The Effect of Perceived Feedback-Seeking Motive on Feedback Givers' Effort

Abstract

Although people are generally motivated to perform well in their job roles, there is often ambiguity regarding whether they are meeting their organization’s standards. As such, people often seek feedback from others. To date, feedback-seeking research has emphasized the feedback seeker, identifying traits and circumstances associated with feedback-seeking. However, far less is known about this process from the feedback giver’s point of view. This is an important omission, because delivering high-quality feedback requires effort, and we expect that feedback-givers will vary in the degree to which they are willing to allocate effort toward delivering feedback. Specifically, we predict that effort allocated toward a feedback episode will be determined by the feedback-giver’s perceptions of the feedback-seeker’s motives for seeking feedback. We predicted that perceived instrumental motives (a desire to improve one’s performance) would be positively related to the amount of effort put toward delivering feedback, whereas perceived image enhancement motives (a desire to impress the feedback giver) would be negatively related to effort allocation. A field study wherein managers were asked to report on a recent episode in which a subordinate had sought their feedback provided initial support for these predictions. We also present results from an experimental study conducted to replicate and extend upon the first study. This research speaks to the often-overlooked role that the feedback giver plays in feedback-seeking. It sheds light upon factors that influence the quality of feedback that seekers receive, which could affect the likelihood that feedback-seeking will result in improvements in the seeker’s future performance.