Introduction

Currently, people are experiencing “profound changes unseen in a century.” To cope with complex and changing internal and external environments, organizations need to enhance their competitiveness through innovation. However, the innovative competitiveness of organizations also comes from the innovation of individuals (Zhu et al., 2016; Peng et al., 2020; Zhang & Zhang, 2023). Employees find it difficult to sustainably meet the requirements of the dynamic environment by relying only on the passive innovation behavior pattern that is instructed by their superiors and requires the stimulation of proactive innovation behaviors. Innovative behaviors reflect the unity of knowledge and action of employees. That is, they motivate employees to generate new ideas and concentrate on the implementation of conception (Zhou & Wang, 2019). Previous studies have analyzed the triggering mechanisms of positive variables on employees’ adoption of innovative behaviors in terms of individual level (Radaelli et al., 2014), organizational context (Lai et al., 2015), and job characteristics (Francina & Jan, 2009). Moreover, previous studies have focused more on organizational-level variables like error management and innovation climates in the research theme of the impact of errors on innovation. Fewer studies have analyzed the behavioral reflection of individuals in the face of errors in the innovation process. Therefore, employees are limited by knowledge gaps and will inevitably make errors in the process of adopting innovative behaviors, and even fall into the circle of “the more worried about mistakes, the more mistakes they will make.” This was taken into consideration in this study. At this time, employees will receive negative performance feedback information from various aspects.

Performance feedback plays a role in linking the preceding and the following in the performance management cycle and thus is the most important part of the cycle (London & Smither, 2002). Scholars have divided performance feedback into positive and negative performance feedback (Geddes & Deanna, 1993; Hoever et al., 2018). Previous research has focused more on positive performance feedback and its effect. The effect of positive performance feedback is relatively positive (Su & Xiao, 2022), while that of negative performance feedback is somewhat controversial. Meanwhile, employees also realize that negative performance feedback information contributing to work outcomes has significant value based on the motivation of self-actualization (Ashford & Tsui, 1991; Zhou et al., 2017). Thus, this study responded to the suggestion that the role effects of negative performance feedback should be urgently clarified (Lyubykh et al., 2021; Shagufta et al., 2022). In contrast to other sources of feedback, superiors are the driving force in coordinating organizational and individual goals and inspiring employees to take the initiative to innovate (Su & Lin, 2019; Zheng et al., 2017). Negative performance feedback from superiors is not given in a fixed period of time in response to the performance of employees. When employees violate organizational norms and deviations from the direction of work in usual work, superiors provide employee feedback timely in the form of warnings, criticisms, and penalties to achieve the purpose of correction. Previous studies have suggested that negative performance feedback from superiors can affect employees through mediating variables, including self-efficacy, negative emotions, role clarity, performance improvement, etc. (Zheng et al., 2017). Common outcome variables are job performance and creativity (Li et al., 2013; Huynh et al., 2016), satisfaction (Steelman et al., 2004), and a sense of organizational justice (Westerman et al., 2014). Employees compare negative performance feedback information with their own goals and expectations. Currently, differences exist in the views of scholars on the effects of negative performance feedback. A majority of studies suggest that negative performance feedback exerts a negative effect (Jaworski & Kohli, 1991; Van Dijk & Kluger, 2011; Motro et al., 2021; Xing et al., 2021). A few studies reach a different conclusion and state that negative performance feedback can produce positive effects (Zhou, 1998; Vuori & Huy, 2015; Xing et al., 2023). This may be because negative performance feedback is more likely to receive the attention of managers (Tang et al., 2018; Hong, 2019; Holm, 2018). As recipients of feedback, employees sometimes cannot fully obtain effective information on negative performance feedback (Gnepp et al., 2020). Especially in the context of Chinese culture, employees are susceptible to the influence of the “face” factor and reject negative information. Hence, superiors tend to give employees less negative performance feedback, namely “reporting good rather than bad news.” Then, under the dual influence of innovation demand and traditional cultural background, it is necessary to further explore under what conditions and through what factors negative performance feedback from superiors produces a potentially positive effect on innovative behaviors to effectively play the role of negative performance feedback management tools.

On the one hand, this study approached from the perspective of error management and argued that the error handling ability of employees plays a mediating role in the relationship between negative performance feedback from supervisors and the innovative behaviors of employees. Error handling ability is the ability of employees to extract useful information from errors, then think, communicate, and learn from them, which can propel employees to be innovative in the way they handle tasks at work. Errors can cause individuals to have emotional reactions such as anxiety, fear and shame (Carmeli & Gittell, 2009; Zhao, 2011). To prevent employees from focusing their attention on negative emotions, encouraging employees to take action to correct their errors may weaken the negative effects of errors. Error management suggests that errors can lead to learning opportunities (Rybowiak et al., 1999) and help employees develop a mindset of learning from errors (Van Dyck et al., 2005). In the meantime, the feedback intervention theory suggests that external feedback sources can stimulate employees’ internal motivations and influence their performance by providing performance feedback on their past behavior and task completion based on their level of acceptance and absorption of information. When negative performance feedback is communicated by supervisors, thus, employees have negative emotions that prevent them from correctly recognizing and using the effective information contained in negative performance feedback. This leads to a reduction in the ability of employees to deal with errors and inhibits employees’ innovative behaviors. At present, scholars have paid less attention to individuals’ error handling abilities. However, error management views errors as learning opportunities. Studying the mediating role of error handling ability supplements and improves the study of the relationship between negative performance feedback from superiors and innovative behaviors.

