Language & Communication 39 (2014) 92108

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Language & Communication

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/langcom

Making objectives common in performance appraisal

interviewsq
Pekka Plli a, *, Esa Lehtinen b,1
a
b

Aalto University School of Business, Department of Management Studies, P.O. Box 21210, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland
University of Vaasa, Faculty of Philosophy, Modern Finnish and Translation, P.O. Box 700, FI-65101 Vaasa, Finland

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Available online 29 October 2014

This paper investigates goal setting in performance appraisal interviews. The data are
video-recorded performance appraisal interviews from a Finnish public sector organization. The study focuses on the role of writing in deciding on common goals for future
development. Drawing from conversation analytical methods, the empirical analysis
highlights three central interactional patterns for the setting of goals: a proposalapproval/
rejection format, a questionanswer format, and a summary format. It is shown that they
are different in terms of how they allow the employee to participate in the process.
Furthermore, the analysis demonstrates that writing practices play a crucial role in these
interactional sequences. It is thus argued that goal setting is inextricably connected to the
discursive action of completing the appraisal form.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Performance appraisal interviews
Goal setting
Conversation analysis
Writing practice
Superiorsubordinate communication

1. Introduction
Performance appraisals (hence PAs) serve multiple purposes in organizations, among which the evaluation of performance, the setting of goals for work, and the agreeing on future development are some of the most important and most
widely recognized (Meyer et al., 1965; Ivancevich, 1982; Hollenbeck and Klein, 1987; Roberts and Reed, 1996; Pettijohn et al.,
2001; Boswell and Boudreau, 2002). Still, despite the attention that the functions have received in the literature, there is little
knowledge of how these functions are interactionally accomplished by participants in real-time performance appraisal
discussions. Put more generally, there has been an overall emphasis on reported experiences of PAs (e.g. interviews or
questionnaires) in past research (Gordon and Steward, 2009), but only a few (for exceptions, see Adams, 1981; Asmub, 2008;
Sandlund et al., 2011; Clifton, 2012) have dealt with PAs as situated action, as a lived experience and in real time. In simple
terms, e.g. peoples opinions about PAs, their retrospective accounts of their own and their superiors or subordinates
behavior in interview situations, and their attitudes towards the conduct of the interviews have been studied, but we know
little about what happens between people in their situated face-to-face encounters. This is unfortunate, since the study of
institutional patterns of interaction can shed light on the questions of how people perform and achieve different functions of
PA interviews.

