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

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.