This study focuses the role of communication competencies in the appraisal process by
which superiors make overall judgments about the performance of subordinates. The
study is based on the hypothesis that superiors' perceptions of specific communication
competencies of subordinates are related to the superiors' overall perceptions of subor
dinate performance. The results support this hypothesis. A multivariate analysis
reveals that employees rated highly for overall performance were also rated significant
ly higher on the combined communication competencies than were their more lowly-
rated counterparts. The discriminant model including the four communication
competencies account for 59 percent of the variance with superiors'ratings of overall
employee performance.
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