Reward Recommendations Research Articles

Reaching the Top? Profiles of Impression Management and Career Success

AbstractEmployees use impression management (IM) tactics to influence their image at work. Whereas findings regarding the effects of IM on interview outcomes and performance evaluations are extensive, our understanding of the career implications of IM is both limited and inconclusive. In this two-study paper, we used latent profile analysis to better understand the relationship between the use of five IM tactics in combination—ingratiation, self-promotion, exemplification, intimidation, and supplication—and multiple indicators of objective career success (i.e., salary, promotions, and supervisor-rated reward recommendations) and subjective career success. Four different IM profiles were identified in a sample of 237 employees in Study 1 and which were replicated in Study 2 with 268 employees. In Study 1, we found that the highest levels of salaries and promotions (reflecting objective career success) were associated with a passive use of IM (i.e., employing all five IM strategies at low frequency), thereby running counter to our initial expectations. In contrast, the highest level of subjective career success was associated with a positive use of IM (i.e., a pattern employing the three positive strategies ingratiation, self-promotion and exemplification at higher levels). In Study 2, we found positive use of IM to be associated with the highest level of supervisor-rated reward recommendations as a further indicator of objective career success (followed by passives with the second highest reward recommendations). Our findings highlight the importance of viewing objective and subjective career success as qualitatively different constructs and suggest benefits of employing passive IM use for objective career success.

Daily Lunch Break Profiles and Work-Related Outcomes for Working Mothers

Working mothers face tremendous pressures at home and at work, yet research has not examined how daily factors may affect resource generation that can enhance work outcomes for this segment of the population. We examine how working mothers use their lunch breaks, the longest within-workday break, and the impact of these choices on generating resources and enhancing productivity at work. Using a person-centered approach, we conduct an experience sampling study of 168 fulltime working mothers to observe how various combinations of lunch break activities generate post-lunch self-efficacy and subsequent end-of-workday work engagement and performance gains. Four distinct profiles of lunch break activities are identified: typical, socializing, multitasking, and working lunches. Each profile has unique within-person proximal and distal outcomes. Further, at the person level, self-efficacy impacts working mothers’ career outcomes in terms of reward recommendations, with career commitment strengthening this effect. This research provides a foundation for understanding the impact of working mothers’ within-workday lunch break activity choices and underscores the importance of using lunch breaks wisely.

Stay Humble and Fly High: The Roles of Subordinate Voice and Competitive Work Context in the Linkage Between Leader Humility and Career Success

This study examines the relationship between leaders’ humility and their career success. We propose that humble leaders are more likely to occupy central positions in their subordinate teams’ voice networks where they improve their own performance and gain favorable reward recommendations. We also argue that in seemingly disadvantageous competitive work contexts, humble leaders become more central in the team voice network and increase their career prospects. We found support for these hypotheses in a multisource field study of 116 supervisors, 461 subordinates, and 34 shop managers from a Chinese company and in a vignette-based experiment with 233 working adults. Theoretical and practical implications for career success, leader humility, and voice literature are discussed.

Role Overload and Work Performance: The Role of Psychological Strain and Leader-Member Exchange.

The relation between role overload and work performance remains insufficiently understood. Drawing upon conservation of resources theory, we expected role overload to negatively relate to performance through psychological strain and this relation to be buffered by leader–member exchange (LMX). Study 1 (N = 212) examined depression as a severe type of strain that mediates between role overload and in-role performance, job dedication, and voice behavior. Study 2 (N = 191) used generic, perceived strain as a mediator between role overload and in-role performance and reward recommendations. Both studies tested LMX’s buffering effect, controlling for role ambiguity and conflict. A supplementary panel study (N = 99) assessed the temporal relationship between role overload and strain. Role overload triggered psychological strain, which undermined performance, and LMX acted as a buffer on role overload, but not on role ambiguity or role conflict. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and practice.

Is performance evaluation gendered for behavioural dimension?

PurposeResearches have already pointed out the linkage between pro-male bias and performance evaluation system. The main aim of this study is to understand how far different dimensions of performance measures are susceptible to gender stereotype.Design/methodology/approachTwo separate experimental researches were designed to understand whether the performance assessment is purely based on objective criteria or it is governed by the gender stereotype. Two different performance dimensions of assessment were considered in this study as follows: interactional (behavioural) and procedural. 129 customer care managers from four metro cities of India voluntarily participated in this experimental research and played the role of performance evaluator. These managers were placed in different experimental conditions related to different combinations of gender and justice variations (interactional or procedural).FindingsThis study reveals that in violation of behaviour-based performance norm (interactional justice norm), female employees were rated less favourably than male employee both in terms of performance rating and reward recommendation by the managers, but it is not in case of procedural justice violation.Originality/valueThis article has experimentally proved how gender stereotype can distort the performance evaluation of behavioural dimension.

