The Effect Mechanism Of Positive Feedback On The Nonlinear Relationship Between Pay-for-performance And Creativity

The new round of science and technology and industrial revolution is gaining momentum.For how China's enterprises can grasp the strategic window of opportunity to seize the competitive high ground in a world marked by changes unseen in a century,innovation drive is the key.Innovation drive is essentially talent drive,and innovative talents are the source of power to achieve technological self-sufficiency and “break the technological barriers”.Therefore,it is the inevitable choice of enterprises in the era of business intelligence to promote the innovation of incentive mechanism and stimulate the creativity of employees.In the incentive system,pay-for-performance is an important component,and it is recognized as an important means to stimulate employees' creativity even in the global leading companies represented by Google and Huawei.The behavioral school of thought,represented by Professor Eisenberger,believes that pay-for-performance provides positive feedback and reinforcement for work outcomes,leading employees to invest more time and energy in learning and developing skills and strengthening the foundation for creativity.However,the controllability of pay-for-performance requires employees to complete tasks under specific performance standards in order to receive corresponding compensation,thus eroding employees' autonomous motivation.This has been criticized by the cognitive school represented by Professor Deci,and has led to a half-century of theoretical debates,resulting in a morbid pattern of "conflicting views,theoretical battles,confrontation between schools of thought,and uncertainty in practice" in motivation research.This pattern has changed in recent years.Along with the development of positive psychology,companies are advised to set aside flexible motivational space outside of the rigid institutionalized system of pay-for-performance.In practice,many organizations have introduced positive feedback based on positive encouragement as a flexible motivational tool to reduce the controlling effect of pay-for-performance through a combination of "carrot-and-stick approach" and "tempering justice with mercy".However,little research has been conducted on the effectiveness of the"handshake" between two different motivational tools,namely pay-for-performance and positive feedback.In particular,a number of recent studies have found that positive feedback has negative effects such as a "hedonic pass," and even the scholar Kohn in his classic book "Punished by Rewards" refers to it as a "superior control device.The above opposing views reflect the fact that we are not clear about the synergistic motivational effects of pay-for-performance and positive feedback.In summary,there are subject to following problems.First,the choice to work creatively carries risks.However,whether the cognitive school focuses on informativeness or the behavioral school emphasizes controllability of pay-for-performance,both only perform simple interpretations of dichotomous attributes,but ignore the dynamic psychometric processes involved in risky decision making.Informativeness and controllability are inherently opposing attributes of pay-for-performance,like "two sides of the same coin",and cannot determine the incentive effect alone.This means that the relationship between pay for performance and creativity needs to be explored by considering the superposition of both attributes,which provides a nonlinear perspective for research.Second,most of the existing studies interpret the effectiveness of positive feedback based on the relationship between people and things,ignoring the fact that management behaviors also need to be interpreted through the relationship between people.In addition,the feedback subject is often the leader,and under the local "face" culture,positive feedback may be interpreted as the leader's act of "showing respect".And the individual,out of "redeem himself or herself",may lose their autonomy after overly catering to leadership expectations.This provides an idea for studying the negative effects of positive feedback.Third,the feedback processing model emphasizes that feedback responses vary from one recipient to another.Given that positive feedback is based on the evaluation of competency,it is necessary to include competency as an individual trait in the study.The psychological mechanisms behind the tendency of low-competent individuals to develop dependent self-esteem that exacerbates the negative effects of positive feedback remain to be explored.Therefore,rooted in the local culture of "face",based on the feedback processing process model,three studies were designed from three aspects of feedback condition(pay-for-performance system),feedback valence(positive feedback),and feedback recipient(competency perception)to explore "when and why positive feedback intensified the inhibition of pay-for-performance on creativity,and what types of individuals under what psychological effect strengthen the above mechanism.Study1.Institutional control at the organizational level: Nonlinear effects of pay-for-performance on creativityBased on the perspective of dynamic psychometrics and the perspective of prospect theory,this study explored the effect mechanism of pay-for-performance on creativity from the superposition of informativeness and controllability.A total of 416 samples from the innovation team were collected through the questionnaire survey.The empirical tests were carried out according to the nonlinear addition principle proposed by Haans et al,the three-step(inverted)U-shaped relationship test method proposed by Lind,Mehlum and Fieller method.It is found that the informativeness of pay-for-performance