Feedback Seeking Research Articles

Goal-Related Feedback Seeking, Receiving Goal-Related Feedback, and Internal Work Motivation: A Two-Sample Mediation Study Using Human Service Case Managers

ABSTRACT Purpose No known published empirical study in the social work literature has investigated goal-related feedback seeking’s direct or indirect impact on human service case managers. Consequently, this field survey study sought to fill this gap in the extant literature using two different samples of county-based human service case managers across the state of New York. Method Four hundred and sixty-three public assistance and 349 child welfare case managers were surveyed in order to test goal-related feedback seeking’s main and receiving goal-related feedback’s mediating effect on internal work motivation. Results Data from each sample confirmed both types of effects. Discussion As the first to uncover these two sets of findings, this field survey study makes a unique contribution to the social work and feedback seeking literatures.

Feedback Culture Perceived by Trainees in an Academic Institution: A Mixed Methods Study.

Lack of a well-functioning institutional feedback culture can undermine acquisition of skills essential for high quality patient care. The objective of this study was to assess feedback culture perceived by resident and fellow trainees, utilizing a mixed methods design. Pediatric fellows and residents completed an anonymous feedback environment survey consisting of 7 constructs: source credibility, feedback quality, feedback delivery, reinforcing feedback, constructive feedback, source availability, and promotion of feedback seeking, using a 7-point Likert scale. Trainee ratings were compared using two-sided Fisher's exact tests. Multivariable analyses used a linear regression model. For the qualitative study, semistructured interviews of residents were conducted. The constant comparative method was used to incrementally code, categorize data, and derive themes. Fifty-two residents and 21 fellows completed the survey (response rates 65% and 47%, respectively). Scores were more favorable for fellows compared with residents in 6 of 7 feedback constructs (P < .05), including on multivariate analysis. Hispanic ethnicity and female gender were associated with lower scores on source credibility (P = .04) and constructive feedback (P = .03), respectively. Two qualitative themes were identified: expectation of efficiency in patient care compromises the quality and quantity of feedback, and a culture that prioritizes courtesy over candor negatively impacts feedback quality. These themes were more pronounced when residents worked with pediatric subspecialists compared with hospitalists. We described the feedback culture, which was less favorable in the residency program. The need for efficient patient care and a culture of courtesy adversely impacted the quality of feedback, especially among subspecialists.

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

Measuring learning from others: The development and validation of the Proactive Social Informal Learning Questionnaire

AbstractThe present study aims to develop, validate, and cross‐validate an instrument measuring three proactive social informal learning activities, namely feedback seeking, help seeking and information seeking. Prior research mainly focused on detecting or measuring the frequency of these seeking behaviours and did not consider whether the information, help or feedback that has been sought was also used. Furthermore, although these seeking behaviours were studied extensively in different research fields, the current study takes a learning perspective and interprets feedback, help and information seeking as learning activities. The questionnaire was completed by a convenient sample of 650 professionals working in higher education, consultancy, retail and food production. We performed an exploratory factor analysis (N = 230 educators) to explore the structure of the questionnaire. This was followed by a confirmatory factor analysis (N = 230 educators) to confirm the structure. Finally, we cross‐validated the questionnaire in a sample of business professionals (N = 190) by testing for measurement invariance. The final questionnaire resulted in a five‐factor structure measuring the (1) Use of Feedback Seeking, (2) Frequency of Help and Information Seeking, (3) Use of Help seeking, (4) Use of Information Seeking and (5) Frequency of Feedback Seeking. The current study presents a preliminary, yet promising instrument that taps into proactive social informal learning.

The Impact of Idiosyncratic Deals on Coworkers’ Interactive Behavior: The Moderating Role of Developmental Human Resource Management Practices

Organizations have come to recognize the importance of their human capital, particularly their top-performing employees, in sustaining their businesses in today’s competitive 21st-century landscape. To reward these few talented employees, organizations offer them preferential treatment in the form of idiosyncratic deals (i-deals). I-deals can effectively improve the performance of recipients, but this is not enough to demonstrate their management effectiveness. We should also measure their functional impact from the perspective of bystanders. This study seeks to explore the functional and dysfunctional impacts of i-deals on bystanders. We collected two-wave leader–employee matching data from sales teams, obtaining a sample of 108 leaders and 546 employees. The results indicate that coworkers’ perceptions of other employees’ i-deals (CPOEID) can provoke either malicious envy, which can lead to negative workplace gossip, or benign envy, which encourages feedback seeking. Developmental HRM practices not only lessen the positive effect of CPOEID on malicious and benign envy but also reduce the indirect effect of CPOEID on negative workplace gossip and feedback-seeking through malicious or benign envy. Our study, which applies social comparison theory, examines the double-edged effects of differentiated HRM practices on coworker interactive behavior. Additionally, our findings demonstrate the complementarity between differentiated and standardized HRM practices.

