How employees respond to client feedback on their creative work: a microfoundations approach to absorptive capacity

To understand how employees respond to client feedback on their creative work, we conducted a case study of a Chinese advertisement agency. Adopting a microfoundations approach to absorptive capacity, we found that in responding to the client's coercive feedback-giving moves, the account manager engaged in defending feedback-screening moves. As for creative workers, who responded to client feedback by resistance-oriented feedback-receiving moves, the account manager resorted to acceptance-induced feedback-transferring moves. We contribute by revealing interorganizational power dynamics and internal resistance in absorptive capacity processes, the role of feedback mediator, and the effect of feedback communications on a firm's absorptive capacity.