Impression Management Motives Research Articles

Relative Emphasis on Non-GAAP Earnings in Conference Calls: Determinants and Market Reaction

ABSTRACT We use textual analysis to examine whether non-GAAP earnings receive greater emphasis than GAAP earnings in the conference calls that accompany earnings announcements. We measure relative emphasis, i.e. prominence, based on the first appearance or frequency of GAAP and non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) dollar amounts in the transcripts of conference calls. To complement our analysis of relative emphasis on non-GAAP earnings, we measure general non-GAAP content using frequency counts of keywords. We find that firms place greater relative emphasis on non-GAAP earnings and include more general non-GAAP content when the non-GAAP results exceed the GAAP results, when the non-GAAP results achieve a benchmark that the GAAP results missed, and when the firm’s GAAP earnings are less value-relevant. We find somewhat weak evidence that impression-management motivation is the dominant explanation for greater relative emphasis on non-GAAP earnings but not for general non-GAAP content. Overall, the construct and measurement of relative emphasis on non-GAAP earnings and general non-GAAP content differ, but results indicate they are complements in explaining the market response to earnings conference calls.

The Qualitative Research of the Motivation of Voice Behavior in China

Recently, more and more scholars focus on voice behavior, and many of them suggest that voice behavior plays an important role in existence and development of organizations. To learn more about the voice behavior in the background of China, we collected the related information by interview, and we analyzed the data with the help of Consensual Qualitative Research and divided motivations of voice behavior into eight types: altruism motivation, duality motivation, personality motivation, self-promotion motivation, interpersonal motivation, self-protection motivation, benefit-oriented motivation, and impression management motivation, which are analyzed separately. Finally, we discuss the achievement and offer some potentially valuable suggestions for future researches.

Why Do Leaders Express Humility and How Does This Matter: A Rational Choice Perspective.

The utility of leader humility expressing behavior has been examined by several studies across multiple levels. However, our knowledge about why leaders express humility continues to be sparse. Drawing on rational choice theory, this paper proposes a model examining whether followers’ capability triggers leader’s humility expressing behavior and how followers’ interpretations of it influence its effectiveness. Results from 278 leader-follower dyads from a time-lagged research design showed that followers’ capability as perceived by the leader is positively related to leader-expressed humility and, in turn, this behavior would conditionally enhance follower trust, that is, followers will trust the humble leader less when they attribute leader’s expressed humility more to serving impression management motives. Several theoretical and practical implications of this observation are discussed in this study.

The Influence of High–Low Power on Green Consumption: The Moderating Effect of Impression Management Motivation

The importance of sustainable development has reached a consensus. Green consumption, as the final link of consumer behavior, can help green production activities make a real difference and achieve sustainable development. Based on the Agentic–Communal Model, this paper explores the relationship between power and green consumption through three experiments. The results showed that low-power (vs. high-power) consumers, who are more dependent on others, are likely to facilitate and encourage a communal orientation towards one’s environment. These consumers pay more attention to others and may have a preference for green consumption. Self-concern plays a mediating role in this mechanism. However, when individuals have a strong impression management motivation, the difference in their willingness toward green consumption will disappear. In other words, both lower-power and high-power consumers are more willing to purchase green products. This paper helps to deepen the understanding of the psychological mechanisms underlying green consumption and also provides practical implications for firms’ green marketing strategies.

