Impression Management Tactics Research Articles

Impression Management and Group Member Performance: Examining the Role of Collective Altruism

There is debate in the literature regarding when impression management motivates affiliative behavior (i.e., helping others) and how well individuals perform organizational tasks when the driving motivation is to “look good.” Based on social exchange and sensemaking theories and research, and considering the increasing use of groups and teams in today’s workplaces, we propose that characteristics of the groups to which members belong enable them to make sense of, and interpret, their collective environment and subsequently determine how they should behave to look their best. Specifically, we identify collective altruism as an important group characteristic affecting how individuals’ positive (i.e., self-promotion, exemplification, ingratiation) and negative (i.e., supplication, intimidation) impression management tactics influence their willingness to help fellow group members. Findings from a sample of entrepreneurial networking groups illustrate that the relationship between positive impression management tactics and affiliative behavior was more strongly positive when collective altruism was higher, rather than lower; and, the relationship between negative impression management tactics and affiliative behavior was positive when collective altruism was higher, and not significant when it was lower. We discuss implications for both theory and practice.

Intrinsic Motivation Display as an Impression Management Tactic

Previous research assumes that employees’ true levels of intrinsic motivation and the levels of intrinsic motivation they show to others are the same and does not distinguish between the two. This paper challenges the assumption and builds a theory about how employees can display their intrinsic motivation to others in a way that it deviates from their true intrinsic motivation. Drawing on theories of impression management, we argue that employees are more likely to exaggerate their intrinsic motivation to interaction partners with greater power. We further propose that morality concerns are central in employees’ intrinsic motivation display, where employees’ desires to moral mediate the relationship between interaction partners’ power and employees’ intrinsic motivation displayed to the partners. We report results of two experiments and one field survey that support our hypotheses.

Seeking acceptance: Adopting impression management tactics when experiencing workplace ostracism

Workplace ostracism is defined as the perception of being ignored and excluded by others in the workplace. Drawing on tenets of belongingness theory, we contend that ostracism may motivate victims to manage their impressions on others with the aim to seek acceptance. Findings from a two-wave survey study indicate that workplace ostracism is positively associated with impression management tactics (e.g., ingratiation, self-promotion, exemplification) through the mediating role of need for approval. In addition, this indirect relationship is more salient for victims who have high concerns for self-face. Theoretical and practical implications as well as future research directions are also discussed.

The impression management-emergent leadership relationship: The mediating role of trustworthiness

Recent research has greatly expanded our understanding of the element of emergent leadership (i.e., being perceived as “leaderlike”, despite a lack of formal status or authority), exploring a number of individual behaviors thought to impact team members’ perceptions of others as leaderlike. While growing attention to how individuals’ natural behaviors influence these emergent leadership perceptions has seen success, questions regarding the impact of strategically used behaviors remain. To better our understanding of how conscious attempts to influence others’ perceptions lead to informal leader emergence, I examine how different impression management tactics spark varying effects on these resulting perceptions. Further, I examine perceptions of trustworthiness as a mediating mechanism of this relationship and how an individual’s trait authenticity moderates subsequent leadership emergence. In doing so, I look to provide a link between signaling and social categorization theories to help show how calculated behaviors act as signals of attributes associated with perceived leaders.

The Effects of Executives’ Time Horizons on CSR Disclosures

Management scholars have long been interested in understanding executives’ time perspectives. We extend this research by examining the strategic implications of executives’ time horizons. Because executives with short-term horizons emphasize explicit short-term value, they may use CSR disclosures as an impression management tactic to efficiently garner resources from stakeholders. We then posit that the positive effect of executives’ short-term horizons on CSR disclosures is weakened when the firm has better internal resource conditions as indicated by firm slack and board political connections. Further, we hypothesize that CSR disclosures have a positive effect on firm performance, but that this effect is attenuated by executives’ short-term horizons. We test and find support for these arguments using a longitudinal sample of 482 listed Chinese firms from 2010 to 2014. This study explicates the cognitive mechanisms underlying how executives’ time perspectives affect specific CSR activities.

A NEW CONSEQUENCE OF LEADER-MEMBER-EXCHANGE: IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT TACTICS

When members of the in-group and out-group formed by the leader are aware of this categorization, employees’ motivation, attitudes towards job or organization, and performance can be affected by being a member in-group or out-group (leader-member exchange, LMX). One of the consequences of this categorization awareness is impression management tactics displayed by an employee. Impression management is a goaldirected process in which individuals try to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object or event. The purpose of the study is to investigate the effect of awareness of being a member in-group or outgroup for the employee on impression management tactic. A cross-sectional survey is utilized in this research. 427 employees are selected from 13 different organizations. The reliability of the scales is diagnosed via an internal reliability coefficient. The validity of the scales is diagnosed via construct validity (factor analysis). The proposed relationships are tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). According to research findings, ingratiation by self-promotion, one dimension of impression management, is affected by leader-memberexchange. Contribution dimension of LMX influences utilizing of impression management tactic negatively, as expected. Contrary to expectations, LMX in terms of affect and professional respect influences arising of impression management tactic positively.

