Lisa A. Steelman

The Feedback Environment Scale: Construct Definition, Measurement, and Validation.

Managers are increasingly being held accountable for providing resources that support employee development, particularly in the form of feedback and coaching. To support managers as trainers and coaches, organizations must provide managers with the tools they need to succeed in this area. This article presents a new tool to assist in the diagnosis and training of managers in the area of feedback and coaching: the Feedback Environment Scale. This article also discusses the theoretically based definition of this new construct and the development and validation evidence for the scale that measures this construct. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the a priori measurement model, and assessment of relationships proposed in a preliminary nomological network provide initial support for the construct validity of the scale. Results also show evidence for the internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and discriminant validity of the facet scores of the Feedback Environment Scale.

Organizational wellness programs: A meta-analysis.

Organizational wellness programs are on or off-site services sponsored by organizations which attempt to promote good health or to identify and correct potential health related problems (Wolfe, Parker, & Napier, 1994). The authors conducted a meta-analysis on studies that examined the effects of participation in an organizational wellness program (fitness or comprehensive) on absenteeism and job satisfaction. The results revealed that participation in an organizational wellness program was associated with decreased absenteeism and increased job satisfaction. The type of wellness program (fitness only or comprehensive) and the methodological rigor of the primary studies were examined as moderators; however, no moderating effects were found. These results provide some empirical support for the effectiveness of organizational wellness programs.

Moderators of employee reactions to negative feedback

Previous research indicates that unfavorable feedback, even unfavorable feedback provided for developmental purposes only, is not perceived as useful, results in negative reactions and is not associated with a recipients willingness to change his or her behavior. This study examined the extent to which contextual variables mitigate these unwanted effects of developmental unfavorable feedback. Results indicate that employees are more motivated to improve their job performance based on unfavorable feedback when the feedback source is perceived to be credible, the feedback is of high quality and the feedback is delivered in a considerate manner.

TEAM PERFORMANCE The Effect of Team Conscientiousness and Task Type

The purpose of this research was to examine the relationship between measures of conscientiousness at differing levels of analysis and team performance in the context of task type. It was hypothesized that a team referent measure of conscientiousness would have more predictive power than an aggregate of individual-level measures and that task type would moderate the relationship between team conscientiousness and overall team performance. Participants were 30 cockpit crews, made up of three pilots each. Both an individual-level and team referent measure of conscientiousness were administered to the pilots, and crew performance appraisal data were collected that separated performance into overall, additive, disjunctive, and conjunctive task types. Results indicated that the team referent measure of conscientiousness predicted overall team performance greater than did the individual-level measure. The results also partially supported the moderating effect of task type.

The Impact of Gender and Organizational Status on Workplace Anger Expression

The social rules for communicating anger in the workplace are multifaceted, and standards vary for different groups. Previous research addresses either gender differences in anger expression or organizational status differences, but not the combined impact of gender and status. The authors close this gap by investigating both the independent and joint influence of gender and relative organizational status on workplace anger expression. Their findings show that emotional restraint is the most frequent method of handling anger across all groups. Lower status males, however, directly express their anger around higher status members significantly more frequently than do lower status females. The authors conclude with observations regarding the relative strength of organizational norms as compared to gender-based norms.

Testing a path model for antecedents of accountability

Purpose – The purpose of this research paper was to examine the construct of accountability and its impact leadership development initiative in an upward feedback framework. Previous research has suggested that accountability may be an important moderator of the relationship between upward feedback and self‐development. However, there has been little research examining the construct of accountability and this study sought to modify that.Design/methodology/approach – Within the context of upward feedback the present study examined the impact of two contextual antecedents of accountability (LMX and feedback environment) and self‐development initiative as an outcome of accountability in a path model framework. Survey methodology was used to assess the constructs of interest and the results were analyzed with regression‐based path modeling.Findings – The results indicate the path model was partially supported by the data: the feedback environment and LMX were related to accountability and accountability was r...

The role of feedback in supervisor and workgroup identification

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which two factors are associated with identification, the feedback environment and feedback seeking: two forms of identification, supervisor identification and workgroup identification, were linked to matching sources of feedback environment and feedback seeking. Design/methodology/approach – An empirical study was carried out with a sample of working students representing a variety of industries in the USA. Students (n=256) completed a written questionnaire. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. Findings – Results indicated that feedback seeking frequency partially mediated the effect of supervisor feedback environment on supervisor identification. Similarly, feedback seeking partially mediated the effect of coworker feedback environment on workgroup identification. Research limitations/implications – Despite a cross-sectional design, these results support the role of feedback as a primary explanatory mechanism for how p...

Guided mindfulness: A Self-regulatory approach to experiential learning of complex skills

ABSTRACT Organisational changes have created the need for continuous learning environments and facilitated experiential learning for complex skill acquisition. Experiential learning is the process of acquiring knowledge and skills from challenging situations through focused attention and reflection. For instance, many organisations place employees in challenging or developmental job assignments in the hope that the employee will learn something from the experience and transfer that learning to other situations. Unfortunately, there are many drawbacks to letting people learn complex skills ‘in the wild.’ Based on established theories of mindfulness and self-regulation, this article proposes an individualised learning approach called Guided Mindfulness to structure and guide experiential learning.

Marrying personality and job resources and their effect on engagement via critical psychological states

Abstract This study examined the process by which individuals become engaged with their jobs by integrating seminal engagement theory. More specifically, we suggest that an individual factor (i.e. autotelic personality) and two contextual factors (i.e. feedback environment, job autonomy) interact to predict work engagement through three critical psychological states – namely availability, meaningfulness, and safety. This moderated mediation framework was tested using a cross section of the US population (n = 284); data were collected at two points in time with 3 months in between. Availability and meaningfulness mediated the relationship between autotelic personality and work engagement. Autotelic personality’s indirect effect on work engagement through meaningfulness and safety was conditional such that the nature of feedback environment’s effect depended on job autonomy level. Theory and practice implications are discussed.

Navigating Multicultural Teams: A Road Map to Feedback Across Cultures

A number of business practices have increased the extent to which organizations utilize global work teams including the growing number of multinational corporations putting diverse employees together and the widespread use of technology allowing employees to collaborate and communicate across time zones and borders. Recent work suggests that leaders need to be more culturally competent in order to understand and appropriately react to nuanced cultural differences among diverse team members in these types of global teams. Specifically, there is a growing notion that Western techniques for managing performance feedback might not be entirely effective across different cultures. Performance management and the provision of job performance feedback is one leader competency that has received scant attention in a cross-cultural framework and yet is critical for the effective management of both individuals and teams. Leaders of global teams need to acknowledge that individuals from other cultures may have different styles and preferences for feedback. They should also understand their own cultural preferences for the provision and receipt of feedback and adopt style switching to accommodate the needs and expectations of others.