Unpacking the nonlinear effect of self‐efficacy in entrepreneurship: Why and under which condition more is not better

AbstractSelf‐efficacy exerts a positive impact on several self‐regulatory functions to support goal accomplishment and performance. However, in contexts that are characterized by uncertainty and ambiguity, such as entrepreneurship, there might be a tipping point to this relationship, prompting calls for deeper investigations on the nonlinear effect. In particular, the underlying mechanisms explaining why and when the nonlinear effect occurs are unclear. Drawing on theories of self‐regulation, we examine the nonlinear effect of entrepreneurial self‐efficacy on venture goal progress through the entrepreneur's active feedback‐seeking and venture effort. We also propose that the entrepreneur's state error mastery orientation moderates the nonlinear effect. Conducting a six‐wave repeated measures study among 84 early‐stage entrepreneurs in a business accelerator in the Philippines, we use a within‐person approach to test our hypotheses and research model. Results suggest that self‐regulatory mechanisms in terms of feedback seeking, effort, and state error mastery orientation help to unpack why and when self‐efficacy exerts a nonlinear effect on performance outcomes.

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.

Positive feedback, feedback seeking and performance: Feedback orientation as a moderator

Purpose: Based on the feedback intervention theory, the main objective of this study was to explore the association of supervisor positive feedback with employee performance and the roles of feedback seeking and feedback orientation.Design/methodology/approach: Hierarchical regression and bootstrap analyses are used to test the above hypotheses and theoretical model on 368 dyad data obtained from Chinese employees and their direct supervisors at three different times.Findings/results: The results show that positive supervisor feedback has a positive effect on employee performance. Feedback seeking partially mediates the effect of positive feedback on employee performance. Feedback orientation positively moderates the influence of positive supervisor feedback on employee feedback seeking and performance, that is, for employees with high feedback orientation, the above two reinforcing effects are more obvious.Practical implications: The findings of this study demonstrate that supervisors should provide feedback to their employees in a positive manner in their daily work, so as to motivate employees to actively seek feedback and ultimately achieve the purpose of improving employee performance. Also, it is equally important for organisations and supervisors to actively cultivate the feedback orientation traits of employees.Originality/value: This study provides new insights into the impact mechanism and boundary conditions of positive feedback impact on employee performance and helps to complement the existing literature on feedback theory and performance management. In addition, applying feedback intervention theory to the research on the association between supervisor feedback and employee performance has made some contributions to the related research of feedback intervention theory.

The impact of enterprise social media usage on employee creativity: a self-regulation perspective

PurposeOrganizations have widely adopted enterprise social media (ESM) to improve employees' creativity. This study applies self-regulation theory to explore the role of feedback seeking in mediating the effects of work-oriented and social-oriented ESM usage on employee creativity.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire was conducted on 219 working professionals in China – professionals that use ESM in respective organizations.FindingsResults show that both work-oriented and social-oriented ESM usage are positively associated with employee feedback inquiry and, subsequently, increased employee creativity. The findings also suggest that social-oriented ESM usage is positively related to employee monitoring, whereas employee feedback monitoring is not related to employee creativity.Research limitations/implicationsPractitioners and/or managers need to pay greater attention to the impact of work-oriented and social-oriented ESM usage on employee feedback seeking strategies and creativity. The low response rate is one of the limitations in this study, although the results of the test suggest that non-response bias is not a critical issue in this study.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the knowledge of feedback inquiry in explaining the effect of work-oriented and social-oriented ESM usage on employee creativity. The current study helps to extend the intervening mechanism in the relationship between ESM usage and employee creativity.

Feedback orientation: A meta-analysis

Feedback orientation reflects an individual difference in one's receptivity to feedback. We present the results of a meta-analysis of the feedback orientation literature. Based on k = 46 independent samples, representing n = 12,478 workers, meta-analytic results suggest that feedback orientation is positively related to learning goal orientation (rc = 0.39), job satisfaction (rc = 0.33), work performance (rc = 0.35), and feedback seeking (rc = 0.43). Meta-analytic regression and dominance analysis was used to tease apart how related informal feedback constructs (i.e., feedback seeking, feedback environment, & feedback orientation) aid in the prediction of outcomes, above and beyond two established predictors of job attitudes and work performance: role clarity and leader-member exchange. We also present an interactive exploratory data analysis tool to aid in developing future research questions regarding the connection between informal feedback constructs and work outcomes.

