International Performance and Career Management

Introduction and Context

International performance and career management concerns how multinational enterprises (MNEs) set expectations, assess contribution, develop capability and allocate career opportunities across countries, cultures and organizational units. It is more difficult than domestic performance management because employees may work under different labor markets, currencies, legal systems, technologies, time zones, cultural norms and strategic conditions. A sales manager in Nairobi, for example, may achieve lower revenue than a manager in London while creating greater strategic value because of market maturity, exchange-rate movements or the need to build a new distribution network.

The central managerial problem is therefore not simply how to measure performance. It is how to produce valid, fair and strategically useful judgments when performance is partly shaped by context. International career management adds a second problem: how to identify and develop talent for global roles without privileging headquarters, mobility, a particular nationality or culturally familiar communication styles.

A sound system must integrate five elements:

1. Strategic alignment: performance expectations reflect global and local strategy.
2. Context sensitivity: assessments distinguish individual contribution from environmental constraints.
3. Comparability: common principles permit meaningful decisions across units.
4. Development: feedback and career decisions build future capability, not merely record past results.
5. Governance and fairness: processes are transparent, evidence-based and legally defensible.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, the reader should be able to:

• explain the distinctive challenges of international performance management;
• design global goals, measures, feedback and appraisal processes;
• distinguish results, behaviors, capabilities and contextual factors;
• manage cultural and geographic bias in assessment and calibration;
• analyze headquarters–subsidiary tensions;
• design global career architectures, succession systems and high-potential programmes;
• evaluate the ethical, legal and technological implications of international talent decisions.

1. Foundations of International Performance Management

1.1 Definition and scope

Performance management is a continuous process through which an organization translates strategy into expectations, supports performance, reviews evidence, makes decisions and develops people. It is broader than the annual appraisal. International performance management (IPM) applies this process across national and organizational boundaries while recognizing that the meaning and observability of performance vary by setting.

IPM typically includes:

• role and goal clarification;
• performance planning;
• resource provision and coaching;
• ongoing feedback;
• formal review and rating;
• calibration across managers and countries;
• rewards, development and career decisions;
• review of the system itself.

A useful distinction is between performance outcomes and performance process. Outcomes include profit, customer retention, quality, project completion or market growth. Process includes collaboration, ethical conduct, learning, leadership and adaptation. Exclusive reliance on outcomes can reward favorable market conditions or encourage misconduct; exclusive reliance on behaviors can overlook commercial accountability.

1.2 Why international performance is distinctive

Four sources of complexity are especially important.

Cultural variation. Norms concerning hierarchy, disagreement, self-promotion, time, collectivism and feedback influence both behavior and its interpretation. A direct challenge to a manager may be viewed as constructive participation in one setting and disrespect in another. A modest employee may be rated as lacking ambition when the behavior actually reflects a cultural norm of understatement.

Institutional and environmental variation. Employment law, labor relations, data protection, taxation, infrastructure, political risk and market maturity affect what employees can achieve. Targets that are equivalent in formal terms may not be equivalent in difficulty.

Distance and information asymmetry. Headquarters managers may see dashboards but not local negotiations, informal stakeholder work or operational constraints. Local managers may possess better information but have less influence over ratings and promotion decisions.

Multiple accountabilities. An international employee may report to a country manager, a global function and a project leader. Conflicting priorities create ambiguity unless decision rights and goal weights are explicit.

2. Designing a Globally Coherent Performance System

2.1 The global–local balance

Two extremes should be avoided. A fully standardized system may impose inappropriate measures and culturally narrow definitions of leadership. A completely decentralized system may prevent comparison, enable favoritism and weaken global strategy. The preferred approach is globally consistent architecture with locally adapted execution.

Global standards normally specify:

• performance philosophy and principles;
• rating definitions;
• ethical and compliance requirements;
• core leadership and collaboration behaviors;
• minimum documentation and review rules;
• governance, appeals and data controls.

Local adaptation may cover:

• examples of effective behavior;
• legally required consultation or documentation;
• timing around local business cycles and holidays;
• feasible data sources;
• language and communication practices;
• weighting of market-specific objectives.

2.2 A performance architecture

A robust scorecard usually combines four dimensions:

Context is not an excuse to disregard results. It is an interpretive factor used to assess whether targets were appropriately difficult and whether outcomes reflect controllable contribution.

