PAY,CONTROL AND COMMITMENT: LINKING APPRAISAL AND REWARD

John Geary, who is a Research Fellow in the Industrial Relations Research Unit at the University of Warwick, explores the implementation of appraisal-linked reward systems in three US electronics plants operating in the Irish Republic. He focuses in particular on how the schemes work in practice and how employees respond to them. He argues that there are often a number of tensions within management's strategy and that the degree to which such reward systems are capable of engendering harmonious relations must be open to some scepticism. Furthermore, he questions the extent to which management's payment policy was successful in avoiding the extremes of individualism and collectivism.