Seek and Ye Shall Find: An Empirical Examination of the Effects of Seeking Real-Time Feedback on Employee Performance Evaluations

This research delves into the impact of real-time feedback applications on the engagement of employees with performance evaluation programs. The study focuses on feedback-seeking behavior and rating, which have been neglected in previous literature. The research analyzes nearly 11,000 feedback instances from employees at four major organizations to examine how seeking and rating feedback affects in-kind evaluations. The results indicate that seeking feedback can enhance constructive communication among colleagues. Feedback seekers receive lower feedback scores but are more likely to receive longer and more subjective comments. Feedback givers who choose to remain anonymous provide shorter comments or no comments to feedback seekers. The study also reveals that feedback seekers prioritize longer comments over high feedback scores when rating feedback. The study recommends that managers and organizations encourage feedback-seeking behavior to promote a culture of constructive feedback. When implementing feedback applications, it is important to prioritize creating an environment that fosters constructive feedback.

How Subordinate Feedback Seeking is Associated with Supervisor Innovative Work Behavior

How Subordinate Feedback Seeking is Associated with Supervisor Innovative Work Behavior

Developmental Leadership and Employee Feedback Seeking Behavior: The Role of Goal Orientations

Developmental Leadership and Employee Feedback Seeking Behavior: The Role of Goal Orientations

Feedback seeking by first-year Chinese international students: Understanding practices and challenges

Feedback seeking by first-year Chinese international students: Understanding practices and challenges

The “sense” behind proactive behaviors: Feedback seeking, meaningfulness, and personal initiative

With organizations increasingly requiring employees to proactively manage their job and career, researchers have examined various proactive behaviors, such as feedback-seeking behavior and personal initiative. However, few studies have explored the relationships and dynamics among these behaviors. Based on sensemaking theory, this paper argues that employees' feedback-seeking behavior is positively associated with their performance through two stages: meaningfulness and personal initiative. Our hypotheses were tested and supported using two samples: 196 supervisor-subordinate dyads from one large organization in China (Study 1) and panel data of 207 full-time employees from the UK (Study 2). Our findings highlight the importance of recognizing the distinctiveness of different forms of proactive behavior and the synergistic way they contribute to performance. We also demonstrate that employees can seek feedback and construct meaningful work experiences in an agentic manner, which contributes to the literature on career crafting and career self-management.

Exploring the Impact of Entrustable Professional Activities on Feedback Culture: A Qualitative Study of Anesthesiology Residents and Attendings.

Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) were introduced as a potential way to optimize workplace-based assessments. Yet, recent studies suggest that EPAs have not yet overcome all of the challenges to implementing meaningful feedback. The aim of this study was to explore the extent to which the introduction of EPAs via mobile app impacts feedback culture as experienced by anesthesiology residents and attending physicians. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, the authors interviewed a purposive and theoretical sample of residents (n = 11) and attendings (n = 11) at the Institute of Anaesthesiology, University Hospital of Zurich, where EPAs had recently been implemented. Interviews took place between February and December 2021. Data collection and analysis were conducted iteratively. The authors used open, axial, and selective coding to gain knowledge and understanding on the interplay of EPAs and feedback culture. Participants reflected on a number of changes in their day-to-day experience of feedback culture with the implementation of EPAs. Three main mechanisms were instrumental in this process: lowering the feedback threshold, change in feedback focus, and gamification. Participants felt a lower threshold to feedback seeking and giving and that the frequency of feedback conversations increased and tended to be more focused on a specific topic and shorter, while feedback content tended to focus more on technical skills and more attention was given to average performances. Residents indicated that the app-based approach fostered a game-like motivation to "climb levels," while attendings did not perceive a game-like experience. EPAs may offer a solution to problems of infrequent occurrence of feedback and invite attention to average performances and technical competencies, but may come at the expense of feedback on nontechnical skills. This study suggests that feedback culture and feedback instruments have a mutually interacting influence on each other.

Beat People but Not Face: The Role of Perceived Face Threat in the Influence of Abusive Supervision on Employee Feedback Seeking.

