Dismay about curtailed increase in salary review (9)
I believe the answer is:
appraisal
'salary review' is the definition.
'dismay about curtailed increase' is the wordplay.
'dismay' becomes 'appal' ('appal' can be a synonym of 'dismay').
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'curtailed' means to remove the last letter.
'increase' becomes 'raise' (raising is a kind of increasing).
'raise' with its final letter taken off is 'rais'.
'appal' going around 'rais' is 'APPRAISAL'.
'in' is the link.
(Other definitions for appraisal that I've seen before include "valuation" , "Evaluation - price survey" , "judgment" , "Formal assessment of an employee's performance" , "rating" .)