increases in a convex quadratic curve with the intensity of pay-for-performance,which is a benefit function of creativity.The controllability increases with the intensity of pay-for-performance in a concave quadratic curve,which is the cost function of creativity.The inverted U-shaped relationship between pay-for-performance and creativity is the result of the superposition of these two potential mechanisms.Study2.Social control at the leadership level: The negative effect of positive feedback on pay-for-performance incentive mechanismBased on the feedback processing model,we introduced positive feedback in the context of pay for performance incentive,and explored the moderating effect of positive feedback on the nonlinear relationship between pay-for-performance and creativity by constructing a three-way interaction nonlinear model.By using empirical research method,285 R&D employees from 19 enterprises were collected through questionnaire survey.The differences of nonlinear moderating slope of three-way interactions were analyzed by Monte Carlo simulation method.It is found that under the high intensity of pay-for-performance inventive,high positive feedback for individuals with low competence perception can inhibit their creativity.Study3.Self-esteem control at the individual level: the effect of impostor syndrome in the positive feedback processOn the basis of the study 2,the psychological mechanism behind the negative effect of positive feedback under pay-for-performance mechanism is further explored.Introduce impostor syndrome effect,the feedback processing process model and perceptual control theory,built a nested by mediated moderating effect of three-way interaction model.330 samples from 12 high-tech enterprises were collected through the method of questionnaire survey,and developed the Mplus code of three-way interaction models nested with mediated moderated effect test.The percentile Bootstrap test with deviation correction was performed,and the moderating effect was analyzed by Johnson-Neyman technique.The results show that through the mediating role of the impostor syndrome,low competence promotes the positive feedback of leaders to positively promote performance goal orientation,and further aggravates the inhibition of pay-for-performance on creativity.The study has three main theoretical contributions.First,a dual perspective of dynamic psychometric as well as feedback processing process reveals a triple superposition control effect in creativity motivation.Specifically,the inverted "U" effect of pay-for-performance is the first level of control,i.e.,institutional control at the organizational level.Positive feedback reinforces behavioral dependence on external feedback,which is the second level of control,i.e.,social control at the leadership level.And the impostor syndrome induced by low perception of competence is the third level of control,i.e.,self-esteem control at the individual level.In other words,the superposition of high pay-for-performance intensity,high positive feedback,and low perception of competence inhibits individual creativity.This finding helps to expand synergistic motivation research and lays the foundation for the exploration of feedback response localization.Second,it reveals the conditions under which positive feedback is applicable.The introduction of positive feedback when pay-for-performance intensity is low undoubtedly strengthens the informativeness of pay-for-performance and facilitates creativity.This supports the behavioral school of thought and is consistent with the positive psychology consensus that positive factors help activate positive traits.Providing positive feedback at high pay-for-performance levels actually increases the potential cost of innovation failure.Employees make conservative psychometric decisions and their creativity decreases,which supports the views of the cognitive school and supports the argument that positive feedback is a means of "higher control".It is clear that positive feedback has limitations in its application to mitigate motivational control.Third,it reveals that the impostor syndrome is a key mechanism for unlocking the negative effects of positive feedback.Individuals with low perceptions of competence are extraordinarily "face-conscious" and,in order to avoid "losing face," will increasingly focus on performance criteria and try to "earn reputation" by meeting leaders' expectations.This is consistent with the internal logic of the "impostor syndrome" in the Western context.The practical implication of the study is that the management should focus on protecting the precious space for self-creation of employees,regardless of whether the incentive is rigid or flexible.First,It is necessary for companies to break the linear thinking in the design of incentive system.The simple superposition of incentive tools does not produce the best results,and a pragmatic and flexible approach should be adopted instead to set incentive intensity.Second,they should use positive feedback judiciously in conjunction with feedback context and employee competency.In addition,companies can incorporate the impostor syndrome into the assessment when selecting employees.Attention should be paid to improving employee trait profiles and growth folders to help leaders "tailor" their feedback;if an employee shows signs of the impostor syndrome,the management should change their feedback style and provide appropriate training to help such employees overcome this psychological state.Finally,the study also has some reference significance to improve the incentive of innovative talents amid the transformation of China's innovation power strategy.That is to say,the collaborative incentive for innovative talents should pay attention to the boundary conditions of its effect.