Different studies come to different conclusions on the breakdown of system noise into these three components (level, pattern, and occasion), and we can certainly imagine reasons why it should vary from one organization to the next. But all forms of noise are undesirable. The basic message that emerges from this research is a simple one: most ratings of performance have much less to do with the performance of the person being rated than we would wish. As one review summarizes it, “the relationship between job performance and ratings of job performance is likely to be weak or at best uncertain.”
