Feedback-seeking Behavior Research Articles

Developmental leadership as a driver of employee feedback behaviors: the roles of learning goal orientation and leader high performance expectations

PurposeDrawing on goal orientation theory, this study intends to investigate whether, how and when developmental leadership influences employees’ feedback seeking behavior (FSB) and feedback avoidance behavior (FAB).Design/methodology/approachThe authors used a two-wave survey of 416 full-time employees in China. The hypotheses were tested with path analyses.FindingsDevelopmental leadership exerts a positive influence on employees’ FSB and a negative impact on FAB through learning goal orientation (LGO). Additionally, leaders’ high performance expectations (LHPE) not only strengthen the positive effects of developmental leadership on FSB but also intensify its weakening effects on FAB.Originality/valueThe findings enrich current understanding by associating developmental leadership with employees’ FSB/FAB, offering a new viewpoint on its positive impacts. This study also provides deeper insights into when the benefits of developmental leadership are intensified.

Antecedents of Feedback-Seeking Behavior and Its Conditional Impacts: Applying the Framework of Workplace Entitlement

This study proposes and empirically tests a more elaborate model for feedback-seeking behavior (FSB) by including new potential predictors (perceived overqualification, hostile attributional style, and overwork climate) involved with a range of entitlement forms. As well, it aims to identify the extent to which FSB varies within its boundary conditions (i.e., regulatory foci, mutual recognition respect, and motivational climate). A series of hierarchical, moderated regression analyses were used to explore the hypotheses. Data were collected from a stratified sample of 444 employees working largely in manufacturing and IT service industries in eastern China. A hostile attributional style and an overwork climate negatively impact FSB. Although perceived overqualification does not have a direct effect, its interaction with a prevention focus (rather than a promotion focus) easily induces FSB. From the use of the influential predictors and moderators, a thorough understanding of their effects on FSB not only neutralizes the concern over reducing employees’ FSB, but also assists in providing possibilities to create a feedback-rich culture. We provide some insights on how an inflated sense of entitlement can be extended to understand the evolving nature of FSB through another feedback-seeking motive behind the instrumental one. As a different attempt, it adds further value in ongoing feedback research by showing the conditional impacts on such behaviors.

Police leaders as role models in feedback-seeking: how police leaders’ negative feedback-seeking encourages, reinforces, and enables their followers’ negative feedback-seeking

ABSTRACT This paper examines leaders’ role modeling of negative feedback-seeking behavior (NFSB). We hypothesized that leaders who solicit negative feedback from their followers increase followers’ negative feedback-seeking and that this relationship is moderated by leaders’ differentiation in negative feedback-seeking. Leaders engaging in authentic NFSB by not differentiating (i.e., asking all followers equally for feedback) should yield a stronger effect on followers’ NFSB. Data was collected from leaders and followers from two German police departments (N = 130 leader-follower dyads). Results support the hypotheses showing leaders’ role modeling of NFSB. Particularly in the police, errors and mistakes are often concealed or even covered up. Our results show that it is vital for police leaders to actively solicit critical information from all their followers to signal their followers that this behavior is accepted and welcomed. Our findings can be considered when decisions regarding leadership selection, promotion, and development are made.

The influence of attachment style on support and feedback seeking and depression severity among mothers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ways that people seek support during times of stress influence their mental health outcomes, including depression. Insecure attachment is a risk factor for depression and may also interfere with adaptive support and feedback-seeking behaviour during stress. The purpose of the present study was to test theorized associations between insecure attachment, support and feedback seeking, and changes in depression symptoms over 1 year, in a sample of mothers of school-age children in the context of stress elicited by the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants (N = 70 mothers) completed self-report measures of anxious and avoidant attachment and depression severity at baseline in spring 2020 and then completed measures of past-year engagement in direct and indirect support seeking and excessive reassurance seeking (ERS), preference for negative feedback, and depression severity at a follow-up assessment in summer 2021. Greater attachment anxiety at baseline predicted more frequent direct support seeking, indirect support seeking, and ERS during the 1-year follow-up period. In turn, greater indirect support seeking predicted greater increases in depression from baseline to follow-up. Greater attachment avoidance at baseline predicted less direct support seeking during the 1-year follow-up period. Greater attachment avoidance at baseline also predicted depression severity at follow-up, particularly among mothers with moderate to high levels of attachment anxiety, although none of the examined support and feedback-seeking behaviours mediated this association. These results provide support for the role of activated attachment systems in determining support and feedback-seeking behaviour during stress, as well as the role of support and feedback-seeking behaviour in the maintenance and exacerbation of depression.

