A review of Kim, Y. J., & Kim, J. (2020). Does negative feedback benefit (or harm) recipient creativity? The role of the direction of feedback flow. Academy of Management Journal, 63(2), 584-612.
“Negative feedback is prevalent in organizations and a primary means by which managers influence employee behaviour and performance.” Ilgen, Fisher, & Taylor (1979, as cited by the authors)
I. Theoretical development
In developing their theoretical hypotheses, the authors identify a literature gap in the relationship between negative feedback and recipient creativity. Prior researches demonstrate an inconsistency in both theoretic and empirical levels. To integrate conflicting perspectives from past studies, they adopt feedback intervention theory (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996) that posits mediating effects of two distinct psychological states, e.g., task processes and meta-processes. Furthermore, the authors add a moderating variable before the mediator: directions of feedback flow, i.e., top-down, bottom-up, and lateral (the research model was depicted in Figure 1 on p.587).
II. Method, Finding, and Contribution
In order to empirically test their hypotheses about moderating effect of negative feedback flow directions, they implement one quasi-field experiment and one laboratory experiment. The findings from both experiments report significant moderating effects. Hence, they postulate that negative feedback leads to creativity improvement through task processes when the feedback flow is bottom-up, whereas negative feedback leads to creativity decrease through meta-processes when the feedback flow is top-down and lateral. Their work contributes to the literature of creativity and feedback.
III. Limitation and Critique
Nevertheless, of the limitations mentioned by the authors, research method exposes a necessity of improvement. Namely, their choice of sample in randomized experiment, i.e., undergraduate students, does not grant external validity of this research. As mentioned earlier, negative feedback is common in workplace (rather than in campus), the authors should have implemented their second study over subjects who have job experiences and are familiar with workplace environment, such as MBA students. Eventually, we pose doubt on the implication of their findings. Moreover, the authors fail in arguing for the changing conceptualization of creativity, which is their construct of interest. For instance, they adopt, in the first study, a scale from Zhou and George (2001) to measure employee creativity. However, creativity has changed drastically between the beginning of the century to present day, considering the transformation of workplace landscape as well as the development of virtual office environment. Consequently, their construct validity requires further examination. In brief, the authors have plausible theoretical contributions, but there remain rooms for improvement in their research design.