On the other hand, it is necessary to reveal under what circumstances employees will correctly recognize and obtain valid information on negative performance feedback to explore the potential positive effects of negative performance feedback from supervisors. Regulatory focus refers to the tendency of individuals to spontaneously regulate their mental activities to control or change their thoughts and behaviors to achieve their own goals (Geers et al., 2005; Yao & Le, 2009). It includes promotion and prevention focuses. Different from other personal trait variables, regulatory focus not only reflects personal traits but also is a state-based situational variable (Higgins, 1997), which is induced by information about the environment and task structure where it is located (Cao & Xu, 2017). The regulation of this nature is related to the specific environment and responsibilities of individuals. As a result, the guidance and stimulation of managers in organizations can also stimulate employees to have different regulatory focuses (Wang & Lee, 2006). Meanwhile, Wu and Zhang (2023) took a meta-analytic approach to analyze studies on regulatory focus in the East and the West. The findings strongly supported the conclusion that promotion focus positively predicts innovation. Nevertheless, some studies concluded that prevention focus produces a negative effect. Their findings concluded that most studies support a positive relationship between prevention focus and innovation, which may be influenced by the cultural context (Zhou et al., 2020). Based on the feedback intervention theory, therefore, it was suggested in this study that employees’ regulatory focus can assist employees in regulating their emotions and cognition. After receiving negative performance feedback from their supervisors, employees recognize the discrepancy between their goals and current state to obtain effective information based on the content of feedback and make psychological and behavioral changes to their current state.

Errors are inevitable during innovation. Unlike positive performance feedback that has a strong motivational effect, moderate negative performance feedback enables employees to always “think of danger in peace.” Therefore, supervisors need to reshape employees’ perception of errors and negative performance feedback from the angle of error management. Considering the influence of contextual factors, negative performance feedback from supervisors can trigger the regulatory focus of employees. Driven by different psychological motivations, employees can adopt innovative behaviors by improving their error handling ability. Therefore, this study focused on the following three questions based on the feedback intervention theory: (1) How does negative performance feedback from supervisors affect employees’ innovative behaviors? (2) How does employees’ error handling ability play a mediating role from the perspective of error management? (3) How does employees’ regulatory focus positively influence the relationship between negative performance feedback from supervisors and employees’ error handling ability, and then promote employees’ innovative behaviors?

Theoretical Basis and Research Assumptions

Negative Performance Feedback and Innovative Behaviors

Feedback is one of the commonly used motivational tools in organizations and a dynamic process of two-way interaction between superiors and employees. Depending on the errors made in innovative activities, supervisors will give employee performance feedback for corrective purposes. In contrast to positive performance feedback with strong motivational advantages, negative performance feedback is considered to control and constrain employees’ perceptions and behaviors (Kim, 2020), which may lead to loss of face or damage employees’ self-esteem (Bernichon et al., 2003). Thus, negative performance feedback is not readily accepted by employees (Jennifer & George, 2007; Fang et al., 2014; Hoever et al., 2018). According to the feedback intervention theory, performance feedback reflects an employee’s past performance and behavior, and acts on his subsequent behavior through individuals’ internal motivations. In the face of negative performance feedback, employees have two types of motivations. On the one hand, employees have self-interest bias. That is to say, they activate a defense mechanism to distort feedback information to protect their self-esteem and attribute negative performance feedback to external factors. On the other hand, employees engage in internal attribution to generate negative emotions such as anxiety, anger, disappointment, and guilt. Emotions affect the flexibility in the thinking of employees and their psychological motivations (Conroy et al., 2014), and are also one of the factors affecting innovations. Positive emotions tend to help generate more novel and innovative ideas among employees, while negative emotional thinking plays the opposite role (Li et al., 2012; Liu & Xiao, 2022). Huynh et al. (2016) showed that negative performance feedback inhibits the intrinsic motivation of employees, which leads to learned helplessness and thus destroys creativity. Therefore, under the influence of employees’ psychological cognition, emotions, and other factors, the negative performance feedback provided by supervisors inhibits employees’ ability to obtain effective information from feedback information. This is not conducive to employees’ performance learning and improvement and constrains employees’ ability to choose the right behavioral strategies. The following hypothesis was proposed:

  • H1: Negative performance feedback from superiors has a significant negative impact on the innovative behaviors of employees.

