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This paper aims to review the challenges of performance appraisal in organizations and argue that these challenges can and must be overcome.

The authors review research on performance appraisal in organizations and on claims that organizations are abandoning performance appraisal.

Structured performance appraisals are still the norm in organizations around the world. There are clear and practical strategies for improving appraisals. These include improving feedback and removing unnecessary complexity, clarifying the goals of appraisal systems, focusing appraisal on behaviors and outcomes under the employee's control and increasing the fairness of appraisal systems.

Research is needed on the effects of changing the ways performance appraisals are conducted in organizations.

Practical strategies for improving performance appraisal are outlined.

Better performance appraisals will benefit organizations and their members.

This paper refutes the growing claim that organizations are abandoning performance appraisal and illustrates practical strategies for improving performance appraisal.

The concept of personal recovery is now a key pillar of service delivery. It aims to support individuals to flourish and establish a new identity following an acute episode or diagnosis. This view of recovery is unique to each person on that journey. However, there has been a significant focus on measuring these experiences. This paper aims to explore the influence of social constructionism on the concept of recovery within an Irish context, seeking to understand the influence of language, discourse and power on service users’ experiences.

A qualitative, interpretivist methodology was adopted for this case study design. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 service users. Thematic analysis was chosen as the method of analysis.

Personalising recovery did not always lead to the removal of biological symptoms, but with the appropriate supports, individual’s recovery journey was greatly enhanced. On the contrary, personal recovery places overwhelmingly responsibility on the individual to succeed, largely driven by neoliberal discourse. This focus on individualism and the pressure to succeed was further experienced when people sought to re-integrate into society and participate in normalised social order. Ultimately, for many service users, they viewed personal recovery as an unfulfilled promise.

It is not a representative sample of service users within an Irish context.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore influence of social constructionism on the concept of personal recovery within a mental health service context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship among training design, trainee motivation and work environment on the transfer of learning for teachers enrolled in a continuing professional education (CPE) training program and the confirmation of potential positive, predictive relationships of trainee motivation, work environment and training design to transfer of learning. This study investigated the contribution of training efficiency and relevance as measured by the training design; work environment as measured by work autonomy, work complexity and work variability; and trainee’s motivation of training (learning- and job-oriented) to the transfer of knowledge and skills from the training program to their workplace. Both direct and indirect effects of mentioned components on the learning transfer were explored.

This study included 160 teachers working in high-needs schools with large numbers of English learners (ELs) Southwest USA. Teachers in this study primarily needed professional development to empower them and enhance their instructional capacity for ELs and economically challenged students. During the recruitment, participants completed a demographic information (e.g. gender, ethnicity, number of years teaching, age, educational background) survey.

A mediation model with training design as the mediating factor was developed and analyzed. The results revealed that training design fully mediated the relationship between trainees’ work environments and the transfer of knowledge, skills and attitude acquired from the training to their workplace. Furthermore, it partially mediated the relationship between learning-oriented motivation and the transfer of learning. These findings further amplify the significance of CPE program training design and foster important considerations for future research regarding the isolation of specific training design aspects that significantly contribute to the mediation of these relationships.

Considering the significance of learning transfer in developing professional knowledge and skills for target employees and trainees, confirming the mediating effects of training design on training transfer holds critical implications for future research. Specific and purposeful attention needs to be given to the design of CPE training. Investigations into the effects of training design and successful elements such as the training platform (online, hybrid or in-person), sample size, group structure, facilitation and participant demographics are warranted.

The finding of this research provides a preliminary guide for scholar-practitioners. Results of the study confirmed the role that learning-oriented motivation, job-oriented motivation, work variability or flexibility, work complexity and training design play in transfer of learning. In practice, training professionals will be more comfortable pinpointing the factors that lead to the transfer of learning or the lack of it.

Learning transfer has been found to be imperative for target employees and trainees to develop professional knowledge, skills and attitudes. Results of this study reveal variables that promote the positive transfer of learning to the workplace.