Section Six PREVALENCE OF EVALUATION
In spite of advocacy for evaluation, a relatively small proportion
of companies conduct human resource management
evaluations. Likewise, few companies express the results of
their evaluations in economic terms. Even with billions of
dollars being spent on training every year, many companies do
not even evaluate training.^31 Tsui and Gomez-Mejia’s survey
results found the following: “Systematic, periodic evaluation of
HR effectiveness does not occur frequently in American
business organizations.”^32 There are several potential
explanations for this difference between the normative views of
the human resource literature and industry practice. These
explanations include human resource executives’ fears of the
outcomes of evaluation, difficulties in obtaining meaningful and
valid measures of human resource activity, and lack of a
meaningful evaluative framework. Nonetheless, important
variables are positively correlated with the conduct of such
evaluation, including: financial performance, aggressiveness in
marketing strategy, economically oriented goals, and top-level
involvement of human resource executives in setting the
strategic direction of their companies.^33 Because of these
positive contributions of evaluation and the cost consciousness
resulting from the pressures of the global economy, evaluations
should become more prevalent in the future.