Is co-worker feedback more important than supervisor feedback for increasing extra-role behaviors?

In the present study, we examine how and when feedback influences employees’ extra-role behaviors. Drawing on social exchange theory and the job-demands resource model, we first propose that work engagement and psychological contract breach mediate the relationship between supervisor feedback and employees’ extra-role behaviors (their innovative behaviors and organizational citizenship behaviors). Second, we propose a moderated-mediation model in which co-worker feedback moderates the relationships between supervisor feedback and employees’ extra-role behaviors through the mediating mechanisms of both work engagement and psychological contract breach. Using three waves of multi-source data from 300 Chinese employees and their supervisors, our findings indicated that work engagement and psychological contract breach mediate the relationship between feedback and employee extra-role behaviors. Moreover, the moderated-mediation results demonstrated that supervisor feedback is redundant in predicting employee extra-role behaviors when employees feel that they receive high levels of feedback from their co-workers. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are further discussed.