The Impact of Feedback Orientation and the Effect of Satisfaction With Feedback on In‐Role Job Performance

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21202
• Author: Saif‐Ur‐Rehman Khan,Yasin Munir,Anwar Rasheed,Mazen F. Rasheed
• Published date: 01 March 2015
• Date: 01 March 2015

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, vol. 26, no. 1, Spring 2015 © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.21202 31

The Impact of Feedback

Orientation and the Effect

ofSatisfaction With Feedback

onIn-Role Job Performance

Anwar Rasheed, Saif-Ur-Rehman Khan, Mazen F. Rasheed,

YasinMunir

Feedback orientation is an individual’s overall receptivity to feedback,

a concept that encompasses feedback utility, accountability with regard

to participation in feedback, social awareness, and self-effi cacy toward

feedback. This study investigated the effects of these individual differences

on in-role performance, with the mediation of satisfaction with feedback.

Based on our survey of 225 matched supervisor–subordinate sets from

nurses in public hospitals, analyses through structural equation modeling

support a direct association of feedback utility, accountability, self-effi cacy,

and social awareness with performance as well as indirect relationships

through satisfaction with feedback. On the basis of these fi ndings, the

framework advances some formal performance management practices

to aid managers and human resource development (HRD) practitioners

in the understanding and enactment of feedback orientation. Finally, the

implications of the study for further research are discussed.

Key Words: feedback orientation, satisfaction with feedback, in-role job

performance, human resource development, nursing

In recent years, feedback based on formal performance appraisal in human

resource development (HRD) has come to be commonly seen as a variable

infl uencing the performance of employees (Salas & Rosen, 2010; Youngcourt,

Leiva, & Jones, 2007). Organizations acknowledge that talented employees

are vital to organizational success and are an organization’s most valuable

asset (Maurer & Weiss, 2010). Thus, formal human resource programs are

implemented in organizations in which feedback is incorporated, such as

32 Rasheed, Khan, Rasheed, Munir

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq

performance management. However, numerous complications dealing with

individual differences have been identifi ed in the feedback process (Herold

& Fedor, 1998), which is a major concern for HRD practice. In a theoreti-

cal article, London and Smither (2002) developed a variable called feedback

orientation, related to individual differences in overall feedback receptivity.

Feedback orientation has received signifi cant attention in various new theoret-

ical models on performance management and learning in HRD (e.g., Gregory

& Levy, 2008; London & Maurer, 2004). In these studies, feedback orienta-

tion has included components like behavioral propensity toward feedback

seeking, belief in the value of feedback, liking feedback, sensitivity to others’

views about oneself, cognitive tendency to deal with feedback, and feeling of

accountability.

This study is primarily driven by the work of Linderbaum and Levy

(2010), who defined, built up, and validated a construct known as the

Feedback Orientation Scale (FOS) based on the measures of utility, account-

ability, self-effi cacy, and social awareness. These measures were selected on the

basis of theories of attitude (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977) and motivation (Vroom,

1964) and the belief that organizational and job attitudes might be infl uenced

by satisfaction with feedback (Ilgen, Daniel, Richard, Beth, & Daniel, 1981).

More specifi cally, these theories propose the major factors that are taken to

infl uence individual behaviors and characteristics such as expectations, per-

ceptions, attitudes, values, intentions, and satisfaction. Satisfaction with feed-

back is an important dimension of the reaction of the feedback recipient

(Keeping & Levy, 2000; Mishra & Farooqi, 2013). Reaction to feedback is

more critical than feedback itself that can infl uence work performance (Kluger

& DeNisi, 1996).

Although performance appraisal involves giving and receiving feedback,

the perspective of the “receiver” is less widely discussed. Receivers are likely

to use performance feedback to improve their performance to the degree of

their feedback orientation and level; such feedback infl uences their percep-

tion of satisfaction with feedback. In fact, if receivers are less oriented toward

feedback and perceive the feedback to be useless and are dissatisfi ed with it,

they will probably ignore the feedback (Levy & Williams, 2004; Linderbaum

& Levy, 2010). Thus, Jawahar (2010) called to further investigate the anteced-

ents of satisfaction with feedback that can impact performance.

Since feedback orientation is considered to be a central part of the

broader performance management process, insuffi cient research exists in this

domain (Dahling, Chau, & O’Malley, 2012). Thus, the contribution of this

study is to add new insight in this area by examining (a) the perceptions of

individual “receivers” toward the performance appraisal feedback they receive

and (b) the under-researched link between these perceptions and in-role per-

formance. Specifi cally, this study describes ways of employee development

from a human resource viewpoint in which employee feedback orienta-

tion infl uences performance through the mediating role of satisfaction with