상사는 부하의 피드백 추구행동을 어떻게 볼까?: 피드백 추구행동이 유능함 인식과 성과평가에 미치는 영향에서 주체 지향성의 조절역할

The answer to how a subordinate's feedback seeking behavior will be deemed by supervisor
 is a significant motivational factor that influence employees' feedback seeking. It is also
 essential for organizations to organize policies that encourage feedback seeking behavior.
 Based on the theories of similarity-attraction, social categorization, and social identity, this
 study argues whether supervisor's agentic orientation is high or low, feed seeking behavior
 will positively or negatively influence perception of subordinate's competence. Furthermore,
 this study suggests the interaction effect of feedback seeking behavior and agentic orientation
 will influence performance evaluation via perceived competence. To test the hypotheses,
 path analysis using Mplus 8 was conducted based on data from 210 pairs of supervisorsemployees
 in military settings. The result revealed that the relationship between feedback seeking
 behavior and perceived competence was moderated by agentic orientation. Specifically, when
 supervisors had high agentic orientation, there was a significant positive relationship between
 two variables. However, when supervisors had low agentic orientation, there was no significant
 relationship. Perceived competence mediated the interaction effect of feedback seeking behavior
 and agentic orientation. This study contributes to the literature by examining how feedback
 seeking behavior is interpreted from a supervisor's perspective, going beyond the traditional
 employee-focused perspective. Additionally, it offers practical implications for organizational
 managers in terms of human resource management.

Igniting work innovation: performance pressure, extraversion, feedback seeking and innovative behavior

PurposeThis study investigates how performance pressure affects feedback-seeking and innovative work behaviors. The study also examines the effect of extraversion on the performance pressure–FSB relationship.Design/methodology/approachThe hypotheses in this study were tested by analyzing two-wave data collected from a sample of employees in the information technology sector in India using the PLS-SEM approach.FindingsOur findings revealed that individuals possessing extraverted personality traits exhibited a positive response to performance pressure, thereby enhancing their FSB. Moreover, our results demonstrated that FSB mediates the relationship between performance pressure and IWB.Research limitations/implicationsThe results underscore the importance of individual variations in personality traits, particularly extraversion, in influencing how employees respond to performance pressure. By providing insights into the mediating mechanism of feedback-seeking behavior, our study contributes to a deeper understanding of the interplay between performance pressure, feedback-seeking behavior and innovative work behavior.Practical implicationsManagers should consider extraversion as a factor in the relationship between performance pressure and FSB, adapting strategies and support systems accordingly. Creating a feedback-oriented culture and providing resources for extroverts during high-pressure periods can enhance their coping mechanisms.Originality/valuePrevious research has provided a limited exploration of the mechanisms that establish the connection between job demands and innovative work behaviors. This study contributes by uncovering the previously unexplored relationship between performance pressure, extraversion, feedback-seeking behavior and, subsequently, innovative work behavior.

