Do Global ‘Best Practices’ in Performance Management meet Employees’ Preferences?

When implementing performance management (PM) on a global level, MNEs face the challenge of balancing global standardization and local adaptation. Many MNEs favor standardization, since it promises similar worldwide approaches and smoother cooperation. As an orientation for standardization efforts, the literature provides so-called ‘best practices’, which are assumed to increase performance while being universally applicable. This paper focuses on employees’ preferences in PM in order to investigate the global applicability of ‘best practice’ PM measures. Based on an encompassing conceptualization of the elements of global PM (criteria, methods, actors, purposes, and feedback), a quantitative study including 210 employees from one MNE’s subsidiaries in Germany, USA, South Africa, and China reveals common preferences that reflect only partially the literature-based ‘best practices’. Moreover, the results also show employees’ common preferences for additional PM elements, such as teamwork-oriented criteria ...