q This work was supported by the Finnish Work Environment Fund under Grant 111071, and the Academy of Finland under Grant 253350.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 358 403538210.
E-mail addresses: pekka.palli@aalto. (P. Plli), esa.lehtinen@uva. (E. Lehtinen).
1
Tel.: 358 294498377.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2014.09.002
0271-5309/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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This study focuses on the conversational action of setting goals for employees work. Our data are six video-recorded PA
interviews (PAIs) in one Finnish public organization. Each interview lasts approximately one hour, and they all contain quite
explicit goal setting sequences, which play a markedly important role in the interviews. The appraisal form has a title
Agreed Goals, under which the superior and subordinates write down their agreement in the form of a short list. We will
show that this effort of getting the goals into textual form greatly inuences the interaction and the way that the discussants
jointly make sense of the future objectives. In particular, our study underpins the role of writing as physical action in the
interviews.
Applying conversation analysis, we examine the goals for future as interactional achievements of the superior and the
subordinate. By achievement we mean that the goals and joint understanding of them are something that the participants
attend to and construct in interaction and by means of interaction. In our empirical analysis, we will show how goals are set
through conversational practices and practices of writing. Firstly, we will show how the activity of goal setting is initiated
with three alternative conversational strategies: the superior proposes goals for the subordinate, asks for the subordinates
suggestions, or summarizes the preceding discussion. These strategies open up different possibilities for the subordinate to
participate in the goal setting activity. Secondly, we will show how writing plays an important role in the goal setting sequences. In particular, our analysis suggests that writing is a discursive device that has noticeable power effects. Overall, we
argue that writing as action shapes the conduct of the goal setting sequence in appraisal interviews.
Our study makes three main contributions. First, it contributes to the research of PAs as organizational leadership practices
by adding a perspective of lived experience, as it analyses authentic video-recorded PA interviews, real-time interaction of
superiorsubordinate dyads. Second, our investigation of talk-in-interaction participates in the discussion of the elements of
productive dialogue (e.g. Isaacs, 1999; Tsoukas, 2009), as our empirical analysis contributes to the understanding of how
achieving and agreeing on common goals can take a dialogical form and be a joint enterprise. In particular, we will show how
writing as situated practice shapes and steers this dialogue. Third, as our analysis provides an example of how written text
and talk-in-interaction affect each other, we participate in the discussion about the role of talk-text-dialectics in organizational phenomena, which is of specic interest to scholars who apply insights from sensemaking and coordination theories to
organizational communication (Robichaud et al., 2004; Ashcraft et al., 2009; Cooren et al., 2011).
The rest of the article is structured as follows: First, we briey present the theoretical discussion and earlier research
regarding traditional perspectives on appraisal interviews and their signicance as leadership and management tools. This
section paves way for our contention that despite of the various approaches to PAIs, there is little research that views them as
discursive practices of talk and text. We end the theoretical section by reviewing studies that have shown the importance of
text in social and professional practices in general as well as studies that have concentrated on the use of writing in institutional encounters. Then the next two sections present our data, methods and empirical analysis. The paper ends with a
concluding section where we present our main ndings and discuss the contributions of the study.
2. PAIs as social and discursive practices
Performance appraisal processes and especially the interviews have provoked lively debate and interest ever since the
time of the Second World War, when appraisal rst emerged as a distinct and formal management procedure in the US.
Already some 50 years ago, Meyer et al. (1965) described the topic as being highly interesting and provocative in management
circles and in business literature. In their words, one might almost say that everybody talks and writes about it (p. 123). In
similar vein, Nathan et al. (1991) mention that few topics in personnel research have received as much attention as performance appraisal. Despite the attention given to the topic, there has been and undoubtedly still is ongoing debate regarding
what kinds of appraisal practices are effective and what is the usefulness of the interviews (Meyer, 1991). However, empirical
research has been able to demonstrate that effective appraisal practices lead to, for example, improved employee productivity, job satisfaction, and commitment (Mayer and Davis, 1999; Pettijohn et al., 2001; Mani, 2002; Jawahar, 2006). The fact
still remains that there has been surprisingly little research on what really happens between superiors and subordinates
within the institutional encounters of interview situations, as most PAI studies have relied on data gotten from e.g. questionnaires and retrospective interviews.
It is also noteworthy that normative and prescriptive approaches have dominated the research. In human resource
management and business literature, this has meant providing information and guidelines on how to use appraisals effectively and also how to manage the appraisal process and how to conduct an interview (e.g. Grote, 2000; Losyk, 2002; Caruth
and Humphreys, 2008; Hammer, 2007). Similarly, studies related to communicational aspects of PAIs (Laird and Clampitt,
1985; Van der Molen and Kluytmans, 1997) have been preoccupied with what is good and efcient communication. In all,
we can conclude that prescriptive research has been managerially-centered: this research has established guidelines on how
to conduct PAIs, but neglected the interactive character of the interview (Fletcher, 2001; Asmub, 2008; Clifton, 2012; Gordon
and Steward, 2009).
Nevertheless, earlier research has brought forth the importance of superior-subordinate relationship with regard to the
effects of PAIs. In their study, Nathan et al. (1991) show that the interpersonal relationship between superior and subordinate
is signicant in that it affects the subordinates reactions to the appraisal process. Their ndings also suggest the prominence
of the subordinates possibility to participate in the appraisal. Other studies have also drawn attention to the signicance of
participation, as they have demonstrated that participation is connected to employee reactions to feedback (Cawley et al.,
1998), and that mutual feedback correlates with the effects of PAIs (Jawahar, 2006). It has also been shown that employee

