Is coworker feedback more important than supervisor feedback for increasing innovative behavior?

Abstract

A growing body of research explores human resource management practices that encourage employees to innovate. In this study, we examine the links between different sources of feedback (supervisor and coworker) and employees’ innovative behavior. Drawing on social exchange theory and the job demands‐resources theory, we first propose that work engagement and psychological contract breach mediate the relationship between supervisor feedback and employees’ innovative behavior. Second, we propose a moderated mediation model in which coworker feedback attenuates the relationships between supervisor feedback and employees’ innovative behavior through the mediating mechanisms of both work engagement and psychological contract breach. Using three waves of multisource data from 300 Chinese employees and their 64 supervisors, we found a dual‐mediation pathway by which employees’ work engagement and perceptions of psychological contract breach mediate the influence of supervisor feedback on innovative behavior. Our results also show that coworker feedback can be used to supplement the lack of supervisor feedback when required. Organizations are advised to ensure that employees obtain regular feedback from multiple sources because such feedback can promote employees’ work engagement and perceptions that the organization is upholding its side of the psychological contract, which fosters employees’ innovative behavior.

Perceived Organisational Support and Organisational Commitment among Oil and Gas Offshore Employees in Malaysia

“…Management support has a small to medium effect size towards organisational commitment, which corroborate the finding by Eisenberger et al (1986) that higher management will have higher impact compared with lower management. Co-workers support has a small effect size but higher than supervisor support; this finding is in a similar vein with the research finding by Eva, Meacham, Newman, Schwarz, and Tham (2019) that co-workers can be used to supplement the lack of supervisor when required. Due to the offshore environment, employees tend to share their concerns or issues with peers instead of supervisors.…”

Unique Contextual Conditions Affecting Coworker Knowledge Sharing and Employee Innovative Work Behaviors

“…Some theorists also suggest that knowledge sharing is also dependent upon the varying abilities and motives of its recipients as IWBs rarely emerge in isolation and social contexts are critical (Kim et al, 2015). Although coworker feedback is known to enhance employee IWB (Christensen et al, 2015;Eva et al, 2019), we still know relatively little about how coworkers affect employee's IWB. Thriving is an individual factor which is self-regulatory in nature, helping employees to develop in a more positive direction at a personal level (Spreitzer et al, 2012).…”

How Leaders’ Positive Feedback Influences Employees’ Innovative Behavior: The Mediating Role of Voice Behavior and Job Autonomy

“…Previous studies regarding leaders' feedback have often investigated its relation with business performance, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment [17,[22][23][24][25][26][27]. For example, Zhou [28] found that leader feedback positively related to members' personal creativity, but, with a few exceptions, there were limitations in showing the relationship to individual innovative behavior and the change process behind such behaviors [29][30][31][32].…”