This study examined how feedback orientation moderates the relationship between supervisor feedback environment and employee empowerment. The authors found that: 1) A positive supervisor feedback environment was directly related to increased feelings of meaning and impact in employees over time, but not competence or self-determination. 2) An employee's feedback orientation moderated the effect of supervisor feedback environment on feelings of meaning, competence, and self-determination over time. For employees with high feedback orientation, a positive feedback environment strengthened these relationships, but weakened them for employees with low feedback orientation. 3) Feedback orientation is an important individual difference that supervisors should consider when trying to foster empowerment through their feedback environment practices. A one-

1. THE SUPERVISOR FEEDBACK
ENVIRONMENT IS EMPOWERING,
BUT NOT ALL THE TIME: FEEDBACK
ORIENTATION AS A CRITICAL
MODERATOR
Gabriel, Frantz, Levy, & Hilliard (2014)
Presented by Samuel E. Dunham

3. The Gameplan
 Prior Research
 Feedback Environment
 Empowerment
 The Study
 Implications and Future Research Avenues

4. Why Should We Care?
 There may be more factors to consider before trying to foster a
certain feedback environment
 There may be situations where the feedback environment can
negatively impact employees
 We may need to understand how employees utilize and desire
feedback to determine how the feedback environment may
affect them

5. Prior Research
 Research has found many positive effects for organizations that
support the use and solicitation of feedback
 Enhanced affective organizational commitment (Norris-Watts & Levy,
2004)
 Reduced perceptions of politics (Rosen, Levy, & Hall, 2006)
 Role clarity (Whitaker, Dahling, & Levy, 2007)
 Increased task and contextual performance (Whitaker et al., 2007)

6. Theoretical Gaps
 Does the feedback environment affect employee motivation?
 Psychological empowerment
 Are there factors/conditions that can attenuate the feedback to
outcome relationship?
 Does the feedback environment have effects over time on
employee empowerment?
 Is the feedback relevant in occupational contexts with more
challenging work demands?

7. Feedback Environment
 Feedback environment – the contextual aspects of day-to-day
supervisor-subordinate and coworker-coworker feedback
processes (Steelman, Levy, & Snell, 2004)
 Previous research focused on the extent that employees perceived
that supervisors frequently provided different forms of feedback
(Herold & Parsons, 1985)
 Scales lacked proper validation
 Inconsistent results
 Focused only on one type of feedback (positive/negative)
 Focus of the article is on supervisor-subordinate relationship in
regard to feedback

8. The Feedback Environment
 Source credibility
 Feedback quality
 Feedback delivery
 Frequency of favorable feedback
 Frequency of unfavorable feedback
 Source availability
 Promoting feedback seeking

9. Empowerment
 Psychological empowerment – the extent to which
individuals feel as though they have high levels of control over
their work environments (Spreitzer, 1995)
 Structural empowerment – focus is on actual management
practices and job design features like skill variety and task
identity (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990)
 Emphasis of psychological empowerment is on the cognitions
of the individuals in a given work context and reflects a state of
motivated effort to shape one’s work environment

10. Dimensions of Psychological
Empowerment
Meaning Competence
Self-
determination
Impact

11. Dimensions of Psychological
Empowerment
 Meaning – reflects the alignment between an employee’s job
demands, work goal, or purpose and his/her beliefs, values,
and standards
 Competence – reflects an individual’s perceived level of self-
efficacy on the job, or level of mastery
 Self-determination – reflects an individual’s level of choice in
the different tasks and actions he/she pursues in the workplace
 Impact – reflects the extent to which individuals perceive
having a voice in influencing the strategic or administrative
functions of the organization

12. Methods
 212 correctional facility organization employees (full-time)
 Out of 252
 Employees were in front-line positions
 58.5% female and 65.6% Caucasian
 Average organizational tenure – 5.88 years
 Average tenure with current supervisor – 2.44 years
 Employees provided data at two time points 3 months apart
 Employees had 3 weeks to complete the survey and have it sent to
the researcher
 Only participants who completed the first survey were given the
second survey

13. Measures
 Time 1
 Supervisor feedback environment
 The Feedback Environment Scale (FES)
 Feedback orientation
 The feedback orientation scale
 Time 2
 Psychological empowerment
 The Psychological Empowerment Scale
 Control
 Tenure with one's current supervisor (in years)

14. Hypotheses
 Hypothesis 1 – The supervisor feedback environment at Time
1 positively relates to meaning, competence, self-
determination, and impact at Time 2
 Hypothesis 2 – Time 1 feedback orientation moderates the
relationship between Time 1 supervisor feedback environment
and Time 2 meaning, competence, self-determination, and
impact; the positive relationship between supervisor feedback
environment and the dimensions of empowerment will be
stronger when feedback orientation is high and weak when
orientation feedback is low

18. Results Recap
 H1 was partially supported
 Perceptions of the supervisor feedback environment positively predicted
meaning and impact
 Did not positively predict competence or self-determination
 H2 was mostly supported
 Feedback orientation moderated the relationship between supervisor
feedback environment perceptions and the following factors:
 Meaning
 Competence
 Self-determination
 No significant interaction for impact

19. Discussion
 The feedback environment may not be enough to increase
perceptions of psychological empowerment an employee feels
in their job
 Based on H1 findings
 Meaning
 Employees high in feedback orientation are more likely to find
meaning in their work in a positive feedback environment
 Competence and Self-Determination
 A positive feedback environment can have a negative influence on
performance for those low in feedback orientation
 May reduce feelings of autonomy and self-efficacy

20. Implications
 Feedback orientation among individuals must be considered
 The feedback environment fostered by supervisors cannot be
‘one size fits all’
 Gauging the feedback orientation of employees may be helpful
to supervisors
 Supervisor feedback environment can positively influence the
level of impact employees feel in their work

21. Limitations and Future Directions
 Self-report measures were used
 Cross-lagged panel designs should be examined in future
research
 Utilize experience sampling methodology or daily diary reports
 Sample came from unique work context

22. Discussion Questions
 There is no mention of how the feedback orientation scores
were dichotomized into the high and low feedback orientation
categories. How does this affect your interpretation of the study
findings?
 In an organization that relies on minimum wage workers (e.g.,
fast food), is it important to gauge the feedback orientation
trend among the employees?
 These organizations are normally characterized by high turnover,
monotonous work, and little to no autonomy