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This study investigates why and when leader favorable feedback inhibits employees’ withdrawal behaviors. The authors propose that leader favorable feedback reduces employees’ withdrawal behaviors via employees’ gratitude toward the leader. The authors further posit that this mediation is contingent on leader-member exchange, arguing that as the quality of leader-member exchange increases, employees are more likely to feel grateful and are less likely to withdraw from work.

Two-wave, multisource field data collected from 662 employees were used to test our hypotheses.

Employees’ feelings of gratitude mediated the negative relationship between leader favorable feedback and employees’ withdrawal behavior. The negative effect of gratitude on withdrawal behavior was stronger under higher levels of leader-member exchange, as was the indirect effect of leader favorable feedback on withdrawal behavior via employees’ gratitude.

These results contribute to a social exchange-based understanding of gratitude as an emotional mechanism underlying the feedback and withdrawal relationship and provide important practical implications for managers.

This study aims to widen the understanding of how remote work shapes the feedback environment by examining the perceptions of leaders and subordinates of daily, dyadic feedback interactions. The emphasis is on understanding how reciprocity within leader-member exchange (LMX) relationships manifests and how it influences the feedback dynamics.

Template analysis of a qualitative data set consisting of 81 semi-structured interviews with leaders (n = 29) and remote working subordinates (n = 52) was performed.

Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of the feedback environment and the leader-member exchange, the findings demonstrate the imbalance between the efforts of leaders and subordinates in building and maintaining a favourable feedback environment in the remote work context. The results of this study highlight the importance of the dyadic nature of feedback interactions, calling for a more proactive role from subordinates.

Given the estimation that the COVID-19 pandemic has permanently changed the way organizations work, leaders, subordinates and HR practitioners will benefit from advancing their understanding of the characteristics of dyadic, daily feedback interaction in remote work.

Qualitative research on feedback and leader-member exchange interactions in remote work that combines the perceptions of leaders and subordinates is sparse.

Drawing from impression management theory, this study examines how the leader's negative feedback affects the employees' creative process engagement (CPE) and whether impression management motivation plays a mediating role in this process. In addition, the moderating role of face consciousness is analyzed in the relationship between negative feedback and impression management motivation.

A time-lagged design with three data-collection points was implemented based on a dataset of two studies of follower–leader pairs (Ns = 165, 30 and 682, 89) in China. Ordinary least squares regression analyses were conducted to test the hypotheses.

The leader's negative feedback positively affected employees' CPE via impression management motivation. The relationship was stronger when face consciousness salience was high.

This study suggests that negative feedback is also valuable. Supervisors should learn how to stimulate employees' impression management motivation when delivering negative feedback and ensure that employees know that CPE can bring help and status rewards. Moreover, supervisors may consider using face strategies when providing negative feedback.

This study provides new insights into the association between the leader's negative feedback and employees' CPE by impression management as a psychological mechanism and face consciousness as an important boundary condition. It lays a foundation for further systematic research on CPE based on sociological theory.

This study aims to investigate the factors influencing team innovation from the perspective of strategic leaders. The study draws from the leader–member exchange (LMX) theory to propose that the quality of exchange the leaders perceive with the team members may provide a useful cue to identify the key elements and processes that may help drive team innovation.

A qualitative study using a hybrid approach was used, and a thematic analysis was performed. The data were based on 25 interviews collected from strategic leaders using the long interview technique.

The findings revealed themes and factors influencing innovation orientation among leaders and team members. Five themes were identified, namely modeling leadership behavior, autonomy and psychological safety for teams, organizational structure and technology, innovation and the decision-making process and innovation during times of uncertainty.

Because of the purposefully chosen sample of only leaders who were involved in the innovation process, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to corroborate the finding using a sample of teams involved in the innovation process.

A conceptual model is proposed with guidance for implementing innovation decisions and strategies in practice.

While the strategic leadership and team innovation literature emphasizes the interaction between leaders and team members, research on how these interactions unfold is still nascent. This paper fulfills these needs from a strategic leader’s perspective.

The purpose of this study is to test the mechanism of visionary leadership on subordinates' work withdrawal behavior through cognitive strain and psychological contract violation, and also to reveal the possible dark side of visionary leadership. The moderation effects of subordinates' facades of conformity and leader behavioral integrity in the cognition–affect dual-path process are also discussed.

This study conducted a three-wave longitudinal survey. The data were collected from 574 employees and their superiors in several Chinese enterprises. The authors used Mplus 7.4 and adopted a bootstrapping technique in the data analysis.

Visionary leadership has positive effects on cognitive strain and psychological contract violation; cognitive strain and psychological contract violation mediate the relationship between visionary leadership and work withdrawal behavior, respectively. Subordinates' facades of conformity and leader behavioral integrity moderate the positive effects of visionary leadership on cognitive strain and psychological contract violation, as well as the indirect effect of visionary leadership on subordinates' work withdrawal behavior through cognitive strain and psychological contract violation.

This study reveals the underlying mechanism of visionary leadership's negative impact on job outcome through the cognition and affective reaction of subordinates to visionary leadership, and broadens the scope of visionary leadership research. It also provides some practical suggestions on how to transmit the organizational vision effectively and reduce subordinates' work withdrawal behavior.

Based on the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) model and Transactional Model of Stress and Coping, the current study aims to investigate the direct effects of workplace bullying (WPB) on internal whistleblowing (IW) and workplace withdrawal (WW), as well as the indirect effects, including the mediating role of moral injury (MI) and moderating role of inclusive leadership (IL) in the hospitality sector.

