360-DEGREES RATINGS - AN ANALYSIS OF ASSUMPTIONS AND A RESEARCH AGENDA FOR EVALUATING THEIR VALIDITY

This article argues that assumptions surrounding 360 degrees ratings s hould be examined; most notably, the assumptions that different rating sources have relatively unique perspectives on performance and multip le rating sources provide incremental validity over the individual sou rces. Studies generally support the first assumption, although reasons for interrater disagreement across different organizational levels ar e not clear. Two research directions are suggested for learning more a bout why different organizational levels tend to disagree in their rat ings and thus how to improve interpretation of 360 degrees ratings. Re garding the second assumption, it is argued we might resurrect the hyp othesis that low-to-moderate across organizational level interrater ag reement is actually a positive result, reflecting different levels' ra ters each making reasonably valid performance judgments but on partial ly different aspects of job performance. Three approaches to testing t his hypothesis are offered.