2.3 Goal setting

International goals should be specific enough to guide action but flexible enough to survive changing conditions. A good goal has an owner, a time horizon, a measure, a baseline, a target, dependencies and review conditions. Goals should be cascaded in both directions: global strategy informs local objectives, while local knowledge informs the feasibility and risk of global goals.

A practical goal statement is:

By the end of the fiscal year, reduce order-to-delivery cycle time in the East Africa cluster by 15% from the verified baseline, while maintaining agreed service and compliance standards, through supplier integration and process redesign.

This is superior to “improve efficiency” because it identifies the outcome, magnitude, timeframe and constraints.

Targets should not be treated as fixed when assumptions materially change. A mid-cycle review may revise a target when there is documented evidence of a major regulatory event, supply interruption, acquisition or strategic reprioritization. Revision must be governed; otherwise, managers may lower standards opportunistically.

2.4 Weighting and aggregation

Where a numerical summary is used, a weighted score can clarify the relationship among dimensions:

Here, S is the composite score, wᵢ is the weight assigned to dimension i, and pᵢ is the normalized performance result for that dimension. The weights should satisfy ∑wᵢ = 1 and normally each weight is non-negative. Scores must be placed on a common, explicitly defined scale before aggregation. The formula is useful for transparency, but it does not eliminate judgment or contextual bias. In many roles, a compliance breach should operate as a threshold or modifier rather than being offset by strong sales performance.

A balanced design might allocate 50% to business results, 25% to customer and stakeholder outcomes, 15% to leadership behaviors and 10% to capability building. These are examples, not universal standards. Weights should reflect role purpose and risk exposure.

3. Feedback, Review and Appraisal

3.1 Feedback across cultures and distance

Feedback is most effective when it is timely, specific, evidence-based and oriented toward future action. International managers should clarify whether feedback is intended to inform, coach, correct or decide. The same message may need different delivery methods, but adaptation must not become avoidance of difficult conversations.

A useful sequence is:

1. describe the observed situation;
2. explain the behavior or result;
3. state its effect on customers, colleagues or strategy;
4. invite the employee’s interpretation;
5. agree on an action, owner and review date.

Managers should ask how employees prefer to receive feedback, but preference does not excuse discriminatory inconsistency. If one group receives frequent developmental coaching while another receives only formal criticism, access to improvement and advancement becomes unequal.

Virtual work requires deliberate practices: written pre-reads, time-zone rotation, accessible records, asynchronous reflection and explicit confirmation of decisions. Silence in a video meeting is not reliable evidence of agreement, commitment or low performance.

3.2 Multi-source assessment

Multi-source or 360-degree feedback can reveal collaboration and leadership behaviors that a distant supervisor cannot observe. Its quality depends on rater selection, confidentiality, cultural interpretation and the distinction between developmental feedback and high-stakes evaluation. Ratings should not be averaged mechanically across cultures. Qualitative comments, behavior examples and patterns across sources are essential.

3.3 Appraisal ratings and calibration

Calibration is a structured discussion in which managers compare evidence and apply common standards across employees, roles and locations. It should not be a process of forcing a predetermined distribution of ratings. Forced distributions are particularly risky internationally because market conditions and job opportunities differ substantially.

Effective calibration requires:

• a common rating rubric with behavioral anchors;
• evidence of goals, outcomes, behaviors and constraints;
• comparison with role expectations, not merely with other individuals;
• representation from subsidiaries and relevant functions;
• challenge of halo, horns, recency, similarity and visibility biases;
• documentation of rationale and decisions;
• an escalation or appeal route.

The halo effect occurs when one positive characteristic influences all judgments. The proximity or recency effect overweights recent events. Similarity bias favors people who resemble the evaluator in nationality, education, language or style. Visibility bias rewards employees who work in headquarters or in time zones convenient to senior leaders. Attribution bias may interpret a local employee’s success as situational while interpreting a favored employee’s success as personal ability.

Calibration should improve consistency, not erase legitimate difference. A person managing a volatile start-up market should not be penalized for failing to match the absolute revenue of a mature market if the evidence shows superior relative progress and effective execution.

4. Contextual Bias and Fairness

4.1 Contextualization without favoritism

A fair assessment asks three questions:

1. What was the employee expected to control?
2. What resources and constraints were present?
3. What evidence demonstrates choices, effort, adaptation and impact?