Supervisor‐Directed Emotional Labor as Upward Influence: An Emotions‐as‐Social‐Information Perspective

SummaryTo access organizational resources, subordinates often strive to influence supervisors' impressions. Moreover, subordinates' interactions with supervisors are known to be ripe with emotions. Nevertheless, research on upward impression management has rarely examined how subordinates' emotion regulation in supervisor interactions may shape their tangible outcomes. The present study introduces subordinates' emotional labor toward supervisors as a novel means of upward influence. Building on the emotions‐as‐social‐information model, we propose that supervisor‐directed emotional labor indirectly relates with supervisory reward recommendations by shaping supervisors' liking and perceived competence of subordinates. Moreover, we cast supervisors' epistemic motivation as a boundary condition for these indirect relations. We tested these notions using time‐lagged data from 377 subordinates and 91 supervisors. When supervisors' epistemic motivation was higher (but not lower), (1) supervisor‐directed surface acting related negatively with supervisors' liking and perceived competence of subordinates and (2) supervisor‐directed deep acting related positively with supervisors' liking of subordinates. Liking and perceived competence, in turn, related positively with supervisors' willingness to recommend subordinates for organizational rewards. These findings highlight supervisor‐directed emotional labor as an upward impression management strategy with both beneficial (deep acting) and detrimental (surface acting) implications, and they illustrate important mechanisms and a key contingency factor for these consequences.

Interactional Justice-related Bias and Its Impact on Appraiser’s Decision-making Process: An Experimental Approach

Interactional justice refers to the fairness in interpersonal treatment received by an individual both before and after the decision-making. Violation of interactional justice leads to the negative consequences. Literature on organizational justice has already identified the influence of gender on interactional justice. Current research is based on Indian context, where numerous intergroup relations create a different group dynamics. In India, apart from gender, religious stereotyping also plays a significant role in social context. The present experimental study investigates how appraiser’s decision on performance rating and reward recommendation is influenced by interactional justice-related stereotype. This study was conducted on Hindu (240) and Muslim (240) postgraduate students of Indian universities in two experimentations. Result reveals the influence of gender and religious bias on appraiser’s decision-making on performance-based reward system. It has been observed that if there is a violation of interactional justice, female employees sharing the same religious group membership with the appraiser are subjected to the most unfavorable performance rating and reward recommendation. Again, in case of interactional justice adherence, this group is rewarded with the maximum benefit. The whole analysis reveals that performance evaluators expect interactional justice from female employee of their own religious group membership. If there is a violation, this group will be the maximum sufferer.

Getting credit for OCBs: potential costs of being a good actor vs. a good soldier

ABSTRACTEmploying a sample of 197 employee-supervisor dyads, we explore whether employees’ attitudes and underlying motivation for engaging in organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) differentially relate to supervisors’ assessments of their individual performance and reward recommendations. We theorized that employees who perform OCBs with self-serving motives would be low on affective commitment and high on equity sensitivity, and that such individuals would receive lower performance ratings and fewer reward recommendations than those who are high on affective commitment, low on equity sensitivity, and more selflessly motivated. Our results suggest that employees with high affective commitment, low equity sensitivity, and high selfless motives were more likely to receive positive supervisor performance ratings and high reward recommendations. We also found that affective commitment moderated the mediating path of prosocial values (a selfless motive) on the relationship between OCBs and reward recommendations. Practical implications and future research directions are discussed.

Unspoken yet Understood: An Introduction and Initial Framework of Subordinates’MoqiWith Supervisors

Across two studies and five samples, we introduce the Chinese construct of moqi (a tacit understanding of another person’s expectations and intentions) as a key, but heretofore overlooked, aspect of supervisor–subordinate relationships. In Study 1, using qualitative and quantitative methods, we develop a subordinate-focused moqi scale and establish its discriminant and criterion-related validity. In Study 2, using three-wave data from three sources (subordinates, coworkers, and supervisors), we test an integrative, information-based model explicating (1) subordinates’ actions that are useful in acquiring the necessary information to develop moqi with their supervisor; (2) boundary conditions affecting subordinates’ sensitivity to information and, hence, their development of moqi with the supervisor; and (3) the informational process underlying subordinate moqi’s positive relationship with work effectiveness. Findings suggest that subordinates’ implicit and explicit feedback seeking positively predicted their subsequent perceptions of moqi with a supervisor and, moreover, that the relationship between implicit feedback seeking and subordinate moqi is enhanced by higher subordinate power distance orientation and face consciousness. Results also indicate that subordinate moqi influences task performance and reward recommendations for subordinates via the mediation of increased goal clarity, and the indirect effects is more pronounced for subordinates with higher power distance orientation. We offer an important discussion of moqi’s cultural nuances and make several suggestions for a robust future research agenda.

Are organizational justice rules gendered? Reactions to men's and women's justice violations.

Research has shown that gender role prescriptions can bias reactions to men's and women's work behaviors. The current work draws upon this idea and extends it to consider violations of procedural and interactional justice rules. The results of four experimental studies demonstrate that men and women receive differential performance evaluation ratings and reward recommendations when they violate those organizational justice rules that coincide with the content of prescriptive gender stereotypes. Specifically, women were rated less favorably than men when they exhibited interactional injustice (Study 1 and Study 4), but not when they engaged in procedural injustice (Study 2). Findings also indicate that interactional justice violations (e.g., being impolite, not caring about the well-being of subordinates), but not procedural justice violations, are deemed less acceptable for female managers than male managers (Study 3). Overall, the findings suggest that reactions to injustice can be influenced by expectations of how men and women should behave. (PsycINFO Database Record

Penalizing Men Who Request a Family Leave: Is Flexibility Stigma a Femininity Stigma?