Mediating Role of Error Handling Ability

Errors are by-products of positive actions and work behaviors that result in contradictory outcomes to the intended plans and ultimately unconscious deviations due to both internal (a lack of skills, knowledge shortcomings, etc.) and external subjective reasons (insufficient feedback, etc.) (Van Dyck et al., 2005). They are a type of behavior that does not conform to behavior norms or standards typically used by organizations. Error handling ability is the core of the error management strategy, which is the feedback on employees’ behavior and reflects the extent and ability of employees to think, learn, and communicate from errors (Hong & Wang, 2000). Error handling ability also reflects the way employees cope with the regulation of errors. In the practice of innovation, employees may inevitably make errors because of either limitations in their knowledge life cycle and gaps or whether their superiors provide timely feedback. Following the feedback intervention theory, feedback affects employees’ cognition and choice strategies via intrinsic motivations. In the case of an error made by an employee, negative performance feedback reduces intrinsic motivation and emotions. To avoid repeating the error, the employee cognitively and emotionally refuses to communicate, think, and learn about the error. As a result, employees fall into “learned helplessness” and adopt conservative work strategies, which may prevent them from improving their work ability (Zhou & Christina, 2010; Zhou, 1998). Therefore, negative performance feedback from supervisors reduces employees’ error handling ability. The following hypothesis was proposed:

  • H2: Negative performance feedback from superiors has a significant negative impact on the error handling ability of employees.

Errors and innovation have an inextricable relationship for three specific reasons: Firstly, innovation is a contradictory and chaotic process which is prone to errors (Bledow et al., 2009). Secondly, not much experience can be drawn on, and it has to be improvised since it is innovation (Baker & Nelson, 2005). Thus, referring to previous experience to carry out new practical activities may be subject to errors. Thirdly, innovation comes from errors. Based on this, employees’ errors are a reflection of their work behaviors on one hand, which can make employees clear about their defects and targeted rectification, and thus spur employees to take the initiative to study the solutions to problems (Liu et al., 2022). On the other hand, errors enable employees to examine the long-term automated way of working. Through self-reinforcement, errors can point out the direction of work improvement. This process not only achieves the purpose of corrective action but also improves the adaptability and innovative spirit of employees in the process of improvement through communication, learning, and thinking about errors. Therefore, error handling ability can encourage employees to adopt innovative behaviors (Frese and Keith, 2015; Chen & Du, 2019). Li and Mei (2018) studied the role of error handling ability of employees in state-owned enterprises and confirmed that error handling ability can encourage employees to adopt innovative behaviors. In summary, employees’ motivations can influence their behavioral strategies according to the feedback intervention theory. Therefore, employees’ ability to handle errors improves their psychological cognition, reaction ability, and adaptability to deal with the risk of errors in innovation, and enhances their positive and enterprising emotions in the face of innovation. In this way, the purpose of promoting employees to produce innovative behaviors is achieved. In the domestic context, the cultural concept of “inferiors imitate superiors” affects the management style of an organization. If supervisors use negative performance feedback to convey employees’ errors, employees believe that the content conveyed by negative performance feedback is prohibited by superiors, which hinders employees’ ability to learn from errors and is not conducive to employees’ learning and experience accumulation of errors. Employees are more willing to adopt a conservative work strategy to deal with work tasks, which suppresses employees’ innovative spirit and is not conducive to employees’ innovative behaviors. Therefore, the following hypotheses were proposed:

  • H3: The error handling ability of employees has a significant positive impact on innovative behaviors.

  • H4: Error handling ability plays a mediating role in the relationship between negative performance feedback and the innovative behaviors of employees.

Moderating Role of Regulatory Focus

The feedback intervention theory states that employees compare the results of feedback interventions with performance goals. The differences between the results and goals influence employees’ attention preferences and then moderate their behavior. This study analyzed regulatory focus, to explore the circumstances where negative performance feedback from supervisors affects employees’ error handling ability, which in turn acts on innovative behaviors. On the one hand, regulatory focus reflects the self-regulation system of individuals. To satisfy the goals that employees want to pursue and achieve, employees regulate their cognition and behavior through the self-mediation system. Regulatory focus includes promotion and prevention focuses (Higgins, 1997). Dholakia et al. (2006) believe that individuals who have a promotion focus are keen to pursue their ideals and ambitions. Such individuals in this category have a relatively higher level of motivation and hope that their relentless striving will shorten the distance between their current situation and ideal state. Therefore, individuals with a promotion focus are more sensitive to gains. That is, the pleasure of gains is greater than the pain of losses. On the other hand, individuals with a prevention focus are concerned with their responsibilities and obligations to be fulfilled and wary of something unfavorable happening in the course of their activities. When considering whether to do something, therefore, the prevention focus individuals first need to weigh is whether such a behavioral choice will cause them to suffer losses. Individuals want their activities to be safe and able to put distance between existing and unfavorable situations by adopting some methods. Meanwhile, Higgins (1997) pointed out that trait and situation types are the nature of regulatory focus. Trait-type regulatory focus, which embodies the stable personality characteristics gradually formed in the process of individual growth, is also regulatory focus that has a long-term impact on individuals. Situation-type regulatory focus means that the internal tendency of an individual will change according to the specific environment and task information, which shows short-term characteristics (Cao & Xu, 2017). Therefore, factors like the attitude or behavior of managers in an organization can stimulate different regulatory focuses of employees (Wang & Lee, 2006).

