Friends, relatives, and couples¿ perspectives on multisource assessments of emotional and social competencies

This article examines whether extending rater sources beyond the traditional organizational setting provides complementary feedback for a manager through 360° assessments. Using 14 emotional, social, and cognitive competencies, we compared 358 MBA students¿ ratings from supervisors, work-peers, subordinates, friends, relatives, and spouses. Results show that personal and professional sources were similarly suited to evaluate these competencies. While differences among co-workers¿ ratings were found not to be statistically significant, personal sources¿ ratings were higher than co-workers¿ assessments across most of the competencies. We advocate that, in spite of a leniency bias, including personal sources in 360° assessments can increase managers¿ acceptance of the feedback.