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Using the broaden-and-build theory, this study aims to examine whether (1) employees have hateful emotional responses and think the overall performance review is fair at different levels of managers’ emotional flexibility; and (2) the difference in employees’ hateful emotional responses mediates the relationship between managers’ emotional flexibility and employees’ perceptions of performance review fairness across flexibility conditions.

A sample of 110 Pakistani undergraduates participated in the seven waves of online scenario-based experimental research. For a one-way repeated-measures analysis, the general linear model was used, and for a two-condition within-subject mediational path analysis, the mediation and moderation analysis for repeated measures (MEMORE) was used.

Employees experience a high level of performance review justice and a low level of hateful emotional responses when managers are more emotionally flexible during the meeting, and vice versa. A manager’s emotional flexibility may also prevent employees from responding hatefully during performance reviews, which in turn makes them perceive the overall performance review as just.

The study expands on the thought–action repertoire and personal resources, supporting the broaden-and-build theory. The research applies this notion to performance reviews, which are an emotional experience for managers and employees. The study timely addresses organizations’ need for performance management system overhauls by suggesting managers to use emotional flexibility until an alternate performance review system is available.

Being grounded in interdependence theory, this study aims to address the following research question: Do managers’ negotiation styles (collaborative versus competitive) make employees’ relational justice-emotional experiences links sporadic?

Data elicited from N = 139 Pakistani undergraduate students participating in an online scenario-based experiment were used to employ repeated measures analysis and partial least square structural equation modeling techniques.

Results suggest that employees’ relational justice is likely to be higher when managers use a collaborative negotiation style than when they use competitive style in performance review meetings. Moreover, per managers’ different negotiation styles, employees’ relational justice perceptions may predict their positive emotions differently. That is, when managers use collaborative negotiation style, employees’ relational justice perceptions may positively predict their hope but not optimism, whereas when managers use competitive negotiation style, employees’ relational justice perceptions may positively predict their optimism but not hope. Furthermore, the positive relationship between employees’ relational justice and their optimism is stronger when their trust in manager is low than when it is high.

The study is of value for performance management theorists who aim to address the issue of ineffectiveness of the practice through relational means. The study includes the recently explicated concept of relational justice and examines its links with employee emotional reactions to performance reviews. Moreover, the study unveils how managers’ negotiation styles in performance review meetings cause variations in the links between employees’ perceptions of relational justice and their emotional experiences.