Editorial

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Researchers and practitioners in Work and Organizational Psychology (WOP) have devoted decades to understanding and developing performance management systems in organizations.The term performance management (PM) refers to organizational interventions or activities aimed at improving individual, group, or organizational performance, for example, via goal setting, feedback, and reward systems.Many organizations, including global players like Deloitte, Accenture, or Adobe are turning away from formal performance management systems towards more informal processes such as instant performance feedback.Some argue that performance management has failed, because in many ways it has been reduced to prescribed steps within formal administrative systems.Research in WOP and management shows that PM systems can be effective if they rely on the participation of the different stakeholders in defining performance criteria as well as on regular feedback based on those criteria.In this Special Edition of InPractice we would like to shed some light on the practical application of both innovative and evidence-based PM systems and their effects on performance, health, and organizational success.We are more than happy to present authors from both Europe and the U.S. using approaches that are closely related and rooted in WOP research.In our focal article we are delighted to present a paper by Robert D. Pritchard and Natalie Wright on the 10 biggest problems in PM and how to avoid them in practice.Bob Pritchard has influenced research in motivation, productivity, and performance management over the last five decades.His worldwide research programme on the ProMES methodology is one of the most striking contributions of WOP in practice.We had the chance to talk to Bob Pritchard about the 10 issues they came up with: C: Bob, tell me more about the reason, why you and Natalie decided to write the article. B:The background is that the 10 problems we're addressing here are fairly obvious.But in my experience, they are commonly done badly in organizations.