Employee Reactions to Negative Feedback: Unpacking the Consequences of Feedback on Employee Outcomes

Although negative feedback should facilitate performance and goal attainment, scholars have suggested that it can have unintended consequences that impede, rather than improve, employee performance. While a large literature on feedback reactions indicates that negative feedback receipt can be an aversive experience, an important limitation of this research is the emphasis on annual performance reviews and other “one-shot” situations, with less attention given to the negative feedback process as it unfolds in organizational settings. To enhance understanding of informal feedback processes, we draw from self-regulation theory to develop and test a conceptual model that identifies two mechanisms—felt competence and cognitive depletion—that explain how and why negative feedback receipt impacts employee effectiveness on a daily basis. Further, we identify trait self-control as a boundary condition that might mitigate the deleterious effects of negative feedback on employee outcomes. Our results were generally supportive of our theory, indicating that negative feedback reduces (a) employees’ belief in their capacity to achieve their goals (i.e., felt competence), as well as (b) the availability of cognitive resources needed to do so. Additionally, we found that for those with higher trait self-control, the negative relationships between negative feedback receipt and employee work outcomes are attenuated.