| As an important incentive strategy and management tool,feedback plays an important role in the organization.Among them feedback from superiors has been widely studied and recognized as an important management tool by both practitioners and researchers.Previous studies have mainly focused on the valence,content,and frequency-related characteristics of feedback from superiors,offering important insights into our understanding of the implication of superior feedback on subordinates.To further refine the literature on superior feedback,emerging research has gradually begun to investigate the effects of feedback delivery(i.e.,the extent to which the feedback provider is friendly and considerate when giving feedback).Integrating affective events theory and personality systems interaction theory,this current study aims to investigate the effect of superior feedback delivery on employee learning and deviant behaviors from a dynamic affect perspective.Specifically,this study hypothesizes that employees’ positive and negative affects will mediate the effect of superior feedback delivery on their learning and deviant behavior.Furthermore,as an individual’s affect is influenced by various events in the environment,this study also examines the moderating role of individual affect change in the relationship between employee affect and behavior.This study first reviews the concepts and related literature of feedback delivery,affect,affect change,learning behavior,and deviant behavior,and then proposes the theoretical model and research hypotheses.Subsequently,a questionnaire was designed using mature and highly reliable scales,and an experience sampling method was used to track and survey 256 research subjects for 10 consecutive working days,with a total of 779 daily questionnaires filled out by 130 employees.Through empirical testing of the above data,the following conclusions were drawn:(1)Superior friendly feedback delivery had a positive effect on employee learning behavior by increasing their positive affect,(2)Superior inappropriate feedback delivery had a positive effect on employee deviant behavior by increasing their negative affect,(3)The change in employee negative affect moderated the direct effect of negative affect on deviant behavior,as well as the indirect effect of superior feedback delivery and employee deviant behavior via negative affect,such that the positive relationship between employees’ negative affect and deviant behavior was weaker when employees’ negative affect decreased(vs.increased)between two days.This paper discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the findings.Theoretically,first,the current study provides a new perspective for understanding superior feedback by examining the implications of superior feedback delivery.Second,integrating the affective events theory and the personality systems interaction theory,this study explores the mechanism between the superior feedback delivery and employees’ learning behavior and deviant behavior from a dynamic affect perspective.Third,this study uses an intra-person perspective to capture the dynamic picture of superior feedback,which helps us better understand how superiors strategically influence and shape employees’affect and behaviors.This research also offers several managerial implications.On the one hand,the organization needs to provide feedback-related training for managers,so that they can realize the influence of their feedback delivery on employees’ affect and behaviors.On the other hand,when providing feedback,superiors need to strategically adopt appropriate ways to improve the effectiveness of feedback intervention.Moreover,in addition to paying attention to the feedback delivery of superiors,organizations can also take other measures to influence employee positive and negative affect to ensure the optimal effect of superior feedback intervention and promote employee learning behavior while reducing deviant behavior. |