Supervisor Dispositional Goal Orientation and Negative Feedback-seeking Behaviors: The Moderated Mediation Roles of Feedback Utility Belief and Subordinate Expertise

Supervisor Dispositional Goal Orientation and Negative Feedback-seeking Behaviors: The Moderated Mediation Roles of Feedback Utility Belief and Subordinate Expertise

How mentors inspire affective commitment in newcomers: The roles of servant leadership, psychological capital, and feedback-seeking behavior

This study investigated the impacts of the dual roles of servant-leadership and mentoring on hotel new employees' affective commitment. Guided by self-determination theory, an integrated model proposed the associations between servant mentors and employees’ affective commitment mediated via psychological capital. The model also hypothesized the moderating effect of employees' feedback-seeking behavior on the relationship between mentors’ servant leadership and employees’ psychological capital. Three hundred and seventy new employees at thirteen hotels in five regions of China provided responses during a time lag of ten weeks. The data was analyzed by Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and a series of Moderated Hierarchical Regression (MHR). The results indicated that mentors' servant leadership had a direct positive effect on hotel new employees’ psychological capital and affective commitment, and indirectly predicted affective commitment via psychological capital. Moreover, feedback-seeking behavior could enhance the relationship between mentors’ servant leadership and employees’ psychological capital. The findings extend knowledge of understanding mentoring and servant leadership in the hospitality organizations, and imply the effective ways to improve hotel newcomers management.

The Effect of Psychological Safety on Voice Behavior and Negative Feedback-Seeking Behavior: The Moderating Role of Career Growth Opportunity

The Effect of Psychological Safety on Voice Behavior and Negative Feedback-Seeking Behavior: The Moderating Role of Career Growth Opportunity

Police leaders' daily feedback-seeking: the role of an organization’s error-management climate, leaders' feedback orientation and the situation

PurposeLeaders lack essential information about their performance from their followers. In light of the frequently encountered error avoidance climate in the police, leaders should actively seek feedback to fill this gap. The purpose of this paper is to explore organizational, personal and situational antecedents of police leaders' daily feedback-seeking behavior.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used a diary study and examined error-management climate, feedback orientation and two situational characteristics, namely daily occasions for feedback-seeking and daily time pressure. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze the N = 188 daily entries from 27 leaders (minimum of three daily entries per leader).FindingsResults show that police leaders seldom seek daily feedback from their followers. A positive (i.e. learning-oriented) error-management climate and occasions for feedback-seeking foster leaders' daily feedback-seeking, whereas no main effects of feedback orientation and time pressure were found. However, time pressure moderated the relationship between occasions for feedback-seeking and daily feedback-seeking, with higher time pressure leading to a weaker relationship.Originality/valueThis is the first study empirically examining feedback-seeking as a key leadership behavior on a daily basis. The results show that organizational conditions promote leaders' feedback-seeking behavior and indicate organizations should foster an error-management climate to promote feedback-seeking of their leaders.

English Writing Mindsets and Feedback-Seeking Behaviors of Chinese College EFL Students

English writing effectively prompts learners to internalize the English language knowledge gained through reading and listening into their own linguistic and communicative competence, and thus comprehensively contributes to the improvement of their overall English language proficiency. English writing is the ultimate and most fundamental measure of students’ language proficiency. This study sought to investigate the relationship between English writing mindsets and feedback-seeking behaviors of selected Chinese EFL students. In this study, quantitative research was used. The respondents comprised 400 college students from three Chinese universities. Correlational analysis was used to handle the data that were gathered utilizing survey questionnaires. The results demonstrated that, on the whole, the participants tended toward a growth mindset in the setting of English writing mindset and that, by using monitoring or inquiry techniques and delaying feedback seeking, they had a favorable attitude toward feedback-seeking behaviors. Furthermore, the T-test findings indicated gender disparities in mindsets, with males having stronger growth mindset than females. Additionally, correlation analysis revealed a strong relationship between English writing mindsets and feedback-seeking behaviors. Students who frequently applied growth mindset also tended to have higher levels of feedback-seeking behaviors. Finally, pedagogical suggestions were put forward based on these findings.

