Abstract
Purpose: This study aims to provide empirical evidence of how supervisors’ positive feedback plays a crucial role in newcomers’ task performance in the first 90 days of their employment.Design/methodology/approach: Data for this study were collected from newcomers and their immediate supervisors in a large high-tech manufacturing company in northern China. The study used a structured questionnaire to gather data from 229 newcomer-supervisor dyads, which were analysed through the application of structural equation modelling.Findings/results: The findings revealed that supervisors’ positive feedback positively affects newcomers’ task performance. The supervisors’ positive feedback enhances the task performance of newcomers’ by promoting energy and information seeking at work. In addition, the study also revealed that intrinsic motivation as a moderator strengthens the relationship between supervisors’ positive feedback and newcomers’ energy at work.Practical implications: Organiszations should place emphasis on supervisors’ positive feedback and newcomers’ level of intrinsic motivation in order to attain better performance in the workplace.Originality/value: This study highlights the need for organisations to pay attention to the dual roles of supervisors’ positive feedback and the intrinsic motivation of newcomers’ in improving task performance. Supervisors’ positive feedback boosts newcomers’ energy at work and aids their task performance when intrinsic motivation is high rather than low.
Highlights
Feedback is one of the most constructive inputs in any learning process (Kuchinke, 2000; Salas, & Rosen, 2010)
As noted by Odean (1998), there are situations in which overconfident speculators tend to overestimate their capacities in terms of the accuracy of the information they have, as a result, they passively depend on their information. We examine these situations in order to help scholars understand how information-seeking mediates newcomers’ energy at work, alongside their overconfidence and task performance in the first 90 days of the their employment
Note that intrinsic motivation does not correlate with any other variables
Summary
Feedback is one of the most constructive inputs in any learning process (Kuchinke, 2000; Salas, & Rosen, 2010). Some researchers (Alder, 2007; Bartram & Roe, 2008; Eckert, Ekelund, Gentry, & Dawson, 2010; Madzar, 1995; Salas & Rosen, 2010) have argued that the effect of the feedback on improving task performance has received wide acceptance. Employees may receive feedback as a result of the work itself in the workplace; this type of feedback is not enough to guarantee employees’ success (Hackman, 1980). The effects of supervisors’ feedback on employees’ creativity and task performance have been investigated by previous researchers (Li, Harris, Boswell, & Xie, 2011; Zhou, 2003), For example, Dashing and O’Malley (2011) argued that feedback can positively affect task performance. More work is required to understand and clarify under what conditions feedback will lead to both negative and positive outcomes in the workplace
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