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ORIGINAL RESEARCH

How Does Feedback Valence Improve Team Creativity by Influencing Team Relationship Conflict?

, ORCID Icon &
Pages 2391-2407 | Received 24 May 2022, Accepted 25 Aug 2022, Published online: 30 Aug 2022
 

Abstract

Introduction

Team creativity is increasingly important to organizations, and the enhancement of creativity has become a key management challenge. Feedback is a very important management tool in the creativity enhancement process. Its use to enhance team creativity raises an important question, namely if positive or negative feedback valence affects team creativity. This is particularly important because researchers still only have a limited understanding of this impact.

Methods

This study adopts an experimental research method to explore the influence mechanism of feedback valence on team creativity. One hundred seven teams and 379 college students participated in experiments that lasted for a total of 1600 minutes.

Results

It is found that feedback valence positively affects team creativity and confirmed that positive feedback (relative to negative feedback) is more conducive to team creativity. Team relationship conflict is also found to mediate the relationship between feedback valence and team creativity. Positive feedback helps to reduce team relationship conflict, which (indirectly) positively affects team creativity; negative feedback increases team relationship conflict, which (indirectly) negatively affects team creativity. Meanwhile, creative time pressure moderates the relationship between: 1) feedback valence and team creativity; and 2) feedback valence and team relationship conflict.

Discussion

The research results do not just enrich theoretical research (into feedback valence, team relationship conflict, creative time pressure and team creativity), as they also provide valuable inspiration to managers seeking to improve team creativity in management practice.

Data Sharing Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Zhejiang Gongshang University and Zhejiang College of Security Technology.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Disclosure

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Notes

1 “What is the degree of friction between members in your work team?”; “What is the degree of obvious personality conflict in your work team?”; “What is the degree of tension in your work team?”; “To what extent did emotional conflict occur between members of your work team?”.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.72074195).