Do I need feedback or avoid it in L2 writing? Impacts of self-efficacy and shyness on feedback-seeking behavior

Whether second or foreign (L2) writing self-efficacy predicts feedback-seeking behavior (FSB) positively or negatively remains unresolved. Moreover, empirical research regarding the influence of shyness on FSB is lacking. The investigation of self-efficacy, shyness, and FSB addresses how efficacious and shy individuals seek feedback and provides implications for overcoming shyness and recognizing the need to seek feedback for academic growth. Thus, the aim of the present study is to explore the impact of L2 writing self-efficacy and shyness on FSB. A battery of questionnaires was administered to 606 Chinese participants and six L2 learners’ writing experiences were elicited in relation to the three concepts. The quantitative results revealed that linguistic self-efficacy negatively impacted feedback inquiry, whereas performance self-efficacy positively impacted it. Further, self-regulatory self-efficacy had a positive impact on both feedback monitoring and inquiry. Shyness had a positive impact on feedback monitoring. Interviews revealed that L2 learners were confident about grammar and vocabulary in writing, but they struggled with organization, self-monitored feedback to avoid burdening teachers, relied on self-monitoring if feedback was delayed, and inquired about feedback when preparing for tests. Herein, implications for L2 writing pedagogy are provided.

Harnessing student feedback to transform teachers: Role of emotions and relationships.

Feedback is crucial to promote learning and improve performance. However, we lack a nuanced understanding of how medical teachers reflect on and internalise (or not) student feedback (SF). This study aims to fill this gap by exploring how teachers make sense of SF to improve their performance and nurture their personal and professional development. In this cross-sectional qualitative study based on a constructivist paradigm, 14 medical teachers individually drew a Rich Picture (RP) of a feedback experience in which they received informal or formal feedback from students, resulting in a personal or professional change. After the drawing, we interviewed the participants to deepen our understanding of teachers' experiences. We analysed the drawings and interview transcripts using an iterative process of thematic analysis. SF that culminated in personal or professional change is a highly emotional experience for teachers, often with long-lasting consequences. It may threaten or reassure their self-concept and professional identity, generating feedback avoidance or feedback-seeking behaviour. SF is particularly powerful in transforming teaching practices when teachers feel connected to students through an honest and constructive relationship. Remarkably, some teachers intentionally build relationships with certain (selected) students to get 'qualified' feedback. SF acceptance also increases when teachers are open to receiving feedback and there is an institutional culture that values feedback. Finally, medical teachers believe that formal (planned) feedback is relevant to improve the curriculum, while informal (spontaneous) feedback is important for promoting teachers' personal and professional development. SF has the potential to become a transformative learning experience for teachers. The student-teacher relationship and teachers' emotional reactions affect the way teachers make sense of and internalise SF and enact behavioural change. Understanding the complexity surrounding SF is vital for supporting teachers in seizing opportunities for growth and in nurturing a meaningful relationship with the act of teaching.

Transforming Passive Employee Engagement Into Active Engagement: Supervisor Development Feedback Valences on Feedback-Seeking Behavior.

Employees' feedback-seeking behavior is an important way to develop and maintain self-awareness and interpersonal acuity, reduce uncertainty, boost creativity and improve innovative behavior and performance. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home has become the new normal, supervisor feedback and employees feedback-seeking has an increasingly important impact on team creativity and team innovation performance.In the practice of organizational management, there is frequently a "feedback vacuum" between managers and employees. There is increasing research on feedback-seeking behavior in the field of OBHRM. This paper is the first to evaluate the impact of work meaning and positive attributions on workers' feedback-seeking behavior, and the cross-level effects of supervisor development feedback including variable valence. The paper analyzes supervisor-employee paired data from 158 supervisors and 659 employees using multi-source, multi-temporal data to draw the following conclusions: (1) Positive supervisor development feedback has a significant cross-level positive effect on employee feedback-seeking behavior, whereas negative supervisor development feedback does not affect employee feedback-seeking behavior; (2) Work meaningfulness mediates the cross-level relationship between positive supervisor development feedback and employees' feedback-seeking behaviors, whereas negative supervisor development feedback and employees' feedback-seeking behaviors do not; (3) Positive attributions positively moderate the relationship between positive supervisor development feedback and work meaningfulness; while positively moderating the relationship between negative supervisor development feedback and work meaningfulness; (4) Positive attributions have a moderating effect on supervisor development feedback that influences the indirect relationship to feedback-seeking behavior by work meaningfulness.

