How to Make Me Included: Incorporating Impression Management into Person-Organization Fit Framework

Abstract

Scholars are curious about factors that make employees included in the workplace. Yet our knowledge on antecedents of perceived inclusion limits in employee demographic backgrounds and workplace contextual factors from social identity theory or exchange theory, neglecting the fact that inclusion perceptions develop from the interaction between the individual employee and the environment. This study wishes to offer a new account based on the person-environment interaction perspective. With a two-wave data of 306 employees, we found that both person-organization supplementary fit and complementary fit were positively associated with employee inclusion perceptions. Furthermore, self-promotion and ingratiation strategies in impression management moderated these two main effects separately. These conclusions enrich the literature on perceived workplace inclusion from the perspectives of person-environment interaction and motivational behaviors.