Sharenting, is it a good or a bad thing? Understanding how adolescents think and feel about sharenting on social network sites

It is common nowadays for parents to share information about their children on social network sites (SNSs). However, little is known on how adolescents think and feel about this sharenting behavior. Therefore, this study explores adolescents' perception of the reasons why parents share information about their adolescent children on SNSs, and adolescents' attitudes toward sharenting. A survey study was conducted among 817 adolescents. Factor analyses pointed toward four perceived sharenting motives: parental advice motives, social motives, impression management motives, and informative-archiving motives. Adolescents believed that parents mainly shared information about their children due to informative-archiving motives. They believed that parental advice motives were less common. Preliminary analyses pointed out that adolescents largely disapproved of sharenting. They mainly considered it as embarrassing and useless. Regression analysis indicated that when adolescents perceived sharenting as an impression management issue, the more negative their attitudes were toward sharenting. Conversely, the more adolescents thought that parents shared information about their children due to informative-archiving motives, the less they disapproved of sharenting. Additionally, when adolescents themselves disclosed more personal information or when they were more often confronted with sharenting, they had more positive attitudes toward sharenting. Adolescents who were more concerned about their online privacy, were more likely to disapprove of sharenting.

The Role of Prosocial Motives and Social Exchange in Mediating the Relationship Between Organizational Virtuousness’ Perceptions and Employee Outcomes

Theoretical arguments suggest that organizational virtuousness makes individuals surpass their exchange concerns sparking their prosocial motives. This paper focuses on the examination of this issue incorporating two field studies. The first field study examines prosocial motives and social exchange as parallel mediators of the relationship between organizational virtuousness’ perceptions and three employee outcomes (willingness to support the organization, time commitment, work intensity). The second field study examines prosocial motives, personal sacrifice and impression management motives as parallel mediators of the examined relationships. Both field studies (employing 250 and 354 employees, respectively) indicated that only prosocial motives can mediate the relationship between organizational virtuousness’ perceptions and employee outcomes.

Relational job crafting: Exploring the role of employee motives with a weekly diary study

In this weekly diary study, we integrated research on job crafting to explore the associations between expansion and contraction oriented relational job crafting, work engagement and manager-rated employee behaviours (work performance and voice). Furthermore, we investigated cross-level moderations of prosocial and impression management motives on our proposed associations. We tested our hypotheses with matched data collected over seven weeks in Istanbul, Turkey. The results from multilevel analyses revealed that (a) expansion oriented relational job crafting is positively related with work performance and voice via work engagement, while (b) contraction oriented relational job crafting is negatively related with work performance and voice via work engagement, all measured at the week level. Furthermore, impression management motives of employees moderated the association between expansion oriented relational job crafting and work engagement in that this positive association is stronger for employees low on impression management motives. Our results contribute to job crafting research in two ways. First, it focuses on relational job crafting and discusses how and why the two opposite types of relational job crafting (expansion versus contraction oriented) impact on work engagement and employees’ key outcomes in the way they do. This addresses the question ‘ is there a dark side to job crafting?’ Second, it focuses on the importance of context and integrates two motives relevant to understand how relational job crafting unfolds, thereby taking a step to address questions for whom (i.e. what kinds of employees), relational job crafting is more effective and translates into enhanced (vs deteriorated) work outcomes. Moreover, our use of a weekly within-person design adds to a recently growing research stream emphasizing the dynamic nature of job crafting.

Helping a Lost Tourist: The Effects of Metastereotypes on Resident Prosocial Behaviors

While previous research has explored stereotypes, few studies have investigated the effects of metastereotypes on residents’ prosocial behaviors; that is, how would residents react to tourists’ negative (or positive) stereotypes of them? Study 1 demonstrates that residents were more willing to help a lost tourist in the face of negative metastereotypes. Study 2 further shows that metastereotype valence (i.e., positive or negative) could influence residents’ prosocial behaviors. Finally, Study 3 shows that triggering a common social identity between residents and tourists may not mitigate the effects of metastereotypes that arise from outgroup distinctiveness. Taken together, this research suggests that metastereotypes could potentially influence prosocial behaviors through impression management motives. This research contributes to the literature on host-tourist relationships and provides practical relevance for destination management organizations and public policy planners involved in managing intergroup relations by connecting knowledge from metastereotypes with stereotype-reduction strategies.

