Are developmental performance management systems inclusive? An intersectional analysis for age and gender

Rooted in Joan Acker’s “gendered organisations” framework, this paper aims to explore the impact of employee’s developmental performance management systems (DPMSs) on occupational wellbeing, highlighting gender and age-based intersectional disparities within organisations. This study uses data from a sample of more than 600 Italian employees and investigates with a three-way interaction, the effect that DPMS have on employee’s occupational wellbeing by considering the intersectionality between gender and ages’ categories. The findings dismiss the idea that DPMS can be regarded as a practice for inclusion. Moreover, the analysis discloses the need for intersectional perspective as the authors do reveal different effects of developmental performance system adoption on occupational wellbeing for people in diverse intersections of genders and ages. This paper expands on Acker’s tradition with a focus on age, dismissing the possible inclusive outcome of competency based employee performance systems.