When does negative feedback promote or undermine employee learning? The interpersonal mechanism of goal-driven help-seeking

Negative feedback is often intended to promote employee learning, yet its effects remain inconclusive. Help-seeking represents a promising but underexplored interpersonal mechanism that may explain how employees learn from negative feedback. This paper aimed to investigate why and when negative feedback relates to learning performance through two distinct types of help-seeking behaviour: autonomous and dependent. Drawing on achievement goal theory, we propose a moderated serial mediation model in which negative feedback influences learning performance through state goal orientations and help-seeking behaviours in sequence, with trait goal orientations as boundary conditions. We tested our model across two studies in China: a four-wave survey (N = 239 employees, 33 supervisors) and an experimental-causal-chain study (Study 2a: N = 120; Study 2b: N = 170). Results show that negative feedback promotes supervisor-rated learning performance by fostering state mastery goal orientation and autonomous help-seeking, particularly among employees high in trait mastery goal orientation. Conversely, employees high in trait performance-avoidance goal orientation tend to adopt state performance-avoidance goal orientation and engage in dependent help-seeking after receiving negative feedback, which in turn undermines learning. These findings underscore the importance of employees' motivational states and interpersonal responses in determining whether negative feedback promotes or undermines learning.