When Good Deeds Hurt: The Potential Costs of Interpersonal Helping and the Moderating Roles of Impression Management and Prosocial Values Motives

Drawing on the conservation of resource theory, the current study builds and tests a moderated-mediation model that explores the potential costs of engaging in interpersonal helping—a common type of organizational citizenship behavior. Specifically, this research argues that interpersonal helping induces emotional exhaustion, which adversely affects task performance. The study also examines impression management and prosocial values motives as conditional moderators among these relationships. Using multisource field data across two time periods, results suggest that an impression management motive is likely to strengthen the proposed relationships, whereas a prosocial values motive is likely to weaken them. Theoretical and practical implications as well as future research avenues are also discussed.

Perceptions of Organizational Politics Influences on Feedback Avoidance Behavior: The Effect of Impression Management Motive and Emotional Intelligence

Feedback Avoidance Behavior in the organization is very common but existing research on its formation mechanism is not very clear. Based on the view of Conservation of Resource Theory, we focus on relationship between Perceptions of Organizational Politics and Feedback Avoidance Behavior. The empirical research is based on 290 samples, according to research group of political perception significantly enhanced feedback avoidance; employees’ emotional intelligence reversely adjusts the influence of the Impression Management on Feedback Avoidance Behavior. At the same time, Impression Management Motive plays an intermediary role. To some extent, the results will enrich and deepen the existing research of POP and FAB; there will be implications for management practice.

LMX and Attributions of Organizational Citizenship Behavior Motives: When is Citizenship Perceived as Brownnosing?

This study tests the potential negative impact of leader-member exchange (LMX) quality on perceptions of followers’ motives to perform organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Based on the OCB motives introduced and tested by Rioux and Penner (Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 1306–1314, 2001), structural equation modeling using matched-pair data from follower-leader-coworker triads was used to test a model proposed by (Bowler, Halbesleben, and Paul Human Resource Management Review, 20, 309–316 2010) of the double-bind faced by those in low- or high-quality LMX relationships. Followers have their OCB motives attributed to positive pro-social values and organizational concern motives or, alternatively to, negative impression management motives based solely on the point of view of the observer. The first double-bind occurs in that third-party observers attribute the OCB performance motives of followers in high-quality LMX relationships to impression management motives. This puts high LMX followers in a double-bind in that while performing OCB is encouraged and positive, such behavior is seen as self-serving by coworkers. This can lead to followers being labeled as brownnosers by coworkers, among other descriptors. The second double-bind occurs when employees in low-quality LMX relationships have their OCB attributed negatively by their leader. This makes it difficult for employees to develop LMX with their leader. We discuss the implications of the study and outcomes for future research on LMX and OCB motives along with recommendations for practitioners for handling the potential dark side of LMX relationships.

How Do Agent Workers Deal with Job Insecurity? A Study from Impression Management Perspective

Under the current economic situation and new employment relationship, employees are feeling serious job insecurity, especially for agent workers. From impression management perspective, the present study aims to explore how agent workers actively deal with the threat of job insecurity, and investigate the role of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and impression management motives among this process. Two-wave data of 393 subordinate-supervisor pairs from agent workers was collected. The results showed that: (1) there was a positive relationship between agent workers job insecurity and OCB; (2) impression management motive moderated the relationship between job insecurity and OCB. Specifically, agent workers with higher impression management motive did more OCB when facing high level of job insecurity; (3) the interaction of agent workers job insecurity and impression management motive had an indirect effect to job performance via their OCB. Specifically, for the agent workers with higher impression management motive, they would do more OCB when experiencing high level of job insecurity, and thus maintain relative high job performance. Taking agent workers as examples, the study revealed the mechanisms underlying the relationship between employees job insecurity and work behaviors from the perspective of impression management.