Impression management tactics in the CEO statements of Turkish sustainability reports

AbstractIn this study, we construct a classificatory scheme of impression management tactics and apply it to a sample of sustainability report and annual report CEO statements issued by large Turkish companies. We find a wide range of impression management tactics applied in both types of CEO statements. However, impression management in sustainability report CEO statements emerges as more limited and uniform, revealing clearer prioritizations of impression management tactics when compared to annual report CEO statements. Sustainability report CEO statements emphasize tactics that allow the company to highlight carefully selected, isolated aspects of their sustainability engagement. At the same time, they rarely employ tactics that are geared towards more systematic (quantitative) performance evaluation. We attribute these differences to the way in which corporate sustainability performance is commonly conceptualized and evaluated, emphasising qualitative performance dimensions rather than the reporting of quantitative performance metrics. This results in the application of a different impression management tactics mix and limits the usefulness of sustainability reports as an accountability mechanism when compared to corporate annual reports. In addition, we provide tentative evidence for the context‐specific nature of impression management, with the choice of impression management tactics reflecting the institutional environment a company is based in.

Shame On You! Unpacking the Individual and Organizational Implications of Engaging with a Stigmatized Organization

AbstractHow and when does engagement with a stigmatized organization lead to the transfer of its stigma to organizations and individuals associating with it? To answer this question, we conduct an inductive study of the process of stigma transfer and the conditions determining social actors’ susceptibility to such courtesy stigma. We build our process model using interview and archival data on two art exhibitions engaging with Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) Norway. Our study identifies purposeful shaming as a key element in the stigma transfer process, and shows that shaming attempts take on different forms at the individual and organizational levels. We also illustrate that contestation of shaming attempts through impression management tactics is conditional upon the status of the stigma ‘target’. This provides novel insights into when and how status moderates the stigma transfer process.

Job Seekers’ Impression Management on Facebook: Scale Development, Antecedents, and Outcomes

Many organizations rely on social media like Facebook as a screening or selection tool; however, research still largely lags behind practice. For instance, little is known about how individuals are strategically utilizing their Facebook profile while applying for jobs. This research examines job seekers’ impression management (IM) tactics on Facebook, personality traits associated with IM use, and associations between IM and job-search outcomes. Results from two complementary studies demonstrate that job seekers engage in three main Facebook IM tactics: defensive, assertive deceptive, and assertive honest IM. Job seekers lower in Honesty–Humility use more Facebook IM tactics, whereas those higher in Extraversion use more honest IM and those higher on Conscientiousness use less deceptive IM. Honest IM tactics used on Facebook are positively related to job-search outcomes. This paper therefore extends previous IM research by empirically examining IM use on Facebook, along with its antecedents and outcomes.

Gender-related discourses in corporate annual reports: an exploratory study on the Bangladeshi companies

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore the gender-related discourses in the annual reports of the listed companies in Bangladesh.Design/methodology/approachTo fulfill this objective, a sociological discourse analysis (SDA) of the gender-related texts in the annual reports of Bangladeshi companies (listed in the Dhaka Stock Exchange) was conducted. Sandberg and Holmlund’s (2015) organizational impression management tactics (description, praise, admission, defense and writing styles) was applied as the analytical framework of SDA. The findings of the study were interpreted from a triangulation of two different theories: legitimacy theory and impression management theory.FindingsThe study suggests that the companies in Bangladesh are disclosing gender-related information to a limited extent. They provide some information in relation to equal opportunities, business activities targeted to women and corporate contribution to women’s welfare. Most of these gender-related discourses are rhetorical in nature. The companies used various impression management tactics such as description, praise, positive writing style, vague writing style and emotional writing style.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is exploratory in nature and focuses on cross-sectional data. Thus, it does not identify the trend of corporate gender reporting over the years.Practical implicationsAt the policy level, the findings revealed a need for reporting guidelines for gender narratives. Although there is a global gender reporting guideline as proposed under global reporting initiative, there is no local guideline in Bangladesh. Our findings suggest that in the absence of proper directives, companies presented facts and figures rhetorically and qualitatively.Social implicationsOur findings provide valuable insights for the companies in assisting the Government of Bangladesh to deal with the prevailing gender inequality and achieved gender-related sustainable development goals. It is argued that the government should take more interest in corporate social responsibility activities (such as promoting gender equality) and introduce legislation and guidelines for social accounting.Originality/valueThis is one of the very few studies that illustrate the corporate gender reporting of a developing economy – Bangladesh. To make a unique contribution to corporate gender disclosure, the study has drawn its analysis from a triangulation of the impression management and the legitimacy perspectives. Also, the use of SDA for annual report analysis has informed the readers about “how” the corporate narratives are presented in the annual reports rather than “what” issues are disclosed as commonly done in content analysis.

