Relationships among supervisor feedback environment, work-related stressors, and employee deviance

Previous research has demonstrated that the employee deviance imposes enormous costs on organizational performance and productivity. Similar research supports the positive effect of favorable supervisor feedback on employee job performance. In light of such, it is important to understand the interaction between supervisor feedback environment and employee deviant behavior to streamline organization operations.

The purposes of this study were to explore how the supervisor feedback environment influences employee deviance and to examine the mediating role played by work-related stressors.

Data were collected from 276 subordinate-supervisor dyads at a regional hospital in Yilan. Structural equation modeling analyses were conducted to test hypotheses.

Structural equation modeling analysis results show that supervisor feedback environment negatively related to interpersonal and organizational deviance. Moreover, work-related stressors were found to partially mediate the relationship between supervisor feedback environment and employee deviance.

Study findings suggest that when employees (nurses in this case) perceive an appropriate supervisor-provided feedback environment, their deviance is suppressed because of the related reduction in work-related stressors. Thus, to decrease deviant behavior, organizations may foster supervisor integration of disseminated knowledge such as (a) how to improve employees' actual performance, (b) how to effectively clarify expected performance, and (c) how to improve continuous performance feedback. If supervisors absorb this integrated feedback knowledge, they should be in a better position to enhance their own daily interactions with nurses and reduce nurses' work-related stress and, consequently, decrease deviant behavior.