Shaping environments conducive to creativity: The role of feedback, autonomy , and self-concordance

Abstract

This study examines how employees’ perceptions of their feedback environment affect their level of creativity. The analysis of a sample of 482 supervisor-employee dyads demonstrates that employees who perceive a supportive coworker and supervisor feedback climate are more creative, and that employees’ autonomy in how they approach their work is a relevant moderator of the feedback environment’s effects. Results further show that employees’ level of self-concordance, i.e., the degree to which they internalize their work goals and consider these goals as an expression of their authentic interests and values, is one underlying mechanism explaining why perceptions of a favorable feedback environment affect employee creativity, independently and interactively with autonomy. These results highlight the importance of the general feedback environment and employee autonomy for creative performance, and identify self-concordance as a key mechanism underlying these effects.