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justice perception of the appraisal is related to the interaction during the interviews and more specically to the interactional
style adopted by the superior (Erdogan, 2002), which again underscores the important role of in situ interaction in the
institutional practice of performance appraisal.
Echoing these observations and ndings, some researchers have paid attention to what actually happens in the interviews
and how the institutional character of face-to-face interaction affects the conduct and the interview as a face-to-face
encounter. In an early conversation analytical study in this area, Adams (1981) investigated the question and answer sequences in PAIs. Her study suggests that by demonstrating their understanding of the expectancy to ask and answer questions, the manager as well as the employee accomplish their institutional roles and thus reconstruct the institutional norms of
the face-to-face encounter. In a more recent study, Sandlund et al. (2011) show that the institutional norms that concern being
an ideal employee affect the behavior in PAIs as institutional encounters. Their study also indicates that the institutional
structure of the interview situation has an effect on the possibilities of employees to raise critical topics related to their wellbeing at work. Also Asmub (2008) studied the lived experience of superior-subordinate dyads, and she concentrated on
critical feedback given in the interviews. Her study demonstrates that giving critical feedback is socially problematic, and that
this specically affects the way the employees deal with negative assessments. Clifton (2012) elaborates on this theme and
shows that facework characterizes the conduct of interviews.
Interestingly, some of the above-mentioned interactional studies of PAIs have touched on the role of texts and practices of
reading and writing. Clifton (2012) reproduces strips of interaction that show that documents and reading the documents is
important in terms of what happens in interaction. Similarly, Adamss (1981) analysis points toward the fact that texts such as
goal sheets and the practice of reading play a highly important role in the interaction. To date, however, no studies have
concentrated on the question of how reading or writing is used in PAI interaction or how they facilitate the encounter. Still, it
has been demonstrated that texts are important for the practice of PAI in general. Townleys (1993) analysis that was based on
such documents as appraisal forms and notes of guidance is a case in point. Elaborating on the view that texts help to
articulate the asymmetry of power, she demonstrates the signicance of written documentation in the PA practice: both prior
documentation as well as the (needed) subsequent documentation articulate and reconstruct specic managerial roles for the
participants. Important for our purposes, Townley (1993) also notes how authoritative and directive texts of PAIs impose a
necessity to end up with mutually agreed goals as results from the appraisal. In her words, some schemes explicitly require
the appraisers comments to be an agreed record of the appraisal discussion and an agreed statement of objectives (p. 228,
italics original).
Taking a linguistic and discourse analytical approach, Fairclough (2006, p. 8687) draws attention to the relevance of
intertextual chain in PAIs. He describes that what he calls staff appraisal is constituted as a social practice through a chain of
activities, some of which are written and some spoken interactions. In his illustrative example, texts preceding the face-toface interview (such as employees CV or appraisal form) have an effect on the face-to-face interaction which in turn affects
texts-to-come (such as the appraisers evaluation). The point is that in order to understand the practice of PAI and what
happens in the individual stages of it, we need to take into account the way in which these linguistic interactions are linked
together.
More generally, there are studies from other professional settings that investigate the role of writing or drawing in
interaction, some of which use video-recordings as their data (Nevile, 2004; Komter, 2006; Moore et al., 2010; Mondada,
2012). These studies point out, rst of all, that, for the professionals, writing is a way to create a link between different activities in a chain. For example, Moore et al. (2010) show how the order form in a copy shop is a way to transform the clients
wishes into a form that can be understood by other employees later on. Secondly, these studies show how writing can be
collaborative: texts are produced together by the participants of an interactional encounter. As Mondada (2012) points out,
however, joint writing may also lead to controversies. Thirdly, video recordings reveal that talk and writing are precisely
synchronized in relation to each other (e.g., Nevile, 2004). Thus, the timing of the writing with relation to talk is highly
important.
Building on these views, our study will specically concentrate on how the coupling of text and talk is done by writing
during the interaction. The next section presents the data and method of our study, and it is followed by the empirical
analysis.

