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The study pursues two goals: first, as a replication study, the purpose of this paper is to test a model of learning from errors in the domain of insurance industry. Second, to increase insights in learning from errors, the authors focussed on different types of errors.

The authors conducted a cross-sectional survey in the insurance industry (N=206). The authors used structural equation modelling and path modelling to analyse the data. To be able to analyse different types of errors, the authors used Critical Incident Technique and asked participants to describe error situations.

Findings from the study are that the model of learning from errors could partly be replicated. The results indicate that a non-punitive orientation towards errors is an important factor to reduce the tendency of insurance agents to cover up errors when knowledge and rule-based errors happen. In situations of slips and lapses error strain has a negative influence on trust and non-punitive orientation which in turn both reduce the tendency to cover up errors.

Limitation is the small sample size. By using Critical Incidents Technique, the authors were able to analyse authentic error situations. Implications of the results concern the importance of error-friendly climate in organisations.

Replication studies are important to generalise results to different domains. To increase the insight in learning from errors, the authors analysed influencing factors with regard to different types of errors.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate interactions of job demands and job resources in the facilitation of innovative work behavior (IWB). In particular, the paper aims at researching interactive effects of psychological empowerment and participative safety and their potential to buffer negative effects of job demands.

A cross-sectional questionnaire study with 239 vocational teachers was carried out. For hypotheses testing, multiple linear regression models were analyzed.

The study provides evidence for psychological empowerment and participative safety as individual and interactive predictors of IWB. Furthermore, the findings indicate that effects of job demands are substantially more positive when psychological empowerment is high and, conversely, when participative safety is low.

Future studies should address the issues of the current study using a longitudinal approach and additional data sources. Moreover, concerning generalizability, future studies could move beyond the current study context of innovative vocational colleges and teachers.

The paper highlights the importance of creating resourceful work environments, which empower employees and provide fellowship and minority acceptance. Furthermore, the findings call for paying attention to individually varying perceptions of job demands and corresponding needs for compensatory job resources.

The study adds to closing the gap of lacking insight into interactions among established predictors of IWB. In particular, this regards interactions among demanding and resourceful characteristics of the work environment that need to be balanced in order to activate proactive behaviors such as IWB.

This contribution aims at providing a measure of the overall construct of innovative work behaviour (IWB). As a consequence of the construct's dynamic, context-bound nature, the measure of IWB is based on concrete work activities, captures social and reflective activities, and is context-bound. By employing a short, one-dimensional measurement scale, the instrument enables valuable scientific and practical insights in an economical way.

The measure of IWB was evaluated with two samples of employees in different work contexts by conducting psychometric analyses, reliability analyses, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and correlation analyses with criterion variables.

The study provides evidence for the psychometric quality, reliability and validity of the measure of IWB.

The measure can be used to efficiently measure overall IWB. It thus enables the investigation of complex research models involving intervening mechanisms, interactions, or longitudinal effects. Further validation in other work domains and the inclusion of other criterion variables, such as innovative outcomes, is advised.

The measure is useful for organizational practitioners to efficiently assess employees' IWB, to determine needs for supporting IWB at organizational level, and as a conceptual guideline for designing training or giving performance feedback during innovation projects.

The measure enables insights into the question how IWB can be fostered in practice. In addition, the contribution highlights that a measure of IWB needs to account for the construct's dynamic, context-bound nature and pay attention to usability as an important but often neglected quality criterion.

This study aims to determine whether elder care nurses engage in knowledge sharing and reflection within their teams and if these team-learning activities influence an elder care nursing team’s performance. Furthermore, the authors investigated the relation between elder care nurses' estimation of the team climate as being safe and team-learning activities.

For this research, a questionnaire survey of 30 elder care nursing teams (N = 30, n = 149) working in 17 different retirement homes was conducted.

Structural equation model showed significant positive relations between knowledge sharing and team performance, and between reflection and knowledge sharing. A safe team climate had a significantly positive influence on reflection.

Little is known about the performance of elder care nursing teams, how to measure team performance in this domain and how performance is influenced by learning activities. This study fills these gaps by providing an insight into the relationship between team-learning activities and team performance. Team performance was measured by the estimation of the team members and by using performance assessments from an independent institution.

This paper aims to investigate the role of characteristics of vocational education teachers’ personal network at the workplace for determining the resources that enable them to cope with innovation-related demands at work.

A survey study with 48 vocational education teachers is carried out. Social network analysis, correlation analysis, and a comparative descriptive analysis of cluster profiles of teachers’ personal network at the workplace are carried out.

This study provides evidence for the role of network size as a facilitator of innovative work behaviour (IWB) outside the classroom. However, smaller networks can also support the development of innovations if they contain dense interactions with experienced, innovative professionals.

This study implies to further investigate the role of network size in relation to the kind of network interactions (e.g. density of interactions and experience of members) in the context of larger and versatile work contexts.

This study implies that organisations should provide structures, tasks and events (e.g. interdisciplinary work teams and boundary crossing events) that enable employees to build network connections that help them to manage work-related demands. Employees themselves should reflect on their personal interaction preferences, their specific needs for support and the availability of co-workers who can provide this support.

This study contributes to the discourse on the relationship between professional networks and the development of innovations. Especially, the social work context and its role for IWB have hardly been investigated from a network perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to get deeper insight into the complex nature of the relationship between team learning conditions, team learning behaviours (TLBs) and innovative work behaviour (IWB) by considering and combining different neglected aspects in research.

