Reacting to criticism: What motivates top leaders to respond substantively to negative social performance feedback?

The responses of organizations in situations of negative feedback from stakeholders are attracting increasing scholarly and societal attention. The literature has so far largely focused on situational factors that direct such responses, while calling for a more acute examination of individual factors. Anchored in Stakeholder Theory and Trait Activation Theory, this study examines how and to what extent prosocial motivation (a normative-oriented trait) and fear of failure (an instrumental-oriented trait) determine organizational leaders’ substantive responses to negative social performance feedback. We test our predictions on two waves of original survey data, including a conjoint experiment, on a sample of leaders of young organizations. Our findings contribute to literature and practice related to organizational responses to social performance feedback.