Search results

The purpose of this study is to investigate when and why supervisor negative feedback is associated with employees' job performance via two different pathways (i.e. emotion-focused coping and problem-focused coping) and to introduce proactive personality as a moderator.

Time-lagged data were collected using a field survey research design. Participants included 389 dyads of employees and their direct supervisors from five companies in China.

Supervisor negative feedback can lead to employees' emotion-focused coping, which in turn impairs their job performance. Meanwhile, supervisor negative feedback can trigger employees’ problem-focused coping, which subsequently promotes their job performance. Furthermore, proactive personality moderates the indirect effect of supervisor negative feedback on employee performance through emotion-focused coping.

This study explored the double-edged effects of supervisor negative feedback on employee job performance from a coping strategy perspective and investigated how proactive personality influences the choice of coping strategies.

Purpose – Past literature suggests that the performance and turnover of the subordinate are affected by the support, abuse, and feedback provided by the supervisor. In this study, we posit that support, abuse, and feedback in an accounting firm, are in turn, affected by the supervisor's personality, as defined by the Big Five personality factors.

Methodology/approach – We conducted a web-based study with 115 accountants from a top 100 US accounting firm. The accountants completed questionnaires related to the personality of their supervisors along with questionnaires related to the support, abuse, and feedback they received from their supervisors. We analyzed the data using factor analysis and multiple regression.

Findings – We hypothesize that Openness and Agreeableness increase support; Neuroticism increases abuse, but less so if the supervisor is an Extravert; and Extraversion and Conscientiousness increase feedback. Among the hypothesized relationships, all are supported except the relationship between Openness and support. Additional findings are that Extraversion and Conscientiousness increase support; Agreeableness and Conscientiousness decrease abuse; and Agreeableness increases feedback.

Research implications – Our study contributes to the literature by demonstrating the relationship between the personality traits of supervisors and their behavior toward subordinates in an accounting setting. The results of our study can be used in identifying the supervisors who have the right personality for the position, which will likely improve the work environment and reduce turnover.

Drawing on social cognitive theory, this study aims to examine the relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and employee innovative behavior, incorporating with the mediating role of psychological safety and the moderating role of face orientation.

A survey was conducted in 15 manufacturing companies in China. The participants comprised 302 employees. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. The mediating effects and the moderated mediating effects are further examined with bias-corrected bootstrapping method.

Supervisor developmental feedback has a positive effect on employee innovative behavior through psychological safety, and this mediating effect is weakened by protective face orientation (fear of losing face), while the moderating effect of acquisitive face orientation (desire to gain face) is not significant.

Organizations should create a development-oriented and safe innovation atmosphere for employees. In addition, leaders should adopt differentiated feedback and communication methods according to subordinates' face orientation.

The study has demonstrated the positive effect of supervisor developmental feedback on employee innovative behavior, which is different from previous studies on performance feedback and leadership types. Meanwhile, this study has also explored the mediating effect of psychological safety and the moderating effect of face orientation, which provides more insights on the mechanism and boundary conditions of the effect of supervisor developmental feedback.

Healthcare service quality in the USA has gained importance under value-based payment models. Providing feedback to front-line staff is a vital component of managing service performance, but complex organizational dynamics can prevent effective communication. This work explored the performance management of appointment desk staff at Mayo Clinic Arizona, identified barriers to effective management and sought to standardize the process for monitoring service performance.

Multiple data sources, including qualitative inquiry with 31 employees from the primary care and surgery departments, were used. The research was conducted in two phases – facilitated roundtable discussions with supervisors and semi-structured interviews with supervisors and staff six months after implementation of service standards. Participants were probed for attitudes about the service standards and supervisor feedback after implementation.

While all staff indicated a positive work environment, there was an unexpected and pervasive negative stigma surrounding individual feedback from one’s supervisor. Half the participants indicated there had been no individual feedback regarding the service standards from the supervisor. Presenting service standards in a simple, one-page format, signed by both supervisor and the patient service representative (PSR), was well received.

Combining rapid-cycle quality improvement methodology with qualitative inquiry allowed efficient development of role-specific service standards and quick evaluation of their implementation. This unique approach for improving healthcare service quality and identifying barriers to providing individual feedback may be useful to organizations navigating a more value- and consumer-driven healthcare market.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which two factors are associated with identification, the feedback environment and feedback seeking: two forms of identification, supervisor identification and workgroup identification, were linked to matching sources of feedback environment and feedback seeking.

An empirical study was carried out with a sample of working students representing a variety of industries in the USA. Students (n=256) completed a written questionnaire. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

Results indicated that feedback seeking frequency partially mediated the effect of supervisor feedback environment on supervisor identification. Similarly, feedback seeking partially mediated the effect of coworker feedback environment on workgroup identification.

