Events

Ms. Siyan Guo
PhD Candidate in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
Robert H. Smith School of Business
University of Maryland

In this dissertation, the concept of developmental feedback (DFB) is extended to include two dimensions, gap identification and gap elimination. I focus on the affective mechanisms underlying the DFB – learning relationship and identify trade-offs in each of the DFB dimensions. I argue that while gap elimination elicits employee positive affect (PA) that facilitates learning via increased learning self-efficacy, it undermines learning via PA and decreased learning need recognition. In addition, gap identification induces employee negative affect (NA) that works in the opposite way. Emotional balancing, or leaders’ dynamic engagement in both affect improving and affect worsening behaviors, is proposed to attenuate the negative mechanisms. I conducted a three-wave, multisource field study to test my theoretical model. The findings largely support my proposed model. The results indicate that gap identification induces employee NA, while gap elimination induces PA. Gap identification has a positive effect on learning via employee learning need recognition, but a negative effect on learning via employee NA and learning self-efficacy. I also find that gap elimination positively affects learning through PA and improved self-efficacy in learning. Importantly, the results demonstrate the beneficial effects of emotional balancing, which significantly moderates the outcomes of PA and NA. Taken together, these findings indicate that receiving DFB is a highly emotional experience that creates a tension between being lifted up and keeping feet on the ground, leaders can use emotional balancing to manage employee affect in order to facilitate learning.