The effects of performance feedback on organizational citizenship behaviour: a systematic review and meta-analysis

ABSTRACT

Performance feedback is a managerial practice whose effects widely impact job satisfaction and commitment. Job satisfaction and commitment represent antecedents of organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB), denoting a willingness to cooperate. However, there has been little research on the direct relationship between performance feedback and OCB. Previous works addressed their mediating role, such as organization-based self-esteem, job satisfaction or other measures of discretionary effort. Our search of peer-reviewed studies containing measures of feedback and OCB found 15 studies, containing 21 critically appraised correlation measures. While descriptive findings of the systematic review showed a small correlation, studies that contained measures of feedback frequency were more likely to include higher reports of OCB than studies containing measures of feedback properties. After computing correlation scores to effect sizes, findings from the meta-analysis indicated a small average effect size of performance feedback on OCB (r_adj =.27, 95% CI =.21 –.33). The discussion addresses the differential effects of positive and negative feedback, frequency, and properties of feedback on reports of OCB levels (by employees and supervisors), as well as further applications for line management.

KEYWORDS:

• Feedback
• job satisfaction
• organizational citizenship behaviour
• organizational culture
• performance management
• systematic review

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to: Are Hugo Pripp for his help with the meta-analysis; Gunnar Ree and Nicholas J. Bergin for their help with the revision of the manuscript; Lilja Johannessen, Hilde Tinderholt Myrhaug, and Malene Wøhlk Gundersen, for their guidance with the systematic review; Magnus Johansson, Gestur Gunnarsson, and Vaka Vésteinsdóttir for their comments and suggestions; Kevin Daniels and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback.

Contributions of authors

The research design was developed by all three authors. MT and SSS reviewed papers for inclusion or exclusion. MT and SSS wrote the paper and IS critically reviewed all drafts and final copy. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Informed consent

This is a systematic review and meta-analysis, and no informed consent statements were obtained. No primary data were collected from participants.

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. Available as supplementary material.

2. The control/comparison element of the PICO(S) analysis is derived from the research hypothesis, and it does not constitute a real experimental condition, as stated in the introduction section.

3. Samples of full-time students were excluded because of their marginal involvement in the organization, in terms of time, engagement and motivation, while retaining similar OCB measures of OCB and feedback as full-time employees.

4. Effect size could not be calculated for the other intervention.

5. References marked with an asterisk indicate studies included in the meta-analysis.

Additional information

Funding

This work has been financially supported by OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University.