Contextualization should be based on documented conditions and comparable standards. It should not be an informal preference for a subsidiary, nationality or manager.

One practical tool is a context statement attached to each review. It records major external conditions, resource changes, dependencies, target revisions and evidence of employee response. The statement does not change facts; it makes the interpretive basis visible.

4.2 Procedural justice

Employees are more likely to accept difficult outcomes when they perceive the process as consistent, accurate, respectful and correctable. International systems should therefore provide:

• clear criteria in accessible language;
• opportunity for employee voice;
• review by more than one evaluator for significant decisions;
• written reasons for ratings and promotion outcomes;
• correction of factual errors;
• protection against retaliation;
• reasonable accommodation for disability, caregiving and religious obligations.

Fairness has distributive, procedural and interactional dimensions. Equal treatment does not always mean identical treatment: legal and operational differences may require adaptation, but the reason for adaptation must be legitimate and transparent.

4.3 Measurement risks

Cross-country comparisons are often distorted by currency changes, inflation, transfer pricing, product mix, differing accounting practices and data quality. Financial measures should therefore be interpreted alongside operational and market indicators. Where normalized data are used, the method and assumptions must be documented. A relative measure such as market-share growth may be more meaningful than nominal revenue, but it can also be affected by unreliable market estimates.

5. Headquarters–Subsidiary Tensions

Performance and career decisions often expose a deeper political relationship between headquarters (HQ) and subsidiaries. HQ may seek global integration, control and common standards. Subsidiaries may seek responsiveness, autonomy and recognition of local expertise.

Typical tensions include:

• HQ imposes a global target that conflicts with local regulation;
• subsidiary leaders believe local contributions are invisible to HQ;
• HQ favors expatriates or headquarters-network employees for promotion;
• local managers resist systems perceived as surveillance;
• global functions and country managers issue incompatible priorities;
• talent data are collected centrally without reciprocal development investment.

These tensions should be handled through governance rather than personal negotiation alone. A useful design includes a global talent council with regional and subsidiary representation, explicit decision rights, common definitions, local evidence in calibration, and periodic review of whether the system produces systematic nationality or location effects.

The principle of subsidiary voice is crucial. Local units should participate in goal formation, talent reviews and system redesign. Voice does not mean that every local preference prevails; it means that relevant knowledge enters the decision process before judgments are finalized.

6. Global Career Management

6.1 The changing global career

A global career may involve expatriate assignment, regional leadership, virtual international work, short-term project mobility, global functional responsibility, local-to-global promotion or a portfolio of international experiences. The traditional assumption that career advancement requires relocation is increasingly inadequate. Mobility can be physical, temporal, functional, cultural or relational.

A global career system should connect individual aspirations with organizational capability needs. It should answer:

• What career families and levels exist globally?
• Which capabilities are required for each role?
• What experiences demonstrate readiness?
• How are opportunities advertised and allocated?
• How are mobility, family, immigration and repatriation supported?
• How are employees who cannot relocate given equivalent developmental access?

6.2 Career architecture

A global career architecture defines job families, levels, competencies, decision authority and typical pathways. It supports internal mobility and pay equity, but it must not assume that the same title has the same scope in every country. Scope, complexity, risk and accountability are more reliable comparison dimensions than title alone.

Career conversations should include both a performance discussion and a development discussion. Combining them entirely may make employees conceal weaknesses; separating them completely may disconnect development from opportunity. A practical approach is to hold distinct sections or meetings with clear confidentiality and decision rules.

6.3 International assignments and repatriation

Assignments can transfer knowledge, build networks and develop cultural agility, but they also create costs and risks. Selection should consider technical competence, learning agility, relational capability, family circumstances and ethical judgment—not merely current performance in the home role.

Repatriation failure occurs when returning employees face unclear roles, lost status, inadequate use of new skills or weak career sponsorship. Assignment planning should therefore specify the intended post-assignment role, learning objectives, knowledge-transfer responsibilities and reintegration support before departure.

7. Succession Planning and High-Potential Development

7.1 Succession planning

Succession planning is the systematic preparation of qualified candidates for roles critical to strategic continuity. It should be position-based and capability-based. Position-based planning asks who could fill a particular role; capability-based planning asks what scarce capabilities the organization must maintain even if the structure changes.

