Employee reactions to the feedback environment

A growing body of research has increasingly considered the feedback environment or the social context in which day-to-day, informal feedback exchanges occur. While researchers have brought attention to affective and attitudinal reactions as important criteria for traditional performance appraisals, the feedback literature has not considered specificreactions to the feedback environment. With this in mind, this chapter describes several studies examining employee reactions to the feedback environment, in particular employee perceptions of their fit with, satisfaction with, and fairnessof the feedback environment. The forthcoming discussion includes an explanation of how these reactions are formed and the results of research studies supporting important influences on these reactions, which include the feedback environmentitself and individuals' feedback orientation. Rationale and research connecting these reactions to key employee behaviors of job engagement, organizational embeddedness, and feedback seeking follow. The resulting theoretical and practical implications are discussed herein.