How Transformational Leaders Promote Employees’ Feedback-Seeking Behaviors: The Role of Intrinsic Motivation and Its Boundary Conditions

Feedback-seeking behavior is critical to employee self-change and self-improvement, which is conducive to the sustainable development of employees’ own knowledge and abilities. Drawing on self-determination theory, this study aims to examine the underlying psychological mechanism and the boundary conditions of the relationship between transformational leadership and employees’ feedback-seeking behavior. Data were collected from a large manufacturing firm in China, encompassing 415 employees, and subsequently analyzed employing SPSS 22.0 and SPSS PROCESS Macro. The results showed that employee intrinsic motivation mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and employees’ feedback-seeking behavior. In addition, the positive association between transformational leadership and intrinsic motivation was more pronounced when organizational virtuousness was high than when it was low. On the contrary, the positive link between transformational leadership and intrinsic motivation was stronger when job complexity was low than when it was high. Organizational virtuousness and job complexity further moderated the indirect effect of transformational leadership on feedback-seeking behavior through intrinsic motivation. Our findings offer a better understanding of employee feedback-seeking behavior by considering factors that may trigger and influence employees’ psychological motivation. In this way, this study contributes to the literature on self-determination theory and feedback-seeking behavior.

Personality, Behavior, and Performance of Platform Workers: Evidence from Vietnam

Purpose - Based on personality - job fit theory (Kristof-Brown, 2006) and social exchange theory (Blau, 2017) we explaine evidence of the relationship between proactive personality, proactive feedback seeking behavior, and the job performance of platform workers. We also examine the moderating role of perceived organizational support in relationship between proactive personality and feedback seeking behavior and job autonomy as a moderating role between the proactive feedback seeking behavior and job performance of platform workers.
 Design/Methodology/Approach - This study follows structural equation modeling following a partial least square method on a sample group of 171 platform workers selected by convenient random sampling techniques and analyzed by SmarlPLS 4.0 to test research hypotheses. 
 Findings - Research findings show that proactive personality plays an important role in promoting proactive behavior seeking feedback and job performance, and affirms the positive moderating role of perceived platform support between feedback seeking behavior and proactive personality. The study also confirmed that proactive feedback seeking behavior has a direct and indirect impact on the performance of platform workers, and this relationship is further strengthened in conditions of highly autonomous work. 
 Research Implications - Some implications of human resource management on digital labor platforms are also proposed to improve the efficiency of human resource management.

Safety Behavior and Transition Shock among Newly Graduated Nurses: The Mediating Role of Feedback-Seeking Behavior

Aim. To determine the relationship between transition shock and safety behavior among newly graduated nurses (NGNs) and explore the mediating role of feedback-seeking behavior. Background. The safety behavior of NGNs plays a vital role in improving patient safety in clinical situations. The direct effect of the transition shock experienced by these nurses on safety behavior remains limited, and little is known about the mediating effect of feedback-seeking behavior. Methods. A descriptive correlational research design was conducted with a cross-sectional sample of nurses in China using an online survey. A convenience sample of 575 nurses from 17 hospitals completed the questionnaires. Correlation analysis and structural equation modeling were used to examine the hypotheses. Results. The sampled NGNs’ safety behavior score was 55.35 ± 5.46. Their transition shock was negatively associated with safety behavior (β = −0.225, p < 0.001). In contrast, feedback-seeking behavior was positively related to safety behavior (β = 0.502, p < 0.001). The feedback-seeking behavior partially mediated the relationship between transition shock and safety behavior, and the mediating effect was 58.29%. Conclusions. The results emphasized that the relationship between NGNs’ transition shock and safety behavior is mediated by feedback-seeking behavior. Implications for Nursing Management. Interventions focusing on transition shock relief could help improve NGNs’ safety behavior. This study highlights the importance of encouraging feedback-seeking behavior to improve patient safety outcomes, especially for junior nurses. It can therefore be assumed that the nursing managers’ training of NGNs in special skills, such as feedback-seeking, may be conducive to their positive coping and contribute to forming safety behaviors.