A succession profile should identify:

• criticality and risk of the role;
• essential technical, leadership and cultural capabilities;
• plausible successors and readiness horizon;
• development gaps and experiences needed;
• retention risks and diversity implications;
• emergency and long-term succession options.

Readiness labels such as “ready now,” “ready in one to two years” and “longer-term potential” are useful only when supported by evidence and defined consistently.

7.2 High-potential identification

High potential (HiPo) is not the same as high current performance. A common conceptual model assesses sustained performance, learning agility, aspiration for broader responsibility and values alignment. It must also consider opportunity: employees cannot demonstrate strategic scope if they have never been given access to it.

Potential assessments are vulnerable to bias because they predict future behavior from limited evidence. Organizations should use multiple methods: structured interviews, work simulations, career history, stakeholder evidence and developmental assignments. Labels should be reviewed periodically and should not become self-fulfilling exclusions.

A nine-box grid can support discussion by crossing current performance with potential, but it is not a scientific measurement instrument. It should prompt evidence-based development planning, not determine careers automatically.

7.3 Development portfolios

Global development should combine:

• challenging assignments with safeguards;
• international project teams;
• mentoring and sponsorship across locations;
• language and intercultural learning;
• executive education;
• reflection and feedback;
• knowledge-sharing responsibilities.

Mentoring supports advice and learning; sponsorship involves advocating for access, visibility and advancement. Employees from subsidiaries and underrepresented groups often need sponsorship because informal HQ networks distribute opportunities unevenly.

8. Technology, Analytics and Governance

Digital platforms can provide goal visibility, continuous check-ins, talent profiles, skills inventories and workforce analytics. Artificial intelligence may assist with skill inference, recommendation of learning resources or detection of unusual rating patterns. However, automated recommendations can reproduce historical discrimination, encode culturally narrow definitions of leadership or infer sensitive characteristics.

Governance should require:

• a clear business purpose and data minimization;
• lawful basis and transparency under applicable privacy rules;
• human review of consequential decisions;
• validation across countries and demographic groups;
• access controls, retention limits and security;
• audit trails and employee correction rights;
• prohibition of covert monitoring and irrelevant data collection.

Analytics should identify patterns, not declare causes. If employees in one region receive lower ratings, the organization must investigate manager practices, role design, resource access and market conditions before attributing the pattern to individual capability.

9. Implementation Framework

A practical implementation sequence is as follows:

First, diagnose strategy and context. Map global priorities, local variation, critical roles, legal constraints and existing inequities.

Second, define the architecture. Establish common principles, dimensions, rating language, decision rights and minimum documentation.

Third, co-design locally. Pilot criteria with headquarters, regions, subsidiaries, employee representatives and legal advisers.

Fourth, train managers. Training should use realistic cases involving indirect communication, virtual work, market shocks, disability accommodation and conflicting accountabilities.

Fifth, pilot and test. Examine rating distributions, goal quality, employee understanding, appeal patterns and differences by location, gender and other legally permissible categories.

Sixth, calibrate and govern. Use representative panels, evidence protocols and documented challenge. Review whether calibration reduces or reproduces bias.

Seventh, connect decisions. Link performance evidence to development, rewards and succession without allowing one rating to determine every career outcome.

Eighth, improve continuously. Treat the system as an organizational learning process. Gather employee experience, audit outcomes and revise measures when strategy or context changes.

Useful indicators include goal completion quality, quality of feedback, regretted turnover in critical roles, internal mobility, succession coverage, time to readiness, representation in talent pools, promotion equity and employee perceptions of procedural fairness. These indicators should be disaggregated carefully and interpreted with local knowledge.

10. Illustrative Case: Meridian Foods International

Background

Meridian Foods International, a fictional consumer-goods MNE, operates in 18 countries. Its headquarters introduced a common appraisal system based on revenue growth, cost reduction and a five-point leadership rating. After two years, employees in emerging markets received lower average ratings and were underrepresented in the global succession pool. Headquarters argued that results were weaker; subsidiaries argued that targets ignored inflation, supply disruption and the time required to build distribution networks.

Problem

The system treated nominal revenue as directly comparable, rewarded highly visible English-language communication and allowed country managers to dominate ratings. Employees also reported that the “high-potential” label was awarded mainly to those who had worked at headquarters or accepted long expatriate assignments.

