Impressing for popularity and influence among peers: The connection between employees’ upward impression management and peer-rated organizational influence

Abstract

ABSTRACT To investigate how employees’ impression management behavior, targeted upward at organizational leaders, relates to their peer-rated organizational influence, this study considers both a mediating role of peer-rated workplace popularity and a moderating role of self-rated social dominance orientation. Multisource, three-wave data from employees and their peers in the power-distant, collectivistic country of Pakistan reveal that upward impression management behavior, despite raising some potential organizational concerns, is associated with peer-rated workplace popularity for employees, who in turn can wield greater influence over colleagues. The mediating role of peer-rated workplace popularity also is more prominent to the extent that employees accept social hierarchies, because this orientation makes their use of upward impression management tactics to advance their own and their peers’ personal interests more purposeful.