How Do Feedback Seekers Think? Disparate Cognitive Pathways Toward Incremental & Radical Creativity

Abstract

Feedback-seeking behavior (FSB) has been identified as a meaningful facilitator of individual creative performance. Nonetheless, existing empirical findings are inconsistent, thus raising the need to reexamine the relationship between FSB and creative performance. Accordingly, we explored the effects of FSB on two different types of creativity, radical and incremental, and directed our attention to cognitive processes that mediate the relationship between FSB and creativity. On the basis of the dual pathway to creativity model, we propose that feedback-seeking (FS) frequency and breadth increase cognitive persistence and flexibility, which in turn enhance their radical and incremental creativity of feedback seekers. Our analysis of the data comprising 239 employees from 95 teams in various business organizations revealed that FS frequency is positively related to radical creativity, whereas FS breadth is negatively related to incremental creativity. FS frequency is positively related to cognitive flexibility and cognitive persistence, whereas FS breadth is positively related to cognitive flexibility. Only cognitive flexibility, not cognitive persistence, mediates the relationship between FSB and radical creativity. This study advances the literature on FSB and creativity by developing and validating a theoretical framework that considers the intervening cognitive mechanisms and the various forms of creativity.