Analysis

An audit found three problems. First, financial outcomes were not consistently adjusted for market maturity, currency volatility or strategic investment periods. Second, the leadership rubric rewarded assertive self-promotion without sufficiently recognizing relationship building and local stakeholder management. Third, calibration meetings lacked subsidiary representation and relied heavily on manager reputation.

Approach and solution

Meridian retained global standards but redesigned implementation. It introduced four scorecard dimensions: results, customer and stakeholder outcomes, leadership behaviors and capability building. Each goal included a baseline, dependencies and a context statement. Market results were interpreted using both absolute outcomes and progress against an approved local plan.

Calibration panels included regional and subsidiary leaders. They reviewed evidence before discussing labels and were required to record reasons for any adjustment. The leadership rubric was rewritten with behaviorally specific examples that could be demonstrated through different cultural styles. A separate development review identified learning needs, while promotion decisions considered performance, potential, experience and opportunity access.

Meridian also created international project assignments and virtual sponsorship circles so that employees unable to relocate could gain global exposure. Its analytics team monitored rating and promotion patterns, but no automated tool made final talent decisions.

Outcome

After two cycles, employee understanding of criteria improved, subsidiary participation in talent reviews increased and the succession pool became more geographically diverse. The company did not eliminate differences in ratings—nor should it have—but it could explain them with stronger evidence. Some managers resisted the additional documentation, and the company continued to refine market comparators and legal processes.

Learning points

The case demonstrates that fairness does not require identical measures. It requires legitimate standards, contextual evidence, employee voice, consistent governance and genuine access to development. It also shows that career inequity may arise not from an explicit rule but from unequal visibility, mobility and sponsorship.

Challenges and Limitations

No international system can remove judgment completely. Measures may be incomplete, local data may be unreliable and cultural adaptation may either improve validity or become an excuse for inconsistency. Contextualization can be manipulated, calibration can become political and high-potential labels can create privileged groups. Continuous feedback may also become intrusive if employees experience constant digital observation.

Organizations should therefore avoid claims of perfect objectivity. The goal is disciplined, transparent and revisable judgment. Senior leaders must accept that a sophisticated system may produce more nuanced decisions, not necessarily more uniform ratings.

Chapter Summary

International performance management translates global strategy into expectations and decisions while accounting for cultural, institutional and market differences. Effective systems combine results, behaviors, capabilities and contextual evidence; use clear goals; provide timely feedback; and calibrate judgments without forcing artificial distributions. Bias can arise from visibility, similarity, recency, language, location and unequal access to opportunity. Procedural justice requires transparent criteria, employee voice, multiple evidence sources, documented reasoning and correction mechanisms.

International career management extends beyond expatriation. It includes global job architectures, virtual and project mobility, mentoring, sponsorship, succession planning and high-potential development. HQ and subsidiaries should share governance and evidence. Technology and AI can improve visibility and analysis, but consequential decisions require privacy protection, validation, human oversight and auditability. The strongest systems are globally coherent, locally credible, development-oriented and continuously reviewed for fairness and strategic relevance.

Key Terms

International performance management: Coordinated planning, support, assessment and development of performance across countries.

Contextual performance: Contribution that supports the social, adaptive and cooperative functioning of a role or organization.

Global–local balance: The design principle combining common international standards with legitimate local adaptation.

Calibration: Structured comparison of performance evidence to improve consistency of managerial judgments.

Behavioral anchor: A concrete example describing what a performance level looks like.

Context statement: Documented explanation of conditions, dependencies and constraints affecting performance.

Procedural justice: Perceived fairness of the process used to make decisions.

Visibility bias: Advantage given to employees whose work is more observable to powerful decision makers.

Similarity bias: Favoring people who resemble the evaluator in background, style or identity.

Subsidiary voice: Meaningful participation of local units in global decisions and system design.

Global career: A career involving international responsibilities, relationships, assignments or mobility.

Career architecture: Global structure of job families, levels, capabilities and progression pathways.

Repatriation: Return and reintegration of an employee after an international assignment.

Succession planning: Preparation of candidates for critical present or future roles.

High potential: Assessed capacity to perform successfully in broader or more complex future roles.

Mentoring: Developmental relationship focused on guidance and learning.

Sponsorship: Active advocacy that provides access, visibility and advancement opportunities.

