Emergence, development and usefuluness of the 360-degree feedback

Having conquered the United States, the 360-degree feedback knows an increasing popularity in France and arouses numerous questioning with the French practitioners of Human Resources. This exercise allows the manager to compare the perception of his competences in management with the perceptions from his boss, his peers and his subordinates. The aim of this article is, at first, to clarify the history of this tool and to detail the interests related by the literature. Secondly, it will handle the question of the validity of this tool concerning the various professional statuses. Finally, it will be exposed the link between the results delivered to the manager and his performance. (c) 2005 Publie par Elsevier SAS pour Association internationale de psychologie du travail de langue francaise.