3. Data and method

Our data are six authentic appraisal interviews from Early Learning Services in a Finnish city organization. The data
were video-recorded in autumn 2010 in a research project that concentrated on performance appraisal interviews as
leadership tools. Each interview lasted approximately one hour. In this data set, there is the same superior in every
interview. He is the manager of Early Learning Services, and he originally took interest in our study for the reason of
developing his professional skills as a manager. The six subordinates that volunteered and gave permission to videorecord the interview are either managers in their own units (such as kindergartens) or area managers (in charge of
more than just their own unit or house, as they call the kindergartens). All video-recordings are fully transcribed by
using Transana software.
In the appraisal interviews an appraisal form is used. In the form there are four main sections with the following titles:
Professional competence, Productivity, Interactional skills and Capability to develop. Under each of the four sections

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there is a blank box that has the title Agreed goals. During the interview the participants write in the box. A translation of
the appraisal form is in the Appendix.
Due to condential information regarding the evaluation of subordinates performance, we were not given access to the
completed interview forms. Consequently, we do not know what the conversationalists actually wrote down in the forms, and
neither can we say if or how the wordings in the superiors and subordinates copies differed from each other. After the
interview, the superior and the subordinates veried the forms with their signatures, suggesting that both participants
accepted the content.
The interview forms were used in the organization for two main purposes. First, they served as records of performance
evaluations and were in that way related to e.g. salary decisions. Second, the completed forms from last year or earlier years
were used as the basis for succeeding interviews for example to evaluate development and to check which of the previous
years objectives had been met.
The methodology of the article is based on conversation analysis (Heritage, 1984; Hutchby and Wooftt, 1998), which is a
specic method for analyzing naturally occurring talk-in-interaction. In conversation analytical research face-to-face interaction is seen as structurally organized. Contributions in interaction are analyzed in their sequential context, and turns of talk
are seen as being shaped by the preceding context and simultaneously renewing that context for the next speaker. A
particularly important concept is the adjacency pair (Schegloff and Sacks, 1973), i.e. a pair of utterances that are normatively
tied to each other. An example of an adjacency pair is a question-answer format: If a question is asked, an answer is
normatively expected from the next speaker. In the conversation analytical study of institutional interaction (Drew and
Heritage, 1992), the goal of the research is to show how the participants accomplish institutional tasks through the
sequential patterns of an institutional encounter. In the context of our study, this means focusing on the institutional task of
goal setting, which the participants accomplish through the sequential, turn-by-turn patterns in PAIs as institutional encounters. We follow conversation analytical methodology also in that we analyze sequential patterns to uncover the competences through which participants of the interaction display and construct their understanding of what is going on
(Heritage, 1984).
In our analysis we rst identied all the goal setting sequences and then conducted a detailed analysis of the interactional
patterns for goal setting2. We gave specic attention to the multimodality of interaction. In line with Goodwin (2007) we hold
the view that social action is constructed not only through talk, but also through other sign systems such as gestures, the
bodies of the interactants and through utilizing aspects of the physical environment. In addition to transcribed strips of
interaction, we present also pictures from the video-recordings. Although the gaze and facial expressions play an important
role in the interaction, we had to for the sake of our agreement of not revealing their identity blur the faces of the
conversationalists in the pictures.
4. Empirical analysis
4.1. Conversational practices for setting goals
In this paper, our purpose is to investigate the role of writing practices in the setting of common goals in appraisal interviews. As, in our data, writing practices are connected to particular kinds of verbal practices, we will rst give a brief
overview of the kinds of verbal practices that are used in connection with goal setting. More specically, there are three kinds
of interactional patterns for the setting of goals.
First, the superior may propose a goal for the subordinate. Earlier studies show that proposals are an important part of
decision-making in workplace contexts (Lehtinen and Plli, 2011; Asmub and Oshima, 2012; Stevanovic, 2012). The proposal
is a rst pair part of an adjacency pair that calls for an approval or a rejection from the co-participant (Maynard, 1984;
Houtkoop, 1987). Approval involves displaying access to, agreement with and commitment to the proposed action.
Furthermore, rejection is a dispreferred action that requires an account from the recipient (Stevanovic, 2012). Thus, the
subordinates participation is quite restricted in the case of a superiors suggestion.
Secondly, goal setting may be performed through a questionanswer format. In these cases the superior asks a question in
which he inquires about the subordinates own thoughts about her goals. This format gives the subordinate a very different
space to participate in goal setting. It is now the subordinate, not the superior, who makes suggestions about goals. As Boden
(1994) has noted, questions and answers in organizational meetings are driven by organizational issues and agendas.
Therefore, the subordinate needs to produce an organizationally relevant answer. And the superior has the right for a third
turn, a comment in which he may evaluate the viability of the subordinates suggestions. Also, the question itself may include
presuppositions that direct the subordinates suggestions.
Thirdly, at the end of a goal setting sequence the superior usually summarizes the previous discussion. The summary
usually concerns both the evaluation and the goal setting part of that discussion.
In the following, we will give examples of the different kinds of interactional goal setting patterns and, in particular, show
what kind of role writing practices play in them.