Rating halo: Generalizing one positive or negative impression across multiple performance dimensions.

Human oversight: Requirement that people review and remain accountable for consequential automated recommendations.

Review Questions

Short Answer Questions

1. Why is international performance management more complex than domestic performance management?
2. Distinguish performance outcomes from performance process.
3. What is the purpose of calibration?
4. Why is high current performance not sufficient evidence of high potential?
5. Identify two governance safeguards for AI-supported talent decisions.

Long Answer Questions

1. Explain how an MNE can achieve global consistency while allowing legitimate local adaptation in performance management.
2. Discuss the major sources of contextual bias in international appraisal and propose controls for each.
3. Explain the relationship between performance management, succession planning and global career development.
4. Evaluate the advantages and risks of international assignments as a career-development mechanism.
5. Design a globally applicable performance architecture for a multinational with geographically dispersed project teams.

Analytical / Application Questions

1. A subsidiary misses its revenue target after a currency collapse but exceeds its market-share and customer-retention goals. How should its performance be assessed, and what evidence should calibration review?
2. Headquarters employees are twice as likely as subsidiary employees to enter the high-potential pool. Develop an investigation and corrective-action plan.
3. An AI system recommends lower leadership-potential scores for employees whose feedback is less self-promotional. Identify the validity, fairness and governance risks, and redesign the process.

Multiple Choice Questions with Answers

Question 1

Which principle best describes a strong international performance-management system?

A. Complete standardization of all measures

B. Globally consistent architecture with legitimate local adaptation

C. Complete decentralization to country managers

D. Use of financial outcomes only

Correct Answer: B. Globally consistent architecture with legitimate local adaptation

Question 2

What is the primary purpose of calibration?

A. To force every country into the same rating distribution

B. To eliminate all managerial judgment

C. To compare evidence and apply standards more consistently

D. To replace feedback with numerical scores

Correct Answer: C. To compare evidence and apply standards more consistently

Question 3

Which factor is an example of visibility bias?

A. Adjusting a target after a documented regulatory change

B. Favoring an employee whose work is frequently observed by headquarters

C. Using multiple sources of feedback

D. Providing reasonable accommodation

Correct Answer: B. Favoring an employee whose work is frequently observed by headquarters

Question 4

In the composite score formula S = ∑(wᵢ × pᵢ), what does wᵢ represent?

A. The normalized performance result

B. The number of employees assessed

C. The weight assigned to a performance dimension

D. The total organizational revenue

Correct Answer: C. The weight assigned to a performance dimension

Question 5

Which statement about high potential is most accurate?

A. It is identical to high current performance

B. It can be determined reliably from one supervisor’s opinion

C. It concerns capacity for broader or more complex future roles

D. It is proven only by willingness to relocate

Correct Answer: C. It concerns capacity for broader or more complex future roles

Question 6

Why should financial outcomes sometimes be interpreted alongside operational indicators?

A. Financial measures are never relevant internationally

B. Currency, inflation and market maturity can distort comparisons

C. Operational indicators are always objective

D. Employees prefer nonfinancial measures

Correct Answer: B. Currency, inflation and market maturity can distort comparisons

Question 7

Which practice most directly supports subsidiary voice?

A. Excluding local managers from calibration

B. Allowing only headquarters to define leadership

C. Including subsidiary representatives in talent reviews and system design

D. Using one headquarters-based promotion criterion

Correct Answer: C. Including subsidiary representatives in talent reviews and system design

Question 8

What is a major risk of using AI in international talent decisions?

A. It necessarily eliminates human bias

B. It may reproduce historical or culturally narrow patterns of bias

C. It prevents all data analysis

D. It makes privacy regulation irrelevant

Correct Answer: B. It may reproduce historical or culturally narrow patterns of bias

Question 9

Which activity is most closely associated with sponsorship rather than mentoring?

A. Offering confidential career advice

B. Recommending a book or course

C. Advocating for an employee’s access to a strategic opportunity

D. Discussing work-life preferences

Correct Answer: C. Advocating for an employee’s access to a strategic opportunity

Question 10

What should a context statement primarily document?

A. An employee’s personality type

B. External conditions, dependencies and constraints affecting performance

C. The preferred nationality of a successor

D. An automatic justification for a low rating

Correct Answer: B. External conditions, dependencies and constraints affecting performance