The measurement of performance among research and development professional employees: A longitudinal analysis

A longitudinal analysis of performance data collected from 256 professional employees from three applied research and development organizations shows stability over a one-year period in both the measures and the patterns of the correlations. Subjective ratings of innovativeness by superiors and peers show agreement with each other and moderate convergence with the objective indicators of number of patents and number of publications. High self-esteem subjects have greater levels of agreement for their self-ratings with those of superiors and peers than do low self-esteem subjects. Implications for improving the measurement of professional performance by R&D managers are discussed based on the results.