Using the Computer in GAO Analysis: New Insights, New Uncertainties

This article, which appeared in the GAO Review, Vol. 20, Issue 3, Summer 1985, describes a GAO evaluation of Senior Executive Service performance plans and senior executives' attitudes toward the processes used in their legislatively mandated annual performance appraisals. In its evaluation, GAO failed to find a correlation between high quality performance plans and positive attitudes. However, GAO found that individual and organizational performance goals were most effectively linked when organizational goals were clearly defined and measured. Furthermore, where agencies used the appraisals in the full range of personnel decisions, executive morale and motivation seemed to increase.