Some empirical studies have demonstrated the relationships between regulatory focus and innovation, creativity (Neubert et al., 2008), and innovative behaviors (Wu et al., 2008). In addition, Wang and Shi (2004) found that employees with a prevention focus would experience an increase in performance when receiving negative feedback, while those with a promotion focus would experience a decrease in performance when receiving positive feedback. Han (2013) believed that employees will produce more innovative behaviors when their promotion focus matches development-oriented performance appraisal methods, and their prevention focus matches evaluation-oriented ones. In summary, according to the feedback intervention theory, supervisors use feedback to achieve the purpose of stimulating individuals’ internal motivations to influence employees’ behavior and performance. In the Chinese cultural context, feedback should not “report the good news but not the bad” or no feedback because of poor tolerance for errors in the face of employee errors. From situation-type regulatory focus, it can be seen that the moderating effects of promotion and prevention focus work based on different motivations (Wu & Zhang, 2023). Negative performance feedback in the short term can motivate employees to adopt a “problem-solving mode” (Tang et al., 2018; Hong, 2019; Holm, 2018). When supervisors provide negative performance feedback, they recognize that the current state of behavior is poorer, which in turn can motivate employees to take action to change the status quo (Vuori & Huy, 2015). Among them, employees who have a promotion focus and face negative performance feedback from superiors will continue to work hard to get positive performance feedback from superiors to reach a goal-matching state. This will enhance the ability of employees to learn from errors and improve their ability to deal with errors. Employees with a prevention focus seek stability and security in the workplace. When receiving negative performance feedback, employees will seek to change to avoid the existing environment being compromised. Therefore, the following hypotheses were proposed (Fig. 1):

  • H5a: Promotion focus moderates the relationship between negative performance feedback from superiors and the error handling ability of employees. That is, low promotion focus enhances the negative relationship between negative performance feedback and error handling ability compared with high promotion focus.

  • H5b: Prevention focus moderates the relationship between negative performance feedback from superiors and the error handling ability of employees. That is, a low prevention focus enhances the negative relationship between negative performance feedback and error handling ability compared with a high prevention focus.

  • H6a: The interaction between negative performance feedback and promotion focus affects the innovative behaviors of employees through the mediating effect of error handling ability.

  • H6b: The interaction between negative performance feedback and prevention focus affects the innovative behaviors of employees through the mediating effect of error handling ability.

Fig. 1
figure 1

The research model. Note: The research model was made by the authors

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Materials and Methods

Sample Collection

In this study, the questionnaire survey method was adopted to collect data from incumbents, which is less intrusive to the respondents and easy to conduct a large-scale survey. In addition, the survey results are easy to quantify and statistically analyze. It took 1 month to collect a total of 394 questionnaires from incumbents in various industries. Regions involved in the sample source mainly include Henan, Hubei, Fujian, Shanxi, etc. Industries engaged in the research mainly include state-owned enterprises, public institutions, private enterprises, etc. After sample screening, a total of 33 invalid questionnaires were deleted due to the lack of selection, malicious filling in and contradiction of similar questions. Finally, 361 valid questionnaires were obtained, with an effective recovery rate of 91.6%.

Below are the demographic characteristics of the sample: 47.4% females and 52.6% males, with an even distribution of genders. In terms of age distribution, the respondents are mostly young people aged below 35, which is in line with the current age distribution of the labor force in the labor market. Regarding academic qualifications, most of them hold a bachelor’s or master’s degree or above, and some have graduated from junior colleges or have a diploma below high school, which reflects the needs of the survey respondents to meet knowledge levels. Besides, 78.4% of the respondents have worked for 5 years. A majority of the companies surveyed are private enterprises, government enterprises and institutions, and account for 44.3%. Others are primarily offices and self-operated units and take up 16.1%. Concerning the job types of the respondents, functional management, research and development (R&D), and marketing occupy 36.3%, 12.7%, and 21.3%, respectively. Other objects are mainly teachers, tour guides or customer service staff, and account for 18.0%. It can be seen that the survey objects involve all walks of life. All in all, the overall distribution of the demographic variables of the sample was relatively uniform, and the selected survey objects satisfied the needs of survey content.

