Nahj al-Balagha: The comprehensive Guide for Behavioral Criteria in Performance Appraisal

Performance Appraisal is at the heart of organizations' HRM system. The central problem in designing the performance appraisal is to identify the appraisal criteria.The aim of this study is to identify the general criteria for evaluating employees’ performance based on Nahj al-Balagha. The inductive method of Thematic Analysis was utilized. After extracting meaning units from Nahj al-Balagha and performing coding as the data analysis method of this research, the initial model of research was introduced. Then according to the tenets of theoretical sampling as the sampling method of this research, different parts of Nahj al-Balagha were reanalyzed. The results show that according to Nahj al-Balagha general criteria for evaluating employees’ performance consists of: 1) Endurance and hope, 2) Insight, 3) Developing employees , 4) Advice taking and collectivism, 5) Truthfulness، 6) Generosity, 7) Justice in behavior and decision, 8) Pragmatism and acion orientation, 9) Modesty, 10) Decisiveness and courage, 11) Contentment and animosity to aristocracy, 12) Pleasant speech, 13) Gentleness, 14) Promotion of unity, 15) Loyalty, and 16) Adherence to Vilayat. Each of these criteria include multiple sub criteria which will be discussed in this article. Results show that the general performance evaluation criteria of Nahj al-Balagha coupled with specific criteria of each organization and job could constitute the basis for competency based human resource management.