At the end of each X-Culture round, about 1,000 team reports are evaluated by about 140 professors. Each professor evaluates about 30 reports on average (some up to 200) and each report is evaluated by 3-7 professors.

There are often considerable differences in how professors evaluate the reports. The following evaluation styles are common (though there may be more distinct evaluation styles):

1. Lenient-Strict
2. Differentiates across reports or not (some professors give roughly the same grade to all teams, some differentiate a lot and give very low grades to some teams and very high to other teams).
3. Differentiates across evaluation dimensions (some professors give all 7s if they like the report, or all 3s if they don’t, but some may give 7 for formatting, 2 for economic viability, 4 for executive summary and so on).
4. Extreme response vs. cautious response (some hardly ever give 1 or 7 and stay closer to the middle, others tend to give extremely low or extremely high grades)
5. Rich-poor feedback (some provide very detailed feedback, others barely say a few words)
6. Did or did not (some professors, about 5%, never submit their evaluations)
7. On time or late (some professors, about 20%, submit their evaluations late)

Supervisor / professor evaluation style plays a critical role in promotion/advancement opportunities, as well as in development of the students/subordinates.

The question is: What do these evaluation styles depend on?

• Culture?
• Demographics?
• Academic pedigree?
• Years of work experience?
• Anything else?

Another good question is: Do these evaluation styles predict student performances and satisfaction? E.g., do students of “strict” professors do a better job than students of “lenient” professors?

Co-Authors:

Vas Taras (corresponding author,  v_taras@uncg.edu)
Justin Kraemer
Alfredo Jimenez
Karen Lynden
Wendy Farrell
Fred Newa
Alexander Assoaud
Xavier Ordenana