Measuring Tools

The questionnaire mainly consists of two parts: basic information and the main scale. Demographic variables include the basic information of employees, such as gender, age, years of service, organizational nature, job category, and educational background. The main scale was measured by a well-established questionnaire in China and other countries using a seven-point Likert scale. Each variable was filled in by enterprise employees. In subsequent hypothesis testing, common method bias was avoided by taking measures like controlling for demographic variables and centralizing variables.

Negative Performance Feedback

The negative performance feedback scale adopts the negative performance feedback scale developed by Jaworski & Kohli (1991) and contains nine items in total, including “The superior will tell me when finding that I do not work in the way he expects.” After testing, Cronbach’s α of the scale is 0.900.

Innovative Behaviors

The innovative behavior scale adopts the scale developed by Scott & Bruce (1994) and contains six items, including “I will strive for the resources needed to ensure the implementation of new ideas.” After testing by domestic scholars (Fang et al., 2017), it is suitable for the domestic situation. Cronbach’s α of the scale is 0.838.

Error Handling Ability

As regards error handling ability, Hong and Wang (2000) revised the scale developed by Rybowiak et al. (1999) in the analysis of error orientation factors and constructed the error orientation scale in line with the Chinese context. The error orientation scale includes the relevant content of error handling (Li & Mei, 2018). Thus, this scale was used in this paper. It encompasses a total of 16 items, including “I usually know how to deal with an error if it is possible to correct it.” After testing, Cronbach’s α of the scale is 0.957.

Regulatory Focus

As for regulatory focus, the regulatory focus questionnaire prepared by Neubert et al. (2008) contains 18 items in all, including nine items for promotion and prevention focuses respectively. This scale better captures the regulatory focus stimulated in the workplace. Thus, the scale developed by Neubert et al. was used in this paper, like “My goal of completing work is to achieve progress.” After inspection, the overall Cronbach’s α of the scale is 0.944, of which the Cronbach’s α of promotion and prevention focuses is 0.902 and 0.925, respectively. Two-dimensional structure fitting indicators are χ2/df = 2.766, incremental fit index (IFI) = 0.958, Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) = 0.950, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.958, and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.070, respectively.

Results

Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Used in this study for confirmatory factor analysis, AMOS20.0 software has good statistical power in confirmatory factor analysis. The four-factor model has the best fitting effect (χ2/df = 2.512, IFI = 0.906, TLI = 0.901, CFI = 0.906, and RMSEA = 0.046), which indicates that the four variables involved in this study have good discriminant validity. The results of Harman’s one-factor test showed that the fitting effect of the one-factor model is worse and significantly lower than that of the four-factor model.

Correlation Analysis

In the present study, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) analysis software was used to conduct basic correlation analysis. The correlation between variables was analyzed to lay the foundation for subsequent hypothesis testing. Correlation coefficients between the variables in Table 1 showed that negative performance feedback is negatively correlated with error handling ability (r = −.747**, P < 0.01), innovative behaviors (r = −.628**, P < 0.01), as well as promotion (r = −.616**, P < 0.01) and prevention focus (r = −.636**, P < 0.01). Error handling ability is positively correlated with innovative behaviors (r = .751**, P < 0.01).

Table 1 Matrix of mean, standard deviation, and correlation coefficient of variables
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Hypothesis Testing

In this article, the hypothesis testing methods of regression analysis and Bootstrap were used, firstly the basic regression analysis was performed using SPSS. Secondly, the Bootstrap method is used for robustness testing. Bootstrap’s method has a strong statistical effect at present and is a simply repeated sampling of limited sample data, was employed. It is an ideal mediation effect test method (Wu, 2018). Compared to other analysis software, Mplus software has the most statistical functions and strongest statistical validity. Therefore, the Mplus8.0 setup was utilized in this study for 5000 times of extraction.

The research results are shown in Table 2. It can be seen from Model 2 that negative performance feedback from superiors has a significant negative impact on the innovative behaviors of employees (β = −0.375, P < 0.001), which thereby verifies hypothesis 1. As presented in Model 3, the error handling ability of employees has a significant positive impact on innovative behaviors (β = 0.233, P < 0.001), which thereby verifies hypothesis 3. As illustrated in Model 4, negative performance feedback from superiors has a significant negative effect on the innovative behaviors of employees (β = −0.093, P < 0.01). At this time, error handling ability has a significant positive effect on the innovative behaviors of employees (β = −0.197, P < 0.001), which thereby verified hypothesis 4. Moreover, error handling ability partially mediates negative performance feedback from superiors and the innovative behaviors of employees.