Subordinates’ helping, voice, and supervisors’ evaluation of job performance

PurposeIt is recognized that employees’ helping and voice behaviors are dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior used by supervisors to evaluate their job performance. However, existing empirical studies of these relationships have shown inconsistent findings. From the perspective of attributional theory, the purpose of this paper is to explain when subordinates’ helping and voice behaviors are more positively related to job performance by considering supervisor-attributed prosocial and impression management motives.Design/methodology/approachUsing a sample of 200 supervisors in South Korea, the authors tested the hypotheses with hierarchical multiple regression analyses.FindingsResults indicate that the positive effects of helping and voice behaviors on job performance were stronger when supervisors attributed such behaviors as driven less by impression management motives related to self-interest. However, contrary to the expectations, the positive influences of helping and voice behaviors on job performance were stronger when supervisors perceived low prosocial motives.Practical implicationsFindings suggest that supervisors need to avoid making the wrong attributions with regard to their subordinates’ helping and voice behaviors during the evaluation process. In addition, subordinates need to have clear motives and demonstrate consistent behavioral stances when engaging in such behaviors.Originality/valueUsing social information theory and attribution theory, this study contributes to explain when helping and voice behaviors improve evaluations of employees’ job performances by considering supervisor-attributed motives.

The Effect of Supervisor Support on Employee Voice Behavior based on the Self-Determination Theory: The Moderating Effect of Impression Management Motive

Although numerous studies have adopted social exchange theory to investigate the mechanism through which leadership influences employee voice behavior, few studies have placed their focus on the mediation of employees’ basic psychological needs. To address this research gap, this study adopted self-determination theory to explore how supervisor support encourages subordinates to engage in voice behavior. Furthermore, the moderating effect of impression management motive was clarified. This study adopted structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression approach to analyze 268 sets of data of a pair of supervisor and subordinate. The results revealed that basic psychological needs mediated the relationship between supervisor support and self-determined prosocial motivation, which, in turn, was positively related to voice behavior. In addition, subordinates’ impression management motive weakens the positive relationship between self-determined prosocial motivation and voice behavior.

Good Soldiers and Good Actors: Is there Any Differences?

This study addressed the role of motives in organizational behavior (OCB). Organizational concern motives, prosocial values motives, and impression management motives influence individuals? OCB in banking industry in Indonesia. A survey is conducted by using questionnaires from the previous research. The samples consisted of 531 tellers. Validity and reliability tests are used to evaluate the questionnaire contents. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is employed to test the relationship among the variables. Relative to the other motives, organizational concern motives are most strongly associated with two dimensions of OCB, and prosocial values motives are most strongly with OCBO dimensions. Impression management motives do not influence both dimensions of OCB, OCBI and OCBO. The results suggest that motives may play an important role in OCB.

Are Annual Report Graphs Being Used for Making Performance Attributions?

Previous literature on performance attributions has focused exclusively on annual report narratives. The objective of this article is to determine whether graphs in annual reports could be used for making performance attributions. The analysis focuses on annual reports of 33 commercial banks from 7 Central and Eastern European countries during 2006 to 2013. In line with expectations and results of previous research, there is strong support for the presence of negative performance attributions and attributional enhancements. A decrease in a bank’s profitability is associated with an increase in the use of external indicator graphs. If a bank’s profitability increases simultaneously with deterioration in a graphed external indicator, the use of such external indicator graphs increases compared with when profitability increase occurs simultaneously with an improvement in a graphed external indicator. There also exist signs that negative performance attributions are intentional and potentially driven by impression management motives.

Voice Behavior and Career Success: The Moderating Role of Supervisor Attribution Motives

This paper aims to develop a model delineating the relationship between altruistic concern for prosocial motives/felt accountability for impression management motives of voice behavior and employees' career success. The model proposed in this study argues that the relationship between motives and career success depends on the voice behavior mediating mechanism and the moderating effect of supervisor-attributed motives on the relationship between voice behavior and career success. The results stress the importance of the context of supervisor attribution motives in linked voice behavior and career success. Overall, our model attempts to address these concerns by highlighting in particular the role of the perspective of supervisor attribution motives to advance the body of knowledge about voice behavior and career success. Practical and theoretical implications are addressed on the basis of the research findings as well as suggestions for future research in the employee voice behavior field.