A questionnaire was filled out by 593 vocational educators of 117 interdisciplinary work teams in vocational colleges in Germany. Correlations were calculated and structural equation modelling at two levels was conducted.

The results indicate that TLBs, especially team reflexivity and boundary spanning, relate positively to IWB. Furthermore, team structure, task interdependence and group potency relate positively to TLBs. It means that TLBs can be fostered by establishing these team learning conditions and, thus, IWB can be fostered.

The main limitation of the study is that the data collection was cross-sectional. Longitudinal studies are required to capture the dynamic character of team learning and to identify causal relationships.

It is important to make all employees in vocational education aware of the importance of TLBs especially of team reflexivity and boundary spanning.

This study provides practical implications for organisations to foster IWB and indications for a better understanding of the relationship between team learning conditions, TLBs and IWB considering and combining different neglected aspects such as examining TLBs separated in one study.

The purpose of this paper is to overview the state of research on feedback and aspects of feedback that have been under-researched in the scholarly literature, particularly involving the theme of quality of the feedback. The paper seeks to draw on the existing literature, to develop a conceptual framework that identifies important aspects associated with quality of feedback that the articles in this special issue uniquely address.

This is a conceptual article that presents the results of an analysis of the feedback research literature and offers an abbreviated overview of it. It also develops a conceptual model that illustrates the complexity of the feedback process and identifies gaps that exist in the literature which the contributions of this special issue address.

The provision of feedback is critical to individuals ' learning and performance improvement in the context of their work. Coupled with the provision of feedback is the importance and need for high quality feedback. The quality of feedback and factors that influence it are the central themes of this issue.

This paper introduces this special issue on “Perceptions of quality of feedback in organizations: characteristics, determinants, outcomes of feedback, and possibilities for improvement” by overviewing the concepts associated with feedback and feedback seeking and developing a conceptual model that highlights the complexity of the feedback process. It also identifies existing gaps in the knowledge base that the contributions within this special issue address.

The purpose of this paper is to increase insight in the mechanisms of feedback processes by investigating what kind of feedback characteristics lead to what specific kind of informal learning activities (ILAs).

The 31 persons participated were recruited by the snowball method, and work in education, healthcare or profit sector. They filled out a learning log. The respondents wrote down feedback incidents that occurred and the ILA they carried out in response. A total of 367 feedback incidents led to 913 ILA. Quantitative analyses such as correlations and regression analyses are conducted.

Feedback led to ILA, especially to reflection, and communication with colleagues. There is no pattern found in the relation between outcomes. Timing aspects seem irrelevant for ILA. Feedback consisting of discussing possibilities for personal improvement leads to ILA. Precise, positive and helpful feedback leads to ILA.

Because of the aim and design of the study, the outcomes are not generalizable and individual characteristics (e.g. motivation, attitude) were not measured. A few ILA are mentioned only a few times.

Feedback that consists of discussing possibilities for personal improvement can be used to increase ILA. Feedback can be used to increase reflection and communication at work. Creating a work culture that fosters learning from feedback is important. The quality of feedback providing competences is important.

This paper gives in-depth insight into the relation between specific characteristics of feedback and the ILA. It also assesses to what ILA a specific feedback incident (directly) leads.

The purpose of this replication study is to identify relevant individual and contextual factors influencing learning from errors at work and to determine if the predictors for learning activities are the same for the domains of nursing and retail banking.

A cross-sectional replication study was carried out in retail banking departments of a German bank. In a pre-study, interviews were conducted with experts (N = 4) of retail banking. The pre-study was necessary to develop vignettes describing authentic examples of error situations which were part of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was filled out by 178 employees.

Results indicate that the estimation of an error as relevant for learning positively predicts bankers’ engagement in social learning activities. The tendency to cover up an error predicts bankers’ engagement negatively. There are also indirect effects of error strain and the perception of a safe social team climate on the engagement in social learning.

This paper contributes to the generalization of results by transferring and testing a model of learning from errors in a domain different from the previous domains where this topic was investigated.

Theoretical explanations for the diverse reactive feedback from secretarial employees in different career phases are relatively unexplored. However, research examining age differences in the impact of feedback suggests that the effects of performance feedback may differ for employees in the early career phase and employees in the late career phase. This paper aims to address this issue.

This contribution reports an experimental study on feedback perceptions and attribution by 173 secretarial employees of 12 Dutch organizations. Each participant responded to one of eight scenarios, which varied in terms of feedback content, sender status, and sender performance appraisal. Feedback perceptions were measured in terms of perceived fairness, acceptance, usefulness, willingness to improve and affect. An additional scale measured attribution.

The results reveal that elaborated specific feedback is perceived as more adequate, irrespective of feedback sender status and appraisal. Complex three-way interaction effects were found for educational level on affect and attribution, and for career phase on willingness to improve and affect. Low-educated employees reacted more strongly to supervisor feedback. Employees in the late career phase were more oriented towards the content of the feedback than feedback sender status, whereas the latter was of more concern for employees in the early and middle career phase.

In order for feedback to be considered as adequate, it is necessary to formulate the feedback as specific and as elaborated as possible. Employees in their late career phase especially react differently in comparison to employees in early and middle career phases. They are more inclined “to opt for quality” and appreciate elaborated feedback from a high experienced sender. Human resource managers should be aware of this in their policy towards employees in their late career phase

The present study shows that feedback content and sender characteristics (status and performance appraisal) differentially affect feedback perceptions and attribution. In addition, the study reveals that perceptions and attributions of performance feedback might be mediated by educational level and career phase.