Three-waves approach was used to collect data from 266 hotel employees in India. AMOS 21 and Macro-PROCESS were used to analyse the hypothesised relationships.

WPB has a direct effect on IW and workplace withdrawal. MI mediated the relationship between WPB and IW and WPB and WW. Further, IL moderated the relationship between WPB and MI.

The results of the current study have significant policy-related, academic and practical implications. Executives must be aware of WPB incidents and take prompt action to completely stop them.

The study contributes to the literature by analysing the role of MI as a mediator for the relationship between WPB and WPB's coping strategies like IW and workplace withdrawal. This study also answers repeated calls for more research on MI and MI's consequences.

In this paper, the authors examine auditor upward feedback, which provides a unique opportunity for staff auditors to exercise their voice within an audit firm. Upward feedback can improve employee perceptions of fairness and justice while mitigating feelings of burnout and turnover intentions, thus enhancing audit quality. However, it is unclear which circumstances improve the likelihood that auditors will use their voice and give feedback to superiors. The purpose of this study is to investigate contextual factors that impact the likelihood that auditors will provide upward feedback.

Using a 2 × 2 + 2 experiment with staff auditors, the authors test the likelihood of giving feedback when presented with different feedback systems (electronic anonymous, face-to-face or no opportunity) and experiences with managers (favorable or unfavorable).

The authors find that, while feedback type alone does not change the likelihood of auditors providing upward feedback, auditors are more likely to provide feedback after a favorable manager experience than an unfavorable one. The likelihood of providing feedback after an unfavorable experience is higher, however, when the feedback type is electronic and anonymous as opposed to face-to-face. Additional analyses illustrate strong relationships between manager experience, feedback type and procedural justice, which significantly influence the turnover intentions of staff auditors.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the authors are the first to examine the value of subordinates’ upward feedback on firm outcomes, including burnout and turnover intention.

The current paper aims to analyse the antecedents of leader–member exchange relationships (LMX) by specifically focusing on the influence of the supervisor’s feedback delivery tactic.

This study uses qualitative research methods with primary interviews as the main data source. Primary interviews with 40 managers from top supermarkets in Nigeria, South Africa and the UK were undertaken.

The authors found that both high-quality positive feedback and constructive criticisms produced the same feelings – more positive interpersonal relationships with their supervisors, higher levels of commitment to their organisations, higher job satisfaction and thus, high-quality LMX relationships. Where criticisms were delivered without greater interpersonal treatment, feedback was perceived as negative, and participants revealed lack of job satisfaction, lack of commitment to their organisations, poor interpersonal relationship with their supervisors, high turnover intent and thus low-quality LMX relationship.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current paper is one of the first studies to highlight the consequences of different feedback delivery tactics on subsequent LMX quality particularly in African context. The authors specifically develop a process-based model of enhancing high-quality LMX, which shows the role of the supervisor’s feedback delivery tactic in the process. The authors also develop a process-based model that illustrates how negative/unconstructive feedback could result in a low-quality LMX. Finally, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is also one of the first to offer a comparative assessment between African and British (the UK) empirical settings and highlight some interesting dynamics concerning LMX quality and role of supervisor’s feedback delivery tactic.

Scholars in the feedback seeking domain have predominantly focused on subordinate feedback seeking. The authors still know very little about feedback seeking when the leader is the “seeker” and subordinates are the “targets” of such seeking. This paper aims to develop a theoretical framework that explores the potential benefits and costs of leader feedback seeking, specifically, leader feedback inquiry for subordinates.

The authors draw upon the transactional theory of stress to propose a framework in which leader feedback inquiry influences two subordinate behaviors (in-role and proactive skill development behaviors) via appraisal processes (challenge and threat appraisals). With insights from regulatory focus theory, the authors propose that individual characteristics, namely, the regulatory focus of subordinates (promotion and prevention focus), determine the appraisals of leader feedback inquiry, subsequently influencing subordinate behavioral outcomes.

The authors contend that leader feedback inquiry can be appraised as a challenge which then produces beneficial subordinate behaviors (i.e. higher in-role and proactive skill development behaviors). However, leader feedback inquiry can also be appraised as a threat which then elicits detrimental subordinate behaviors (i.e. lower in-role and proactive skill development behaviors). The authors then argue that subordinates with a high promotion focus appraise leader feedback inquiry as challenging, thereby enabling beneficial behaviors. Subordinates with a high prevention focus, by contrast, appraise leader feedback inquiry as threatening, thereby prompting detrimental behaviors.

The authors shed light on the benefits and costs of leader feedback seeking for subordinates. The resulting framework underlines the importance of including individual characteristics and cognitive appraisal processes in research investigating the effects of leader feedback inquiry on subordinate outcomes.

The purpose of this research paper was to examine the construct of accountability and its impact leadership development initiative in an upward feedback framework. Previous research has suggested that accountability may be an important moderator of the relationship between upward feedback and self‐development. However, there has been little research examining the construct of accountability and this study sought to modify that.

Within the context of upward feedback the present study examined the impact of two contextual antecedents of accountability (LMX and feedback environment) and self‐development initiative as an outcome of accountability in a path model framework. Survey methodology was used to assess the constructs of interest and the results were analyzed with regression‐based path modeling.

The results indicate the path model was partially supported by the data: the feedback environment and LMX were related to accountability and accountability was related to self‐development initiative.

Limitations of this study include the self‐report methodology and relatively small sample size.

The current study was unique in that it examined manager's perceptions of accountability for using upward feedback. Managers who utilize upward feedback for self‐development are role models for subordinates and others, potentially contributions to a favorable feedback environment.