The effects of self-development motive and impression management Motive on continuous learning activity

The first purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of self-development motive and impression management motive on continuous learning activity. The second purpose was to examine the mediating effects of feedback seeking behavior on the relationship between two motives(self-development motive, impression management motive) and continuous learning activity. The third purpose was to testify the moderating effects of the leader-member exchange quality on the two motives(self-development motive, impression management motive) and feedback seeking behavior. Using the survey research method, data were collected from 239 employees who were working in a variety of organizations in Korea. The results of this study showed that self- development motive was positively related to continuous learning activity, whereas impression management motive was not positively related to continuous learning activity. The self-development motive and impression management motive were positively related to feedback seeking behavior and feedback seeking behavior was positively related to continuous learning activity. Therefore, feedback seeking behavior had partial mediation effect on the relationship between self-development motive and continuous learning activity, and feedback seeking behavior had full mediation effect on the relationship between impression management motive and continuous learning activity. Finally, leader-member exchange(LMX) quality had moderation effect on the relationship between impression management motive and feedback seeking behavior. Specifically, the positive relationship between impression management motive and feedback seeking behavior was stronger when LMX quality was high than low. Based on these results, we discussed the implications and limitations of the study, and the suggestions for the future research.

The Effects of Self-Development Motive and Impression Management Motive on Continuous Learning Activity: The Mediating Effect of Feedback Seeking Behavior and The Moderating Effect of Leader-Member Exchange Quality

본 연구의 목적은 개인의 다양한 측면의 동기가 지속학습 활동에 미치는 영향을 알아보기 위해, 첫째, 조직 구성원의 자기계발 동기와 인상관리 동기가 지속학습활동에 미치는 영향을 검증하고, 둘째, 두 동기와 지속학습활동 간 관계를 피드백 추구 행동이 매개하는지 알아보고, 마지막으로 두 동기와 피드백 추구 행동 간 관계를 상사-부하 교환관계(LMX)가 조절하는지를 검증하는 데 있다. 이를 검증하기 위해 국내 기업의 다양한 직종에서 근무하는 239명의 종업원들을 대상으로 설문조사를 실시하여 자료를 수집하였다. 연구결과, 자기계발 동기는 지속학습활동과 정적인 관련이 있는 것으로 나타났으나 인상관리 동기는 지속학습활동과 직접적인 관련이 없는 것으로 나타났다. 피드백 추구 행동은 자기계발 동기와 지속학습활동 간 관계를 부분 매개하였고, 인상관리 동기와 지속학습활동 간 관계를 완전 매개하는 것으로 나타났다. 마지막으로 상사-부하 교환관계(LMX)의 질은 인상관리 동기와 피드백 추구 행동 간 관계를 조절하는 것으로 나타났다. 구체적으로, 인상관리 동기와 피드백 추구 행동 간 정적 관계는 상사-부하 교환관계(LMX)의 질이 낮을 때보다 높을 때 더 강하게 나타났다. 이러한 연구결과를 토대로 본 연구의 학문적 의의와 실무적 시사점, 그리고 제한점 및 향후 연구과제에 대해 논의하였다.

Impression Management in Organizations: Critical Questions, Answers, and Areas for Future Research

Over the past 30 years, researchers have devoted significant attention to understanding impression management in organizations. In this article, we review key questions that have been addressed in this area regarding definitions of impression management; types of impression management; impression management motivation; the effectiveness of ingratiation, self-promotion, and other tactics of impression management; personal factors associated with successful impression management; gender and impression management; cross-cultural implications of impression management; and the measurement of impression management. In doing so, we identify major themes and findings and highlight critical issues and unanswered questions. After reviewing these topics, we also discuss some practical implications for individuals and organizations. Finally, we conclude by outlining some broader avenues for inquiry that would help move this literature forward.