2
In our data, goal setting is partly enmeshed with evaluation. This can be seen, for example, in extract 4. In our analysis, however, we concentrated on
the goal setting.

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4.2. Writing as part of proposals and approvals

First, we will give two examples of the superiors proposals for a goal. In both examples writing has an important role.
However, they are different in that in extract 1 the approval of the proposal is treated as more or less taken for granted, while
in extract 2 the proposal is treated as more negotiable. As we will show, the writing practices differ accordingly.
Before extract 1 the participants have discussed the co-operation of the kindergarten with the local school. On line 1, the
subordinate closes this discussion with a statement that looks into the future: well see how it goes in the future. From line 4
on, the superior changes the topic and makes a proposal about a goal for the future.
In the transcripts, the superior is marked with A and the subordinate with B. The original Finnish is on one line and the
English translation below it. Above the line there are, in some cases, descriptions of non-verbal action, particularly those that
have to do with writing practices.

The topic of the superiors suggestion (lines 48) concerns integrating two group day cares3 administratively under the
leadership of the subordinate. The group day cares have been referred to earlier in the discussion, but they have not been
talked about in detail. Even here, the talk about them is quite truncated. The superior ends his suggestion with the indexical
expression siihen there (line 8). And, he does not explain what the group day cares should be integrated into. Thus, the
participants treat the issue as given information which does not require further explanation.

3
In the Finnish day care system, there are basically two forms of day care. First, there is the more institutional kindergarten, and then there is so-called
family day care in which the carer has children in her or his home. The group day care is a kind of a middle system, in which two or three family day
carers are united into one unit. In the city in question, some of the group day cares are now administratively brought under the supervision of kindergarten
leaders.

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Grammatically, the superiors expression begins with a jos what if (line 4). This is clearly a marker of a tentatively presented suggestion that calls for an acceptance or a rejection from the co-participant. Stevanovic (2013) calls this kind of a
proposal a declarative conditional. However, if we look at the verbal response of the subordinate, she only produces an mm
(line 6). This response particle is usually a very weak acknowledgment token (see Gardner, 1997) that does not signal any kind
of agreement. Thus, from the point of view of verbal action, the suggestion is responded to in an ambivalent way.
If we look at the writing practices of the participants, the picture changes considerably. Already before the suggestion,
during the closing of the previous topic (line 1), the superior picks up his pen and moves it in writing position. He reaches
writing position at the beginning of the suggestion and writes during the suggestion (see Fig. 1; the superior is on the left in
the gures, the subordinates on the right). Thus, at the same time that he is making the suggestion, he is already observably
recording it on the document. The practice of writing makes the action much stronger. The suggestion is not, after all,
tentative. Rather, the superior treats his suggestion as self-evidently shareable.
We can also look at the non-verbal action of the subordinate. At the end of the suggestion, during the word yhdistetty
united (line 5), she starts writing as well. This happens before the verbal response on line 6. After the response particle (line
7) there is a long pause, during which both of the participants write (see Fig. 2). The writing turns out to be a more important
sign of accepting the suggestion than the verbal response (cf. Asmub and Oshima, 2012).

Fig. 1. 04 A: no jos thn nyt laittaa nin et et well what if we put here like this.

Fig. 2. 07 (12.0).

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We can conclude from this example that the goals are made common for a large part through the writing practices.
Through writing together the participants display to each other that they commit themselves to the goals. It is noteworthy that this kind of a sequence of actions is heavily guided by the superior. Since the superior is already writing
during the suggestion, it would be very difcult for the subordinate to resist the suggestion. In this case as in other cases
where this interactional strategy is used, the goal seems to be connected to something that has been already decided
beforehand and known to both participants. As we showed earlier, both of the participants seem to orient to the issue
being known.
In extract 2 there is a different kind of proposal from the superior. It is clearly more tentative than the one in extract 1.
Extract 2 is part of the discussion on the subordinates capability to develop. This section usually comprises of talk
about possible courses and other kinds of training the subordinate would be interested in attending. This is the case here
as well.