Impact of Perceived Autonomy Supportive Supervision and Perception of Servant Leadership on Feedback Seeking Behavior: Evidence from The Healthcare Sector

Impact of Perceived Autonomy Supportive Supervision and Perception of Servant Leadership on Feedback Seeking Behavior: Evidence from The Healthcare Sector

대학생의 성취목표와 학업참여가 자기평가 수행에 미치는 영향 탐색 및 성별에 따른 차이 분석

The student self-assessment is considered as a formative assessment process in which students reflect on and judge the quality of their learning and appropriately modify it, and it is also a representative strategy for assessment as learning(AAL). The purpose of this study is to identify the effects of achievement goals and academic engagement on college students' self-assessment practice and explore their gender differences. For this purpose, the data of 317 college students were analyzed, and the results are as follows. First, it was found that the learner's mastery goal had the most positive effects on student self-assessment practice by mediating cognitive or agentic engagement. Second, the higher the cognitive or agentic engagement, the higher the tendency to perform self-assessment by self-monitoring external resources(SEFM). Relatively, the higher the cognitive engagement, the more frequently the use of internal resources(SIF), while the higher the agentic engagement, the higher the tendency to obtain information by asking questions to others such as professors, parents and friends(SEFI). Third, in the internal process of self-assessment, SEFM, SEFI, and SIF, which are feedback-seeking behaviors, showed statistically significant direct effects on self-reflection. Fourth, multigroup structural model analysis confirmed gender differences in detailed pathways. Finally, through the results of the study, the necessity of preparing a plan for cultivating self-assessment literacy in an efficient and adaptive way for each learner was discussed.

The Mediating Impact of Goal–Role Clarity on the Relationship between Feedback–Seeking Behavior and Goal Orientations with Job Satisfaction Intrinsic Cognitions and Person–Organization Fit

This study aims to offer a design for the cognitive calibration of employees’ work behaviors. The study focuses on fostering sustainable behavioral patterns in the workplace by arguing that, to sustain the cognitive maintenance of workplace behaviors, the nexus between self-efficacy behaviors, ability beliefs, job–role clarity, and employees’ perceived alignment should be considered during human resource (HR) processes and events, such as feedback conversations and performance reviews. The tool used to collect our data was a questionnaire administered both in paper format and digitally through an online platform compliant with European data protection regulations, to 210 professionals from two IT companies in northeastern Romania (n = 116 for the first sample and n = 94 for the second sample). The series of questions included Likert scales addressing frequency, (dis)agreement, and clarity. The model was tested using SPSS v.27 and SMART-PLS v.4 software, and the study used partial least squares structural equation modeling to examine the proposed hypotheses. Findings for Study 1 indicated that role clarity partially mediated the relationship between feedback–seeking and job cognitions whilst fully mediating the effect on person–organization fit. Results from Study 2 indicated that role clarity partially mediated the relationship between goal orientations and job cognitions and fully mediated the effect on person–organization fit. Therefore, it is possible to aid employees’ in storing their employment narratives in coherent cognitive schemas while elevating their assessment of work values’ alignment and meaningfulness. On this basis, effective tools and methodologies should be made available to employees, at the individual and team level, to help them understand the cognitive processing endorsing workplace behavioral patterns, compatibility, and causality for them to sustainably transform their workplace behavior.