Drawing from an interactionist approach and feedback research, we examine the role of developmental feedback and proactive personality on newcomer task performance and helping behavior. Data were collected from 2 high-tech joint-ventures within the information technology and manufacturing industries located in Shanghai, China. Results based on 151 newcomer-manager dyads showed that supervisor developmental feedback (SDF) positively related to newcomer helping behavior and that SDF and coworker developmental feedback interactively predicted newcomer task performance. We also found differential moderating effects of proactive personality: SDF more strongly related to helping behavior when proactive personality was lower; conversely, coworker developmental feedback more strongly related to helping behavior when proactive personality was higher.
Across two studies and five samples, we introduce the Chinese construct of moqi (a tacit understanding of another person’s expectations and intentions) as a key, but heretofore overlooked, aspect of supervisor–subordinate relationships. In Study 1, using qualitative and quantitative methods, we develop a subordinate-focused moqi scale and establish its discriminant and criterion-related validity. In Study 2, using three-wave data from three sources (subordinates, coworkers, and supervisors), we test an integrative, information-based model explicating (1) subordinates’ actions that are useful in acquiring the necessary information to develop moqi with their supervisor; (2) boundary conditions affecting subordinates’ sensitivity to information and, hence, their development of moqi with the supervisor; and (3) the informational process underlying subordinate moqi’s positive relationship with work effectiveness. Findings suggest that subordinates’ implicit and explicit feedback seeking positively predicted their subsequent perceptions of moqi with a supervisor and, moreover, that the relationship between implicit feedback seeking and subordinate moqi is enhanced by higher subordinate power distance orientation and face consciousness. Results also indicate that subordinate moqi influences task performance and reward recommendations for subordinates via the mediation of increased goal clarity, and the indirect effects is more pronounced for subordinates with higher power distance orientation. We offer an important discussion of moqi’s cultural nuances and make several suggestions for a robust future research agenda.
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