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included narrative elements than when it did not. This may be because narrative feedback not only evaluates past performance but can also be used to set future goals and development paths. It helps employees visualize their growth trajectory and understand the practical steps needed for advancement. Because narrative feedback is often perceived as fairer than numerical ratings, it can serve as positive reinforcement for employees whose morale and engagement are influenced by perceptions of fairness, thereby strengthening their commitment to both personal and organizational goals.There are exceptions.While narrative-only feedback typically enhances perceptions of fairness, our experiments revealed that its effectiveness is not uniform across all scenarios. In one study, we explored how the valence of feedback %u2014 whether it is highly positive or more negative %u2014affects employees%u2019 responses to different feedback formats. Our findings revealed that the superiority of narrative-only feedback in fostering perceived fairness diminishes with extremely positive feedback. This suggests that employees may value narrative-only feedback more when there is ambiguity about their performance levels, as it provides a richer, more nuanced evaluation that can soften the blow of negative assessments. When feedback is overwhelmingly positive, such as when an employee achieves the highest performance ratings, the format is less influential. Employees respond well to very positive feedback regardless of whether the feedback is numerical, narrative, or a combination of the two, since the positive outcome is clear and there is little room for interpretation.In another experiment, we investigated how knowledge of monetary outcomes, like bonus amounts, influences reactions to feedback formats. Initially, employees who received narrative feedback perceived their evaluations as fairer and more positive than those who received numerical or combined feed-