Dear colleague, tell me, do you really know me? The impact of self -verifying feedback on workplace interpersonal relationships and individual workplace behavior .

Abstract

People need to obtain feedback that verifies the self- views which they hold about themselves, as, it is needed for psychological well-being and consistency. Trying to get self-verifying feedback, namely self-verification strivings research is mostly conducted in personal settings and intimate relationships. Thus, more research studying the topic in organizational settings and business relationships is needed. This paper aimed to study self-verification strivings of employees in organizational settings and to obtain an understanding of the influence of confirmatory feedback on workplace behavior and relationships. The research was exploratory in its nature, thus a qualitative research design was used and in-depth interviews with 30 participants were conducted. Additionally, the researchers made non-participant observation in the workplaces of the participants. The study presents several contributions to the field: It showed that receiving confirmatory feedback improves communication between colleagues; it enables effective division of work which in turn improves teamwork; it ensures the colleagues to have precise expectations about each other’s performances, it contributes to trust between the employee and the verifier, it helps the formation of affective commitment towards the organization and contributes to the development of organizational citizenship behaviors.