Effects of feedback on individual creativity in social learning: an experimental study

Purpose The study aims to develop a comprehensive theoretical model to understand the relationship between feedback and individual creativity in a social learning context. To achieve the goal, the study unravels the mechanism underlying the relationship between evaluative feedback and creativity development and examines the interaction effects between informative feedback and evaluative feedback. Design/methodology/approach The study draws on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework to develop the research model. A laboratory experiment with a self-designed social learning platform was conducted to test the model. A total of 125 subjects participate in the experiment. Findings The empirical findings reveal that evaluative feedback affects creativity via intrinsic motivation and perceived feedback accuracy and informative feedback moderates the effects of negative feedback on intrinsic motivation and perceived feedback accuracy. Practical implications Organizations should be conscious of the role feedback plays in individual creativity development when building a social learning platform. Specifically, organizations can guide learners to provide favorable online feedback as well as train learners to cope with feedback effectively in creative tasks. Originality/value The study integrates feedback and creativity literature to propose three important mediators and examines the roles of the mediators in the process of creativity development in a social learning context, extending current understanding on the direct relationship between feedback and creativity. The study also complements the existing feedback literature by investigating the interactions between different types of peer feedback in the model of creativity development.