Relationships between developmental feedback, intrinsic motivation, and creative personality and performance

Developmental feedback can motivate employees to take chances and be more creative, at least for employees who interpret feedback as support for new ideas. Drawing on cognitive evaluation theory, we examined relationships between developmental feedback, intrinsic motivation, creative personality (e.g., people who describe themselves as inventive and confident rather than cautious and conservative), and creative performance. We predicted that developmental feedback would contribute to employees’ intrinsic motivation and further improve their creative performance, especially those who were high in creative personality. The sample included 215 Chinese employees and their direct supervisors from a big science and technology corporation in Beijing, China. Employees’ perceptions of developmental feedback from their supervisor were positively related to employees’ ratings of their intrinsic motivation and supervisors’ ratings of employees’ creative performance. Also, intrinsic motivation of employees mediated the relationship between developmental feedback and their creative performance. These relationships were stronger for employees with a highly creative personality.