One of the purposes for superiors to abuse subordinates is to obtain a positive response from subordinates by conveying a negative attitude. However, abusive behavior cannot guarantee positive behaviors due to the differences in subordinates' characteristics, such as feedback seeking. Based on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study explores the relationship between abusive supervision by superiors and feedback seeking by subordinates in East Asian cultures. Questionnaires were collected from multiple time points and multiple sources. Datum analysis was performed on 318 paired questionnaires between employees and direct supervisors. The results showed that: (1) Employees' perceived face threat has a mediating effect on the relationship between abusive supervision and feedback seeking. (2) Self-affirmation of subordinates positively moderates the relationship between abusive supervision and perceived face threat. (3) Self-handicapping of subordinates positively moderates the relationship between perceived face threat and feedback seeking. This not only explains the mechanism of perceived face threat in the influence of abusive supervision on employees' feedback-seeking behavior, but also reveals the boundary effect of employees' self-affirmation and self-handicapping characteristics in it, which expands the theoretical explanation framework of the influence of abusive supervision on employees' feedback-seeking behavior and also provides new ideas for managers to better implement management in the organization.

The role of supervisor cultural intelligence in the feedback process

IntroductionSupervisors are often asked to coach and mentor employees, and while research on supervisor coaching capability is not new, cross-cultural factors in coaching are understudied. As the workplace becomes more diverse, supervisor cultural intelligence, the capability to function effectively in culturally diverse settings, is becoming more critical.MethodThe current study examined the role of supervisor cultural intelligence in the feedback process through a cross-sectional study with participants from the United States and India.ResultsResults revealed that supervisor cultural intelligence was associated with a more favorable feedback environment, trust in the supervisor, an improved coaching relationship between the supervisor and subordinate, and greater subordinate feedback seeking frequency. Cultural tightness – looseness was a moderator, such that there was a stronger relationship between supervisor cultural intelligence and the feedback environment in cultures perceived to be looser (higher tolerance for deviation from social norms and deviation less rigorously enforced in general) compared to cultures perceived to be tighter (low tolerance for deviations from social norms and deviation more rigorously enforced).DiscussionResults suggest that cultural intelligence can facilitate supervisors in developing a constructive feedback environment that fosters trust and meaningful coaching relationships, especially in cultures that are perceived to be looser where there is potentially more behavioral flexibility.ConclusionSupervisors can leverage cultural intelligence to better foster a quality feedback environment and navigate coaching relationships with diverse employees.

The Role of Self-Efficacy, Task Value, and Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations in Students' Feedback Engagement in English Learning.

Drawing on Wigfield and Eccles's motivational theory, which is acclaimed for explaining individual behavioral intentions, this study investigated the extent to which different forms of motivation (i.e., self-efficacy, task value, and intrinsic and extrinsic motivations) predicted student behavioral feedback engagement (i.e., action on teacher feedback and feedback seeking) in English learning. The participants were 276 male and female students who were enrolled in a second-year full-time English language and literature program at two Chinese universities. Multiple regression analyses showed that task value emerged as the only motivational variable that significantly predicted both students' action on teacher feedback and feedback seeking. Intrinsic motivation significantly predicted action on teacher feedback, whereas extrinsic motivation and self-efficacy significantly predicted feedback seeking. Pedagogical implications for endeavors to support students in their engagement with feedback in learning English as a foreign language in China are discussed.

Misalignment in Community Mental Health Leader and Therapist Ratings of Psychological Safety Climate Predicts Therapist Self-Efficacy with Evidence-Based Practices (EBPs).

Therapist self-efficacy in delivering evidence-based practices (EBPs) is associated with implementation outcomes, including adoption and sustainment in community mental health settings. Inner context organizational climate, including psychological safety, can proximally shape therapist learning experiences within EBP implementation. Psychologically safe environments are conducive to learning behaviors including taking risks, admitting mistakes, and seeking feedback. Organization leaders are instrumental in facilitating psychological safety, but may have differing perspectives of organizational climate than front-line therapists. Discrepant leader and therapist views of psychological safety may have independent associations with therapist EBP learning and implementation outcomes over and above average therapist perceptions of climate. This study examined survey data from 337 therapists and 123 leaders from 49 programs contracted to deliver multiple EBPs within a study examining determinants of sustainment within a large system-driven implementation. Both leaders and therapists completed measures of psychological safety climate and therapists reported on their self-efficacy in delivering multiple EBPs in children's mental health services. Polynomial regression and response surface analysis models were conducted to examine the associations of therapist and leader reports of psychological safety and therapist EBP self-efficacy. Greater discrepancies between leader and therapist reports of psychological safety, in either direction, were associated with lower therapist EBP self-efficacy. Alignment in leader and therapist views of psychological safety climate may impact EBP implementation outcomes. Strategies for improving alignment in perceptions and priorities among organizational members can be included in organizational implementation interventions and may represent unexamined implementation mechanisms of action.