Table 2 Regression analysis of mediating effect
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The indirect effect of negative performance feedback on employees’ innovative behaviors is demonstrated in Table 3. That is, the mediating effect of error handling ability is significant (P < 0.001), and its direct and total effects are significant too (p < 0.01 and P < 0.001, respectively). The confidence interval for the indirect effect of error handling ability is (−0.353, −0.199), and excludes 0. Hence, it can be considered that the indirect effect of the mediating variable is significant. The direct effect of the mediating variable shows a confidence interval of (−0.437, −0.272), which also excludes 0. It indicates that the direct effect of negative performance feedback from supervisors on employees’ innovative behaviors remains significant after the error handling ability variable is added to the model. Therefore, it can be judged that error handling ability plays a partial intermediary role in the relationship between negative performance feedback and innovative behaviors. Hypothesis 4 was verified again.

Table 3 Test of the mediating effect of superiors’ negative performance feedback on employees’ innovative behavior
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As shown in Table 4, it can be seen from Model 2 that negative performance feedback from superiors has a significant negative impact on the error handling ability of employees (β = 0.734, P < 0.001), which verified hypothesis 2. In addition, the interaction terms between negative performance feedback and the promotion and prevention focus of models 4 and 6 (β = 0.367, P < 0.05 and β = 0.390, P < 0.01) respectively have a significant influence on error handling ability. This demonstrates that promotion (or prevention) focus has a significant negative moderating effect on the relationship between negative performance feedback and error handling ability. In this case, hypotheses 5a and 5b were validated.

Table 4 Regression analysis results of moderating effect
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The mean value of negative performance feedback and promotion focus (or prevention focus) plus or minus one standard deviation was taken and brought into the regression equation, as shown in Figs. 2 and 3. As can be seen from the figures, employees with a high level of promotion focus (prevention focus) are more motivated to improve their error handling ability in the face of negative performance feedback from their supervisors compared to those with a low level of promotion focus (prevention focus).

Fig. 2
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The moderating effect of promotion focus on the relationship between negative performance feedback and error handling ability

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Fig. 3
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The moderating effect of prevention focus on the relationship between negative performance feedback and error handling ability

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To further verify the moderated mediating role of promotion and prevention focuses, the moderated mediating role model was tested using the least mean square (LMS) method (Fang & Wen, 2018), and the Bootstrap repetitive sampling of 5000 times was performed through Mplus8.0 software. The analysis results showed that the indirect effect difference of negative performance feedback on innovation behaviors through error handling ability is −0.177, and the 95% confidence interval is [−0.378, −0.089] excluding 0 when promotion focus is at high and low levels, respectively. Therefore, a significant difference can be observed in the indirect effect difference, which thus verifies hypothesis 6a. Similarly, the indirect effect difference of negative performance feedback on innovation behaviors through error handling ability is −0.191, and the 95% confidence interval is [−0.363, −0.112] excluding 0 when prevention focus is at high and low levels, respectively. Therefore, a significant difference can be detected in the indirect effect difference, which thus verifies hypothesis 6b.

Discussion

Research Conclusion

Firstly, the negative relationship between negative performance feedback and innovative behaviors through the regression analysis of the main effects was demonstrated in this study. For one thing, negative performance feedback usually plays a negative role without the intervention of other variables, which is consistent with the findings of previous studies (Van Dijk & Kluger, 2011; Li et al., 2013). For another, the leadership style and behavior of superiors play an important role in analyzing the factors influencing employees’ innovative behaviors. However, previous studies have focused more on positive motivational factors such as transformational (Hansen & Pihl-Thingvad, 2019), authentic (Rego et al., 2014; Xu et al., 2022) and comprehensive leadership (Miao, 2014). Based on previous research on negative performance feedback by Chinese and Western scholars, this study combined with the results of empirical tests argued that negative performance feedback should be conducted under certain intervention conditions to promote the innovative behaviors of employees. In this way, employees can truly realize that the purpose of negative performance feedback is to improve their work styles and behaviors, which in turn will enhance their work performance.

Secondly, this study demonstrated that error handling ability plays a partially mediating role between negative performance feedback and innovative behaviors through a mediation effect test from the perspective of error management. Consistent with the finding of a negative correlation between negative performance feedback and innovative behaviors, a negative correlation also exists between negative performance feedback and error handling ability. Error handling ability is positively correlated with innovative behaviors (Li & Mei, 2018; Yin et al., 2016) and plays a mediating role between negative performance feedback and innovative behaviors. The findings suggest that negative performance feedback can further have an effect on innovative behaviors by influencing employees’ error handling ability. Since error handling ability contributes to employees’ innovative behaviors, it is necessary to further analyze under what conditions negative performance feedback from supervisors can help employees improve their error handling ability.