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On lines 12 the superior produces a turn that can be understood as a proposal for a potential goal. It is, however, in the
form of a candidate understanding of the subordinates thoughts. The superior suggests that the subordinate is interested in
a particular kind of training. The suggestion is clearly based on some earlier discussion between the superior and the subordinate. This can be seen in the word edelleen still (line 1).

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This kind of a formulation projects a conrmation or a disconrmation from the respondent (cf. Heritage and Watson,
1979). The subordinate provides a conrmation on line 7. However, the conrmation does not yet mean that the proposal
is accepted, it is only a conrmation of the subordinates interest in the matter. After the conrmation, the subordinate asserts
her commitment to attending the training at some point (line 8) and accounts for not doing it right away (lines 815). Thus
she also shows that she has interpreted the subordinates turn on lines 12 not only as a candidate understanding of her
interest, but also as a proposal for a goal. Then the participants launch into a negotiation about the usefulness of the training
(lines 1636). At the end they seem to reach a joint understanding that the training is indeed useful for the subordinate.
All in all, the proposal in extract 2 is presented as much more negotiable that the one in extract 1. Furthermore, this
negotiability is also reected in and partly constituted through the writing practices. In this case, the superior does not write
during his proposal on lines 12. He begins to move his pen towards writing position after the proposal (line 6). The pen
reaches writing position during the subordinates display of commitment (line 8), but even then he does not begin writing
(Fig. 3). Thus, through his actions, he displays that there is an expectation that something will be written. It is only after a joint

Fig. 3. 08 B: se on ihan mulla ajatuksis ky mut I am planning to do it but.

Fig. 4. 37 (3.0).

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understanding of the usefulness of the training has been reached that he actually begins writing (Fig. 4). In this case, the
subordinate does not write.

4.3. Writing as part of questions and answers

The second strategy the superior has for goal setting is to ask the subordinate for her suggestions. Extract 3 is a case of this
strategy. The participants are talking about the professional competence part of the appraisal form. In the beginning of the
extract the superior produces evaluations of the subordinates performance (lines 14). On lines 47 he turns to goals. He asks
the subordinate whether she has thought about any goals for the kindergarten she leads.

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On lines 952 the subordinate gives a long answer to the superiors question (part of the answer is not shown). She begins it
with an explicit reference to the goals: The goals are.. Also, she mentions that the goals originate in the strategy of the city
(lines 1011). Through such a beginning she projects that she is going to launch into a carefully thought-out list of goals. And
indeed, the answer turns out to be quite structured. First, she gives two general goals: prevention of social exclusion and
different needs of the children (lines 1113). Then she goes into how these goals will be attained (lines 1419). This is also
done in a list-like fashion. Then she names two concrete methods: emotional skills program and interaction games (lines
2223). After that she produces an eli in other words (line 23) and sums up her answer. In the end of her turn (not shown), she
adds a further aspect, including the parents and names a method through which that is attained: this kind of peer support
group. Thus, in her answer the subordinate names both the goals and the methods through which they can be attained.
For our purposes, it is extremely interesting to look at what the superior does during the answer. Verbally, he only produces a few acknowledgment tokens (e.g. line 27), placing himself as a listener of the subordinates long answer. It is more
important what happens nonverbally the superior writes during the answer. He writes twice during the answer, but we will

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concentrate on the rst stretch of writing. He begins to write in the beginning of the answer (line 10) and moves out of writing
position on line 25. The section during which he writes includes the subordinates listing of the goals and methods for
attaining them (see Fig. 5). He stops when the subordinate launches into a summary in which she more or less repeats her
main points. Thus, we can say that through his writing the superior legitimates the subordinates list of goals and methods. He
shows that they are worth writing down and as such, acceptable as agreed goals.
A problem with the writing as legitimation is that it may not be totally clear to the subordinate what it is exactly that the
superior writes on his copy of the appraisal form. She can monitor when the writing happens, but it is clear that the superior does
not have time to write everything down. This inaccuracy can be partly remedied through the third turn of the sequence, i.e. the
superiors comment on the subordinates answer. In extract 2, the comment begins on line 53. Interestingly, in his comment the
superior picks up a concept from the subordinates answer, emotional skills, and elaborates on it. Here he shows that at least this
part of the subordinates answer is relevant. Moreover, when he utters tunnetaidot emotional skills, he points at the document
with his pen (see Fig. 6). Thus, he shows that emotional skills is a concept that he has written down during the answer.

