中庸的智慧:上级发展性反馈影响员工创造力的机理研究

The “Wisdom” of Golden Mean Thinking: Research on the Mechanism between Supervisor Developmental Feedback and Employee Creativity

为了探究中国传统文化情境中上级如何提供反馈来激发员工创造力,本研究考察了我国内隐、含蓄的高语境文化下,上级惯用的发展性反馈提升下级中庸思维,影响其创造力的内在机理。基于社会认知理论体系中的认知调节机制,剖析中庸思维对上级发展性反馈施加于员工创造力的中介作用,考察组织创新支持感对该中介作用强弱的调节,构建"被调节的中介"理论模型实证研究。结果表明:(1)上级发展性反馈对中庸思维、员工创造力有显著正向影响;(2)中庸思维在上级发展性反馈与员工创造力之间存在显著中介作用;(3)组织创新支持感正向调节中庸思维的中介作用。研究的主要理论贡献在于:将中国高语境传播和儒家文化特点融入西方成熟管理理论,构建并验证了在不同组织支持程度下,上级反馈通过促进员工认知调节提升员工创造力的社会认知研究框架,挖掘出我国传统中庸思维蕴含的多元权变、统筹全局、中和适宜的创造性潜力,推动了员工创造力形成机理的中国情境化研究发展。本文研究结果对上级运用反馈激发员工创造力的本土管理实践具有重要启示。

Although the inf luence of feedback on employee creativity has received considerable research attention, there is a lack of study about how employee creativity can be stimulated by the supervisor’s feedback in Chinese traditional cultural context. In order to explore the above research question, this paper focuses on the effect of developmental feedback which is frequently used by supervisors in the Chinese high context culture. On the basis of the cognitive regulation mechanism in the theoretical frame of social cognitive theory, this study analyzed the mediating effect of golden-mean thinking between supervisor developmental feedback and employee creativity. The study also discussed the moderating effect of perceived organization creativity support on that mediating effect, and conducted a moderated mediating model to explore the mechanism through which supervisor developmental feedback influences employee creativity via golden-mean thinking. Using a hierarchical linear model(HLM), the study examined the hypotheses on the basis of data of 291 supervisor-subordinate dyads. The results show that:(1) supervisor developmental feedback has significant positive impact on golden-mean thinking and employee creativity;(2) golden-mean thinking mediates the relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and employee creativity;(3) perceived organization creativity support positively moderates the mediating relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and employee creativity. By integrating the features of the Chinese high-context communication and the traditional Confucian culture into the social cognitive theory, this study has built and empirically examined a social cognitive model in which supervisor feedback stimulates employees’ creativity through improving their cognitive regulation under different levels of organizational support. It also demonstrates the creative potential in golden-mean thinking which encourages multiple and contingency thinking, comprehensiveness and appropriateness. In addition, this study promotes the development of the Chinese contextual research on the formation mechanism of employee creativity. The research findings in this study provide practical implications for managers to improve employee creativity using developmental feedback in the Chinese organizational context.