Final answer:
A supervisor is most likely to introduce bias during performance evaluations due to subjectivity, potentially impacting the assessment of an employee's performance based on the supervisor's personal opinions and perceptions.
Step-by-step explanation:
In which strategy is a supervisor most likely to introduce his/her own bias and why? Among the options provided, a supervisor is most likely to introduce bias during performance evaluations due to subjectivity. Performance evaluations, especially those based on subjective measures, can be heavily influenced by a supervisor's personal opinions, perspectives, and potentially, unconscious biases. That's because these evaluations rely on the subjective judgment of the supervisor to assess an employee's contributions and work performance. Studies have pointed out the unreliability of subjective assessments, where the interaction between self and peer ratings can be influenced by the supervisor's perception, leading to a potential underrating of an employee who modestly assesses themselves (Atkins and Wood, 2002).
The 360-degree performance appraisal system attempts to mitigate this by sourcing feedback from a wide array of individuals, including peers, direct reports, and sometimes even customers, in addition to supervisors. However, discrepancies in these ratings, as discussed by Tornow (1993b), still require interpretation by the supervisor, which can introduce the opportunity for bias based on how the supervisor views the variability in feedback. While other options like team collaboration, skill development, and conflict resolution involve interaction and opinions of multiple parties, thus diluting the impact of an individual supervisor's bias. Performance evaluations, with their inherent subjectivity, present the greatest risk for a supervisor to influence the outcome with their personal biases.