Fig. 5. 2223 B: tunnetaito-ohjelma otetaan kyttn we will launch an emotional skills program.

Fig. 6. 53 A: nuo tunnetaidot sit m oon those emotional skills that I have been.

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In conclusion, the questionanswercomment sequence gives the subordinate more room to inuence the achievement of agreed goals. She can present her view of the goals in her own words. In this sequence, the superiors role is to
legitimate the suggestions of the subordinate. Once again, we could see that writing practices play a crucial role. It is
through writing that the superior shows which part of the subordinates answer he considers part of the agreed goals. In
the comment the superior can verbally explain his interpretation of (some of) the important parts of the answer, but even
during the comment the superior displays his orientation for the written record as a vantage point for discussing the
agreed goals.

4.4. Summarizing and the practice of writing

In this nal empirical section, we will look at how the superior summarizes the results of the preceding discussion. The
importance and even the normativity of writing becomes especially clear in this part of the sequence. In the analysis of the
following example (extract 4) we will concentrate on two recurring aspects of summarizing: how the superior initiates the
summary through explicitly stating the importance of writing, and how the summary itself is constructed with regard to writing.
First, we will show how the practice of writing is explicitly referred to. It can be noted that in extract 1 both of the participants
were engaged in writing on the appraisal form. In 2 and 3 it was only the superior who did the writing. This is representative of the
whole data. Sometimes both of them write, but much of the time only the superior writes. What is interesting is that the superior
displays that joint writing is important for him. In the context of summarizing he recurrently admonishes the subordinate to write
as well. Extract 4 is a case in point. Before the extract the participants have covered both the professional competence and
productivity parts of the appraisal form. The superior has been writing from time to time, the subordinate has not.

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105

On lines 12 the superior explicitly asks the subordinate to write as well. Also, when he utters the word kirjotella write,
scribble, he points his nger towards the document in front of the subordinate (see Fig. 7). Through the gesture he shows
where the writing should be done. There are, however, also some softeners in this directive. First, the superior uses the verb
voit can and thus presents the writing task as voluntary. Secondly, he uses the Finnish verb kirjotella, which includes an afx
that denotes a habitual, sporadic nature of the action in question. The meaning of kirjotella is thus close to scribble. These
softeners work as markers of the delicacy of the directive. Thus, the superior both orients to the normativity of joint writing
and to the delicacy of having to remind the subordinate about it.
The subordinate responds both verbally and nonverbally. Verbally, she both produces an acknowledgment token (line 3)
and an explicit agreement (Iine 4). Nonverbally, she reaches for her pen (see Fig. 8) and takes it into her hand. Thus, she makes
herself observably ready for writing.
At this point the superior launches into a summary (lines 612). The summary is tightly connected to the document and to
writing. First, the superior species the item and page on the document (lines 67). Then he produces a list of writables
(lines 712). As we mentioned earlier, the superior is doing both evaluation and goal setting. Most of the writables are
evaluations, but the last one (lines 1112) is clearly presented as a goal.

Fig. 7. 01 A: mut nist s voit tota (.) kirjotella itte kans but these you can uhm (.) write yourself also.

Fig. 8. 04 B: se ois hyv. that would be good.

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Fig. 9. 08 A: ja (.) talous ookoo ja toimintamalli and (.) finances ok and the operations model.

The superior utters short title-like phrases and sentences: good evaluations, nances ok, operations model has been
ok etc. They are separated by connectives like ja and and sit then and pronouns like t this and toi that. These phrases
and sentences are clearly hearable as something that can be written down in the same exact form that they are uttered. It can
also be seen on the video that the superior points at his document with his pen when he utters them and that the subordinate
actually writes all through lines 712 (see Fig. 9).
What is noteworthy in the example is how it epitomizes the norm of joint writing. Not only is it treated as normative that
both of the participants do the writing, it is the norm that they write down exactly the same thing. This kind of a norm is
powerful in that it stresses the importance of the jointness of the goals. Thus, writing practices are extremely crucial in the
accomplishment of common goals. It could even be said that common goals are constituted through writing practices. Their
jointness is not only verbalized, it is also embodied.

