Feedback-Seeking Behavior as a Self-Regulation Strategy for Creative Performance

Using a sample of 456 supervisor-employee dyads from 4 organizations, this study examined how employees use feedback seeking as a self-regulation strategy to manage their creative performance. As hypothesized, employees’ cognitive style and perceived organizational support for creativity affected two patterns of their feedback seeking, i.e. their tendency to inquire for feedback from various sources and their propensity to monitor their environment for indirect feedback cues. Feedback inquiry from various sources further related to supervisor ratings of employee creative performance. These results highlight the importance of studying employees’ self-regulatory behaviors in the creative process and support the proposition that feedback seeking is not only a strategy that facilitates individual adaptation, but also an individual resource that can help individuals to achieve creative outcomes.