Performance feedback and proactive work behavior: when digital performance feedback works in the shopfloor

Frontline workers’ proactive work behaviors (PWB) play a critical role in contributing to operational performance. Performance feedback is an important antecedent of PWB. However, technological changes, especially disruptive such as AI (artificial intelligence), have fundamentally altered the feedback received by workers. We posit that AI positively moderates the relationship between performance feedback and PWB. We expand the understanding of these relationships by including social support, which activates a learning process based on the feedback received through AI. Drawing on data from work units of Italian manufacturing firms, we used hierarchical regression models to test the hypotheses.