Employee narcissism and promotability prospects.

IntroductionNarcissistic individuals often rise to positions of influence, but how so? Upward mobility in formal hierarchies is frequently contingent upon supervisory evaluations. We examined the relation between employee narcissism and supervisor promotability ratings, testing predictions from the display of power perspective (narcissism will positively predict promotability due to higher perceived power) and impression management perspective (narcissism will positively predict promotability due to self‐promotion).MethodIn two multisource studies involving employees and their supervisors from diverse organizations (S1: N employees = 166; N supervisors = 93; S2: N employees = 128; N supervisors = 85), we measured employee narcissism (S1, S2), employee sense of power, employee impression management tactics toward the supervisor (S2), and employee promotability as rated by supervisors (S1–S2). Further, in an experiment (S3: N = 181), we tested the causal effect of employee sense of power on promotability.ResultsResults favored the display of power perspective. Although narcissism predicted both higher self‐promotion toward the supervisor and greater sense of power, it was the latter that explained the positive relation between employee narcissism and promotability ratings.ConclusionEmployees high on narcissism act as if they have more power in organizations, and thus, demonstrate behavior that would be expected in higher level positions. The findings help to explain narcissistic individuals' rise through the ranks.

Impression formation of PhD supervisors during student-led selection: An examination of UK business schools with a focus on staff profiles

PhD students are allocated to supervisors in several ways. In Business Schools, the most dominant allocation method is student-led selection. In many cases, this requires students to approach and petition potential supervisors before having had any previous communications with them. Though, given that supervisors possess similar credentials, what evaluation process do students undertake when considering them? To date, research to understand this process is absent. Through the theoretical frame of impression management and the use of in-depth interviews (n = 19), we address this gap. Specifically, we examine how warmth and competence perceptions (i.e. The Big Two impressions) shape supervisor selection. Further, we provide understanding of the role academic staff profiles play in this process. We contribute first, a hierarchy of determinants for supervisor choice in ascending order of importance; gatekeeping attributes, competence, and warmth. Second, we provide a typology of stereotypical supervisors (The Guru, The Friend, The Machine, The Dud) based on informational cues from their profiles (i.e. high competence supervisors as colder, and high warmth staff as less competent). Third, we present a critical understanding of the opportunities and challenges of self-presentation through staff profiles. Finally, we offer specific advice for mobilising impression management tactics in these profiles to best appeal to PhD applicants.

Managing Corporate Social and Environmental Disclosure: An Accountability vs. Impression Management Framework

Institutional environment demands from organizations to be accountable for their social and environmental actions and to provide information allowing the assessment of their long-term prospects for profitability may lead organizations to adopt Impression Management (IM) tactics to manage perceptions. Consequently, organizations may provide accounts demonstrating that they are good corporate citizens and possess the intangible assets required for future good financial performance. Although organizations have increased their corporate social reporting, the quality and reliability of those reports have been questioned. The literature suggests that these disclosures tend to be selective and biased, and do not enhance corporate accountability. This study proposes a formal conceptual framework linking IM, social and environmental accountability, financial performance, and organizational legitimacy. The arguments in this study are of economic, societal, and ethical concern, as IM behaviors may undermine the transparency of social and environmental reporting, and the decoupling between the economic and social image offered by companies through reporting and the reality. These insights also point at the complexities for organizations in dealing with accountability to all stakeholders. The conceptual framework proposed is useful for future studies aiming at understanding how organizations use IM in their corporate social reporting in the accountability process.

Impression Management After Image-Threatening Events

E-cigarette use is a public interest issue and has received increasing attention over the years. JUUL, the biggest brand of e-cigarettes, has been singled out in what the FDA calls a youth e-cigarette epidemic. This study uses impression management theory to examine how JUUL engaged in positive impression management online in response to these image-threatening events. Employing a thematic analysis, this study examines changes in JUUL’s website between April 1, 2018, and October 9, 2019, and Twitter posts between April 28, 2018, and October 18, 2019. Results suggest that JUUL made both textual and visual changes in its messaging over time to engage in positive impression management, while using the impression management tactics of self-promotion, exemplification, and supplication. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

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

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.

