RESEARCH REPORT National Cultures, Performance Appraisal Practices, and Organizational Absenteeism and Turnover: A Study Across 21 Countries Hilla Peretz Ort Braude College Yitzhak Fried Syracuse University Performance appraisal (PA) is a key human resource activity in organizations. However, in this global economy, we know little about how societal cultures affect PA practices. In this study, we address this gap by focusing on 2 complementary issues: (a) the influence of societal (national) cultural practices on PA practices adopted by organizations and (b) the contribution of the level of congruence between societal cultural practices and the characteristics of organizational PA practices to absenteeism and turnover. The results, based on a large data set across multiple countries and over 2 time periods, support the hypothesized effects of societal (national) cultural practices on particular PA practices and the interactive effects of societal cultural practices and PA practices on absenteeism and turnover. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our findings. Keywords: national values, performance appraisal, organizational outcomes Performance appraisal (PA) is a central human resource activity in organizations because of its critical importance in enhancing both employee and organizational performance (e.g., Atwater, Wang, Smither, & Fleenor, 2009; Levy & Williams, 2004; Murphy & Cleveland, 1995). Although the importance of PA within orga- nizations has long been recognized, in recent years PA has also become central to political and policy debates as well. For exam- ple, in the United States, the issues of whether and how teachers’ performance should be measured and rewards tied to their teaching effectiveness have become contentious political topics (e.g., Gollan, 2011; Meckler, 2009). Not surprisingly, researchers have produced a substantial liter- ature focused on conceptual analysis and investigation of PA (e.g., Cardy & Dobbins, 1994; Fried, Levi, Ben-David, & Tiegs, 1999; Fried, Levi, Ben-David, Tiegs, & Avital, 2000; Fried & Tiegs, 1995; Fried, Tiegs, & Bellamy, 1992; Judge & Ferris, 1993; London & Beatty, 1993; Mero, Guidice, & Anna, 2006; Murphy & Cleveland, 1995; Murphy, Cleveland, Kinney, & Skattebo, 2004). Several characteristics of PA systems have been identified and investigated. These include the purpose of the PA (e.g., individual- oriented [for allocating individual outcomes such as merit raises or promotions] vs. unit- or organization-oriented [for identifying needs in human resource planning, training and development, and organization of work]), the sources of evaluation (e.g., supervisors, peers, subordinates, 360-degree), and who is being evaluated (e.g., employees only or both employees and their managers) (e.g., Beer, 1981; Murphy & Cleveland, 1995). Most of this research has been conducted in the United States and a few other Western, mostly developed nations. Relatively little research has been conducted on the role of PA in the global economy (e.g., Aycan, 2005; Aycan et al., 2000; Bowen, Calang, & Pillai, 2002; Kelley, Whatley, & Worthley, 1987; Walker & Dimmock, 2000). The increase in globalization and multinational operations has raised timely and interesting questions about (a) the degree to which companies located in countries with different cultures tend to implement PA programs, and the characteristics of these programs (cf. Atwater et al., 2009), and (b) how congruence or lack of congruence between national cultures and the charac- teristics of the PA system affects organizational outcomes (cf. Aycan, 2005). The current research is aimed at remedying this gap in the literature. Specifically, our study has the following purposes: First, we explore the influence of societal cultural practices on the char- acteristics of organizations’ PA practices (concerning, e.g., who evaluates, who is evaluated, and the purposes of the evaluation). Second, we investigate the contribution of the level of congru- ence between these cultural practices and the characteristics of PA practices to two key organizational outcomes: absenteeism and turnover (e.g., Griffeth, Hom, & Gaertner, 2000; Hom & Griffeth, 1995; Johns, 2001). Our aim was to investigate the interactive effect of societal cultural practices and PA practices on these organizational outcomes (cf. G. Chen & Mathieu, 2008). This article was published Online First October 31, 2011. Hilla Peretz, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Ort Braude College, Karmiel, Israel; Yitzhak Fried, Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University. The study was supported by a grant from the Society of Human Re- source Management (SHRM) Foundation, for which we are grateful. We would like to thank our colleagues at the CRANET research network for allowing us access to their data. We are also indebted to Gilad Chen and Ariel Levi for their valuable suggestions on an earlier version of the article. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Hilla Peretz, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Ort Braude College, Snunit 51 Street, Karmiel 21982, Israel. E-mail: hillap@ braude.ac.il Journal of Applied Psychology © 2011 American Psychological Association 2012, Vol. 97, No. 2, 448 – 459 0021-9010/12/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0026011 448 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.