Finally, this study demonstrated that regulatory focus negatively influences the negative effect of negative performance feedback on error handling ability through a moderating effects test, which in turn enhances the positive effect of error handling ability on innovative behaviors. To investigate under what conditions negative performance feedback can contribute to enhancing the error handling ability of employees, the regulatory focus variable at the level of personal motivation was introduced in this study. The reason is that the situational traits of regulatory focus can be remodeled in a certain environment unlike personality trait variables more difficult to change through the environment. Through theoretical analysis and hypothesis testing, both promotion and prevention focuses were able to alleviate the negative relationship between negative performance feedback on employees’ error handling ability, which further proved the hypothesis. However, previous studies have summarized that promotion focus usually plays a negative moderating role, and the role played by prevention focus shows differences (Geng et al., 2018). The reason for the differences in the effect of the role of prevention focus is mainly due to the influence of the cultural context. In their meta-analysis of the literature on regulatory focus in China and the West, Wu and Zhang (2023) demonstrated that prevention focus can play a positive role in innovation in the Chinese cultural context. In this study, the negative moderating effect of prevention focuses on the relationship between negative performance feedback from supervisors and error handling ability is in line with the above research findings.

Therefore, this study argued that individuals with different regulatory focuses differ in their psychological motivations when faced with negative performance feedback despite improving their error handling ability and innovative behaviors. This is because employees are influenced by the ideas of “power distance,” “strict enforcement of orders and prohibitions,” and “the doings of superiors are imitated by their inferiors” in the Chinese cultural context. Regardless of their traits, employees need to improve their ability to handle problems when facing negative performance feedback, which contributes to their innovative behaviors. Promotion-focused employees strive to change proactively to improve their competence and be able to subsequently receive positive performance feedback from their supervisors. However, prevention-focused employees change reactively to avoid the threat of receiving negative performance feedback from their supervisors again, which threatens a stable and secure environment.

Theoretical Contributions

Firstly, this study extends the research on the effect of negative performance feedback in the context of Chinese culture. Most studies believe that negative performance feedback plays a negative role (Xing et al., 2021) and suppresses employees’ motivations and initiatives. However, some studies also believe that negative performance feedback plays a positive role (Vuori & Huy, 2015; Xing et al., 2023). Based on scholars’ research, this study argued that reasonable negative performance feedback can convey the problems of their behavior to employees, make them understand the deficiencies in knowledge structure, and improve their creativity by using the useful information conveyed by negative performance feedback (Zhou, 1998). Given the differences between Chinese and Western cultural backgrounds, this study revealed the potential positive effects of negative performance feedback from supervisors on employees’ innovative behaviors based on the feedback intervention theory. The results of this study show that employees who have high promotion and prevention focuses and face negative performance feedback from supervisors can positively improve their error handling ability and enhance their innovative behaviors through error communication, thinking, and learning based on different psychological motivations. Based on Chinese and Western studies, this study further enriches the research on the effects of negative performance feedback from supervisors.

Secondly, the mechanism of negative performance feedback on employees’ innovative behaviors is explored from the perspective of personal error knowledge management. Error handling ability, which reflects employees’ agility in coping with errors, not only improves individual work efficiency but also promotes the development of error management. Previous studies have paid more attention to the influence of organizational characteristics such as error management (Van Dyck et al., 2005; Wang et al., 2020) and innovation climates (Gu & Peng, 2010) on innovation behaviors, which more often reflect the tolerance and acceptance of organizational knowledge management for innovation. In this study, the level of personal error knowledge management was analyzed. A conclusion was drawn that employees’ ability to deal with errors helps them to handle unknown errors proactively and efficiently without the guidance of rich prior information. Errors are inevitable in the process of innovation, and supervisors will give negative performance feedback to employees’ errors. Based on the feedback intervention theory, a theoretical model of “negative performance feedback-error handling ability-innovative behaviors” was established in this study according to the potential relationship between variables. Therefore, this study not only enriches the relevant research on the knowledge management of personal errors but also extends the research on the mechanism of negative performance feedback on employees’ innovative behaviors.

Thirdly, the moderating role of employees’ regulatory focus on the negative relationship between negative performance feedback and error handling ability was clarified. On the one hand, previous research has argued that employees are influenced by personal traits leading to different understandings of negative performance feedback, specifically self-esteem (Ashford et al., 2003; Nahum et al., 2014), a sense of responsibility (Bernichon et al., 2003; Cameron et al., 2009), and high core self-evaluation (Xing et al., 2023). Although individuals have long-term and stable personal traits profoundly affecting their psychology, cognition, and behavior, traditional research on personal traits has neglected the dynamic nature of personal traits. Trait-type regulatory focus can be influenced by the environment to reshape employees’ psychology, cognition, and behavior, which in turn leads employees to develop in the direction desired by organizations. On the other hand, the potential positive effects of negative performance feedback from supervisors on error handling ability were analyzed in this study through the introduction of regulatory focus. The findings show that both promotion and prevention focuses have negative moderating effects. Considering the influence of the Chinese cultural context (Zhou et al., 2020; Wu & Zhang, 2023), the differences in psychological motivations between employees with promotion and prevention focuses prompt them to choose to improve their error handling ability, which in turn facilitates employees’ innovative behaviors.