Despite a cross-sectional design, these results support the role of feedback as a primary explanatory mechanism for how people can come to identify with multiple targets in their work environment.

In order to increase employee identification, organizations should train their managers to engage in contextual behaviors that support the feedback seeking process. Additionally, organizations may want to reinforce these coaching behaviors by incorporating them into the performance appraisal process for managers.

The vast majority of identification research has examined why people come to identify with targets in their work environment. This study represents one of the first to examine how people come to identify with those sources, fulfilling an important gap in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize, understand, and measure positive and negative aspects of supervisor developmental feedback (SDF) and investigate their relationships with task performance.

In Study 1, common themes in SDF were identified and a set of SDF items were developed to capture the positive and negative SDF domain. Study 2 entailed the administration of the items to respondents to examine the dimensionality of the items through exploratory factor analysis. In Study 3, using confirmatory factor analysis we further examined the extent to which positive and negative developmental feedback (PSDF and NSDF) were conceptually distinct from each other and different from an existing general measure of supervisor feedback.

Study 1 and Study 2 yielded evidence that positive and negative SDF are distinct yet related constructs. Positive SDF predicted employee task performance. The positive SDF by negative SDF interaction predicted task performance.

The authors provide criterion-related validity evidence by examining the predictive validity of positive and negative SDF on subordinate task performance (reported by supervisors). Future research should examine the role of positive and negative SDF in predicting job performance in other samples and cultural contexts and for other outcomes, including organizational citizenship.

This research refines the SDF domain by identifying positive and negative domains of the SDF construct. The authors propose and test the joint influence of positive and negative SDF. The novel findings point to the importance of supervisors providing both positive and negative feedback to enhance performance.

Meaningful feedback at work signals effective performance management. Drawing on a new perspective of the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this paper aims to examine the mediating effect of relational energy in the relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and subordinates' task performance with the moderating role of learning demands.

Data from 230 supervisor-subordinate dyads were collected at two time points of four enterprises in China.

The results support the proposed mediation effect that supervisor developmental feedback positively predicts subordinates' task performance via boosting subordinates' relational energy. Furthermore, the results highlighted the moderating role of learning demands in the relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and subordinates' relational energy. The moderated–mediated relationship for subordinates' task performance was also supported.

Drawing on COR theory, this paper contributes to a complete understanding of how supervisor developmental feedback may support or build employees' relational energy, facilitating task performance and further exploring learning demands as a boundary condition of this indirect relationship.

This study aims to examine the effect of supervisor developmental feedback on employee silence behaviour by developing a moderated mediation model. The model focuses on the mediating role of role breadth self-efficacy and high activated positive affect underpinning the relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and employee silence behaviour, and the moderating role of interdependent self-construal.

The two-wave survey was conducted among 265 employees. Structural equation modelling was conducted to test the mediation and moderation mediation hypotheses.

Results indicated that high activated positive affect mediated the negative relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and employee silence behaviour. The authors also found that interdependent self-construal moderated the relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and role breadth self-efficacy, as well as the indirect effect of supervisor developmental feedback on employee silence behaviour via role breadth self-efficacy.

This empirical study provides preliminary evidence of the mediating role of breadth self-efficacy and high activated positive affect in the negative relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and employee silence behaviour. The moderated mediation results further show that the mediation of role breadth self-efficacy between supervisor developmental feedback is contingent on individual interdependent self-construal, such that the mediation effect is significant among individuals with high interdependent self-construal, but the mediation effect of high activated positive effect is independent of individual interdependent self-construal. The findings further extend boundary conditions (interdependent self-construal) that may constrain the effect of supervisor developmental feedback on role breadth self-efficacy and high activated positive affect. The research makes considerable contributions to the cognitive-affective personality system theory by specifying the cognitive and affective mechanisms between supervisor developmental feedback and employee silence behaviour, as well as the boundary conditions.

Drawing on the perspective of trust and individual differences, this study developed and tested a model to identify the effect of leaders' demonstrated humility on employees' feedback-seeking processes. Specifically, it examined the role of feedback orientation and employees' trust in supervisors in the way humble leadership affects employees' feedback-seeking behavior (FSB).

The moderated mediation model was tested using matched surveys from 175 Chinese employees and their direct supervisors from various organizations.

The results revealed that humble leadership could predict employees' FSB through supervisor trust. Moreover, feedback orientation not only moderated the relationship between supervisor trust and employees' FSB but also moderated the indirect effect of humble leadership on employees' FSB via supervisor trust.

These findings can provide guidance to corporate organizations on how to motivate employees to actively seek feedback to improve their job performance.