5. Conclusions
While performance appraisal interviews have been widely studied during the past 50 years, the study of real-time
interaction between superior and subordinate in the interviews has been limited. Yet, some rare analyses of these interactions (e.g. Adams, 1981; Asmub, 2008; Clifton, 2012; Gioia et al., 1989) have given reason to emphasize the role that the
patterns of interaction play in the conduct of the interview. This paper adds to the previous analyses of talk in interaction in
PAIs in that we have shown that written documentation and especially the use of writing in talk are important in terms of the
outcome of one crucial function of the interview, namely, getting an agreement of the goals for future. It is through writing
practices that the jointness of the goals is accomplished.
Our empirical analysis showed that writing practices have a systematic relation to the different interactional patterns of
goal setting. When goal setting is done through the superiors proposal and the subordinates acceptance, the timing of the
writing is contingent on and constitutive of the nature of the proposal. The proposal itself may be accompanied with writing
to show that the suggestion is already treated as common to the participants. However, the negotiability of the proposal can
be displayed through delaying the writing. In the case of the questionanswer pattern writing is used to legitimate parts of
the subordinates answer as commonly agreed goals. In the summary format the items of the summary are presented as such
that they can and should be written down. Writing is oriented to as a normative joint activity. While the superiors right and
responsibility for goal setting is highlighted in the summary format, both the proposal-acceptance and the question-answer
format reect the institutional norms attached to the roles of superior and subordinate. Most importantly, the use of writing
underpins the power of the superior and restricts the participation of the subordinate in both formats. In the proposalacceptance format, it clearly makes it very difcult for the subordinate to, for example, reject the proposal or even to
discuss it. In the question-answer format, in turn, writing serves as a tool for performing two core discursive functions:
legitimating and showing acceptance. All of these practices underline the privileged role of the superior in deciding which
goals will be written down as those that are ofcially agreed on.

P. Plli, E. Lehtinen / Language & Communication 39 (2014) 92108

107

In addition to the role of writing in goal setting, our study furthers knowledge of the dialectic between text and talk in
organizational settings and in terms of organizational purposes. While this dialectic has been acknowledged as having a
pivotal role in situated sense making and in organizational life in general (Weick, 1995; Taylor and van Every, 2000;
Robichaud et al., 2004), the interactional patterns through which texts are produced have drawn little attention among
the scholars of organizational communication. Thus, we believe that our careful analysis of talk-in-interaction serves as a
novel example of how to investigate the text-talk-dialectic in terms of conversational interaction. In particular, our analysis,
rstly, points toward the importance of looking at the careful synchronization and timing of talk and textual activities.
Secondly, it is crucial to investigate the roles of different organizational actors in collaborative production of texts. Thirdly, and
more generally, our analysis highlights the interconnection of situated interactional practices and wider organizational
purposes such as goal setting and appraisal.
Our analysis of goal setting sequences as interactional accomplishments also contributes to the research that has
concerned with the productivity of dialogue in organizations (e.g. Isaacs, 1999; Tsoukas, 2009). In a way writing
practices are efcient in dialogue. Writing can be done at the same time as talking, and it is still a powerful way of
showing mutual agreement. On the other hand, our analysis suggests that writing may also impede dialogue in that it
may be used to convey an idea of a goal being already agreed on before it is actually discussed. Thus, writing is a
powerful strategy. We believe that this nding is particularly important in research of PAI efcacy. Future studies in this
area could benet from, for example, comparing different writing practices in regards to factors such as for instance the
perceived PAI satisfaction.
It should be stressed, however, that it is not only that these textual practices would be utilized strategically by individual
interlocutors, especially the manager. Rather, they facilitate the conduct of the interview. On the basis of our analysis we can
say that PAI is a truly discursive practice, guided and framed by both reading texts and writing things down. Common goals for
future development are agreed on by writing, and written documentation is an end result and achievement of superiorsubordinate interaction.

Appendix. The interview form. (English translation from Finnish original).

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