational
performance (Erdogan, 2002).

Performance appraisal is a management tool that helps management in its drive

towards optimizing performance, primarily individual performance and therefore,
organisation performance now and in the future. The aim of performance appraisal can be
achieved through assessing how effectively employees are working in their present jobs
and what they need to do and know to perform even better (Bono, 2003). Gupta (2006)
defines performance appraisal as a process of assessing the performance and progress of
an employee or of a group of employees on a given job and his potential for future
development. He further argues that performance appraisal consists of all formal
procedures used in work organizations to evaluate personalities, contributions and
potentials of employees. Torrington et al. (2005), define performance appraisal as a system
that provides a formalized process to review the performance of employees. Performance
appraisal varies between organisations and covers personality, behaviour or job
performance and it can be measured quantitatively or qualitatively. Performance appraisal
involves unstructured narrative on performance of the appraiser.
CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Introduction

This Chapter focuses on the research methodology used in this study. The section explains
why the study adopted the case study as a research strategy. Since the study adopted the
case study approach, various methods and techniques of data collection and analysis were
used during the fieldwork.

Research Design
This study adopted a case study design with multiple units of enquiry whereas the Upendo,
WAPO and Tumaini radio stations were studied so as to assess the effects of performance
appraisal system. The design has been opted and selected from others because of weighing
each design’s benefits against their limitations and select accordingly. Kassam (1990) and
Kothari (2006) argue for a representative sample of population to avoid repetition of the
same responses and to save time. Therefore, the small numbers of individuals selected for
the study represent the entire population from community radios. It is a representative
sample.

Research Approach
This study used both quantitative and qualitative data collection because it includes a
range of methods such as documentation, interview and observation. The combination of
qualitative and quantitative approaches provides the most complete or insightful
understanding (Rwegoshora, 2006). This approach provides a better understanding of
research problems. It can also provide better opportunities for testing alternative
interpretations of the data, for examining the extent to which the