King's College London

We explore how the impact of seeking feedback from different sources (i.e., feedback source variety) on employee creativity is shaped by perceptions of the work environment. Specifically, we argue that two contextual factors, namely, performance dynamism (Study 1) and creative time pressure (Study 2), moderate the relationship between feedback source variety and creativity such that under conditions of high performance dynamism and low creative time pressure, individuals benefit from diverse feedback information. In Study 1 (N = 1031), the results showed that under conditions of high performance dynamism, the relationship between feedback source variety and self-reported creativity was nonlinear, with employee creativity exponentially increasing as a function of feedback source variety. Similarly, in Study 2 (N = 181), we found that under conditions of low creative time pressure, the relationship between feedback source variety and employee creativity was nonlinear, with supervisor-rated creative performance exponentially increasing at higher levels of feedback source variety. Such results highlight that the relationship between feedback source variety and creative performance is affected by the perceptions of the work environment in which feedback is sought.