The sandwich game: Founder-CEOs and forecasting as impression management

Drawing on impression management and social exchange theory, we examine the use of positively biased forecasts by (non-)founder-CEOs as an impression management tactic vis-à-vis their existing investors. Contrary to their non-founder counterparts, founder-CEOs identify more with the venture they founded and, therefore, experience greater instrumental and affective concerns about the long-term relationship with their investors. Consequently, we hypothesize that founder-CEOs will strategically provide less positively biased forecasts to their investors than non-founder-CEOs. Using two independent samples with revenue forecasts reported to different venture capital investors and a causal chain scenario study consisting of two experiments, we find consistent support for our hypothesis. Overall, this study provides new insights into the use of forecasts as a post-investment impression management tactic by distinct types of CEOs in entrepreneurial ventures.

Applicant Fairness Perceptions of a Robot-Mediated Job Interview: A Video Vignette-Based Experimental Survey.

It is well-established in the literature that biases (e. g., related to body size, ethnicity, race etc.) can occur during the employment interview and that applicants' fairness perceptions related to selection procedures can influence attitudes, intentions, and behaviors toward the recruiting organization. This study explores how social robotics may affect this situation. Using an online, video vignette-based experimental survey (n = 235), the study examines applicant fairness perceptions of two types of job interviews: a face-to-face and a robot-mediated interview. To reduce the risk of socially desirable responses, desensitize the topic, and detect any inconsistencies in the respondents' reactions to vignette scenarios, the study employs a first-person and a third-person perspective. In the robot-mediated interview, two teleoperated robots are used as fair proxies for the applicant and the interviewer, thus providing symmetrical visual anonymity unlike prior research that relied on asymmetrical anonymity, in which only one party was anonymized. This design is intended to eliminate visual cues that typically cause implicit biases and discrimination of applicants, but also to prevent biasing the interviewer's assessment through impression management tactics typically used by applicants. We hypothesize that fairness perception (i.e., procedural fairness and interactional fairness) and behavioral intentions (i.e., intentions of job acceptance, reapplication intentions, and recommendation intentions) will be higher in a robot-mediated job interview than in a face-to-face job interview, and that this effect will be stronger for introvert applicants. The study shows, contrary to our expectations, that the face-to-face interview is perceived as fairer, and that the applicant's personality (introvert vs. extravert) does not affect this perception. We discuss this finding and its implications, and address avenues for future research.

CEO letters: Hospitality corporate narratives during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For hospitality organizations, the need for compelling corporate narratives is particularly acute in dealing with the COVID-19 crisis due to the scope and severity of its threat to employees, customers, the general public, and the fundamental survival of the company itself. Thus, this study aims to identify corporate narrative strategies and examine how hospitality companies deploy such narrative strategies with impression management tactics during the COVID-19 pandemic. Anchored in the Aristotelian concept of persuasive rhetoric and impression management theory, this study content-analyzed 57 CEO letters published by hospitality companies during the COVID-19 outbreak and found the prevalent rhetoric appeals and patterns of rhetoric appeals with impression management tactics embedded in the letters.

Nonlinearity in the relationship between impression management tactics and interview performance

AbstractThis study examined the linear and nonlinear relationships between applicant impression management (IM) behaviors during the interview and subsequent interview performance. We proposed that honest IM would have a nonlinear effect on interview performance, whereas deceptive IM would demonstrate a linear effect. Hypotheses were examined using a sample of 693 high‐fidelity interviews. Results indicated that honest IM has a nonlinear relationship with interview performance, such that honest IM appears to only be effective up to a particular point, after which it becomes detrimental. Conversely, the relationship between deceptive IM and interview performance was more linear and negative. This study contributes to our understanding of IM by demonstrating that the effects of IM on performance are more complex than previously identified.

Shake and Fake: the Role of Interview Anxiety in Deceptive Impression Management

We investigated whether anxiety about self-presentation concerns during interviews (i.e., interview anxiety) is associated with applicants’ use of deceptive impression management (IM) tactics. We examined the relationship between interview anxiety and deceptive IM, and we examined whether the personality traits of honesty-humility and extraversion would be indirectly related to deceptive IM through interview anxiety. Participants (N = 202) were recruited after an interview for a research assistant position. Interview anxiety scores were positively related to deceptive IM. Furthermore, there was evidence of a negative indirect effect of honesty-humility on deceptive IM, via overall interview anxiety. Also, extraversion was indirectly associated with deceptive IM through interview anxiety. Results suggest that deceptive IM can be used as a protective mechanism to maintain self-esteem or to avoid the loss of rewards. This paper is the first to examine the role of interview anxiety in interview faking.