Practical Implications

First of all, superiors should variably use negative performance feedback. On the one hand, superiors need to establish a scientific and reasonable feedback mechanism and provide employees with a certain amount of negative performance feedback to motivate employees to take the initiative to adopt innovative behaviors. In this case, employees can always maintain a vigilant awareness of “preparing for danger in times of peace.” On the other hand, supervisors should pay attention to the differences in employees’ regulatory focus and use a combination of management tools for negative and positive performance feedback. The mixed use of the two types of feedback can compensate for the negative effects of negative performance feedback and avoid excessive negative performance feedback.

Secondly, supervisors should guide employees to form the concept of error knowledge management. Error prevention focuses on handling and controlling errors beforehand and establishing an early warning mechanism to avoid negative consequences (Van Dyck et al., 2005; Hong & Wang, 2000). Contrarily, error management focuses more on solving problems after the fact, viewing errors as valuable learning opportunities, paying attention to the positive effects and advantages of errors, and then forming work experience to provide guidance for effective error handling in the future to avoid future problems (Jia et al., 2020; Li et al., 2021). First, supervisors should have the thinking and ability of error knowledge management. Second, supervisors should guide employees to form the correct habits of error awareness, learning, thinking, and communication. Third, supervisors should promote error knowledge management by creating a relaxing and tolerant atmosphere and facilitating cooperation among colleagues.

At last, superiors should standardize human resources management work such as talent selection and recruitment and training. On the one hand, personality trait testing and other methods are employed to select employees suitable for job positions and regulatory focus according to the requirements of work content during the stage of talent selection. On the other hand, situation-type regulatory focus will change the performance of trait-type regulatory focus in the short term. Therefore, supervisors can also assist employees in improving their error handling ability and innovative behaviors by cultivating or creating an environment that matches the regulatory focus of employees.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

This study has four main limitations. First, in terms of questionnaire completion, the samples were derived from employees’ self-reports. No superior-subordinate pairing was given, and multi-temporal data were not collected. Despite having passed the test of common method bias, social desirability may be in the measurement of employees’ innovative behaviors. Second, negative performance feedback was analyzed in a short-term static manner. However, the frequency and intensity of negative performance feedback from supervisors can have a more negative impact on employees over a long period of time. Third, more factors influence employees’ innovative behaviors. Due to the limitations of research methodology, it can only be analyzed at leadership and individual levels. Fourth, the research on error handling ability mainly involves the acquisition, absorption, and application of error knowledge rather than involving knowledge sharing and creation.

The following five aspects can be further improved in future research. First, the sample should be further expanded, and multi-temporal, superior, and subordinate matching data should be collected in subsequent studies. Additionally, meta-analytic methods should be used to explore the differences between Chinese and Western studies on negative performance feedback. Second, the effect of negative performance feedback is a complex process, which may be affected by factors like the frequency and content of negative performance feedback. As a result, subsequent studies can be more variable and detailed in the selection of variables. From a dynamic perspective, negative performance feedback may have an inverted U-shaped effect if supervisors give employees negative performance feedback over time. Finally, the negative performance feedback received by employees has different effects under different forms of feedback, given the reality of the rapid development of Internet technology. Therefore, the form of feedback should not be limited to traditional face-to-face feedback. Subsequent research should explore the effects of negative performance feedback received by employees through network offices or the e-mail system and other forms. Third, studies exploring the influencing factors of innovative behaviors can combine the advantages of the experimental, case study, and questionnaire methods to explore in depth the role of factors like the colleague feedback, the employee knowledge reserve level, the team and organizational environments, the likelihood of implementing innovative behaviors, and other factors.

Fourth, the study of error handling ability shows that employees need to have appropriate error handling ability; organizations need to create a relaxing and harmonious atmosphere; managers need to have the thinking and ability of error knowledge management; and colleagues need to be able to cooperate. In addition, it is necessary to analyze the acquisition, absorption, and application of error knowledge and pay attention to error knowledge sharing and knowledge creation to promote error knowledge management. Therefore, the impact of other influencing factors on error handling ability can be further analyzed in subsequent research. Meanwhile, comprehensive and in-depth research can be carried out on the acquisition, absorption, transformation, sharing, creation, and application of error knowledge from the perspective of individual error knowledge management. Fifth, under conditions of cultural context and temporal variation, subsequent research could further explore motivational differences between promotion and prevention focus and the reasons for the differences. Sixth, the management purpose of organizations lies in the pursuit of stability and authority. Enterprises may be reluctant to encourage the innovative behaviors of employees. The existence of differences in management purposes will lead to different needs of managers for the innovative behaviors of employees. Therefore, subsequent research should be discussed for different organizational management purposes.