Abstract:

Previous findings regarding the impact of supervisor negative feedback on employee creativity have seemingly been inconsistent. Researchers have reported positive, negative, and nonsignificant relationships between supervisor negative feedback and employee creativity. The present study aims to explore the possibility that supervisor negative feedback has short-lived impacts on employee creativity. Drawing from feedback intervention theory, we propose that proving goal orientation moderates the indirect effect of daily supervisor negative feedback on employee next-day creativity through problem-solving pondering at night such that this effect is stronger for individuals with higher levels of proving goal orientation. In addition, we suggest that avoiding goal orientation moderates the indirect effect of daily supervisor negative feedback on employee next-day creativity through affective rumination at night such that this effect is stronger for individuals with higher levels of avoiding goal orientation.

We conducted a field study using experience sampling methodology to collect data from employees of a design institute in northern China. The questionnaire survey process included an initial one-time entry survey and daily surveys administered over a period of two weeks. One week before the start of the daily surveys, participants reported their proving goal orientation, avoiding goal orientation, and demographic information. During the two-week daily survey period, participants assessed daily supervisor negative feedback and daily creativity at 5:30 p.m. and rated problem-solving pondering and affective rumination at 8:30 p.m. each evening. The final sample included 716 usable observations collected from 95 employees. To test the proposed hypotheses, we conducted two-level path-analyses using Mplus 8.0 and performed a Monte Carlo simulation procedure using R software.

Table 1 reports means, standard deviations, and correlations for all studied variables. As shown in Table 2, the cross-level daily supervisor negative feedback x proving goal orientation interaction term was positively related to problem-solving pondering at night (γ = 0.16, SE= 0.06, p= 0.005). Figure 1 illustrates this interaction pattern. The relationship between daily supervisor negative feedback and problem-solving pondering at night was positive when proving goal orientation was high (γ = 0.14, t= 2.37, p= 0.018). However, this relationship was not significant when proving goal orientation was low (γ = −0.08, t= −1.47, p= 0.14). Furthermore, for employees with high levels of proving goal orientation, daily supervisor negative feedback promoted their creativity the next day by activating their problem-solving pondering at night (indirect effect = 0.022, 95% CI [0.003, 0.050]). However, for employees with low levels of proving goal orientation, this indirect effect was not significant (indirect effect = −0.012, 95% CI [−0.033, 0.004]). In addition, the cross-level daily supervisor negative feedback x avoiding goal orientation interaction term was positively related to affective rumination at night (γ = 0.14, SE= 0.08, p= 0.069). Figure 2 illustrates this interaction pattern. The relationship between daily supervisor negative feedback and affective rumination at night was positive when avoiding goal orientation was high (γ = 0.17, t= 2.10, p= 0.035). However, this relationship was not significant when avoiding goal orientation was low (γ = −0.02, t= −0.27, p= 0.79). For employees with high levels of avoiding goal orientation, daily supervisor negative feedback inhibited their creativity the next day by eliciting their affective rumination at night (indirect effect = −0.017, 90% CI [−0.036, −0.002]). However, for employees with low levels of avoiding goal orientation, this indirect effect was not significant (indirect effect = 0.002, 90% CI [−0.009, 0.014]).

The current study makes several theoretical contributions. First, we adopt a dynamic perspective to capture the within-person variance in creativity resulting from daily fluctuations in supervisor negative feedback. Second, this study enriches feedback intervention theory by exploring the mediating roles of problem-solving pondering and affective rumination in the link of supervisor negative feedback with employee creativity. Third, the present study reconciles the conflicting findings of previous research by demonstrating the differential effects of daily supervisor negative feedback on employees with different goal orientations.

Key words: supervisor negative feedback, goal orientation, problem-solving pondering, affective rumination, creativity