Men who request a family leave are viewed as poor organizational citizens and ineligible for rewards. In addition to a poor worker stigma, we found that male leave requesters suffer femininity stigma. Compared with control targets, male leave requesters were viewed as higher on weak, feminine traits (e.g., weak and uncertain), and lower on agentic masculine traits (e.g., competitive and ambitious). Perceptions of weakness uniquely predicted greater risk for penalties (e.g., being demoted or downsized) and fully accounted for the effect of poor worker stigma on male leave requesters’ penalties. By contrast, the poor worker stigma and both agency and weakness perceptions contributed to their reward recommendations. Results were comparable regardless of the reason given for requesting a family leave, target race (White or Black), and participant gender. The implications of these findings for work–life balance and gender equality are discussed.

Helping yourself by helping others: examining personality perceptions

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate experimentally the effect of altruistic behavior on personality perceptions, advancement potential, and reward recommendations and assess whether personality perceptions serve as a mediating mechanism between altruistic behavior and job ratings (e.g. advancement potential).Design/methodology/approachA randomized experimental design was used to investigate the mediating effect of personality perceptions on the relationship between altruistic behavior and advancement potential and reward recommendations.FindingsIt was found that altruistic employees were perceived as having more favorable personality characteristics and received higher advancement potential ratings and greater reward recommendations than their less altruistic counterparts. In addition, personality perceptions were found to mediate partially the relation between altruistic behavior and job ratings (i.e. advancement potential and reward recommendations).Originality/valueResearch findings on citizenship behavior and personality are often based on the results of non‐experimental designs. This paper utilized a randomized experiment to investigate a mediating effect using a contemporary approach for testing hypothesized mediation.

Linking subordinate political skill to supervisor dependence and reward recommendations: A moderated mediation model.

In this study, we examined the relations of subordinate political skill with supervisor's dependence on the subordinate and supervisor reward recommendation, as well as mediating (interaction frequency with supervisor) and moderating (supervisor political behavior) variables of these relations. Our theoretical model was tested using data collected from employees in a company that specialized in construction management. Analyses of multisource and lagged data from 53 construction management team supervisors and 296 subordinates indicated that subordinate political skill was positively related to supervisor reward recommendation via subordinate's interaction frequency with supervisor. Although interaction frequency with a supervisor was also positively related to the supervisor's dependence on the subordinate, the indirect effect of subordinate political skill on dependence was not significant. Further, both the relationship between subordinate political skill and interaction frequency with a supervisor and the indirect relationships between subordinate political skill and supervisor reward recommendation were stronger when supervisors exhibited more political behavior.

Beyond Performance Evaluations...Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Outcomes

Although there is a great deal of work examining outcomes of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), the vast majority of work at the individual level has focused on the outcome of performance evaluations. Although an important outcome, it is fairly clear that OCB contributes positively to performance evaluations. In this symposium, we hope to move beyond performance evaluations and investigate new outcomes of OCB. In this proposed symposium, the set of four papers examines a diverse set of outcomes, including hiring decisions and entry salary recommendations, psychological well-being and positive affect, supervisory reward recommendations, and specific career outcomes (e.g., promotion decisions, actual reward decisions). The set of papers includes both conceptual and empirical work, as well as both field and experimental studies. In limiting the number of papers to four, we hope to stimulate new thinking on outcomes of OCB and generate discussion about additional research directions. Our discussant, Elizabeth Morrison, will lend her expertise in commenting on the set of papers.Selecting Good Soldiers Versus Avoiding Bad ApplesPresenter: Timothy D. Maynes; Indiana U.Presenter: Steven Whiting; Indiana U.Presenter: Nathan Philip Podsakoff; U. of ArizonaFrom Helping to Happy: Why Being Neurotic Isn’t So BadPresenter: Matthias Spitzmueller; National U. of SingaporePresenter: David T. Wagner; Singapore Management U.Presenter: You Jin Kim; Michigan State U.Presenter: Linn Van Dyne; Michigan State U.Presenter: Remus Ilies; National U. of SingaporeA Social Information Processing Model of Task and Contextual PerformancePresenter: Riki Takeuchi; Hong Kong U. of Science and TechnologyPresenter: Cass Shum; Hong Kong U. of Science and TechnologyPresenter: Dan S. Chiaburu; Texas A&M U.The Moderating Effect of Reward System on the Relationship Between Citizenship Behavior and OutcomesPresenter: Diane Bergeron; Case Western Reserve U.Presenter: Jaron Harvey; U. of AlabamaPresenter: Mark C. Bolino; U. of OklahomaPresenter: Anthony Klotz; U. of Oklahoma - Norman

A Woman’s Place and a Man’s Duty: How Gender Role Incongruence in One’s Family Life Can Result in Home-Related Spillover Discrimination at Work

The purpose of this study was to investigate how gender role incongruence in terms of women being primary wage earners and males being secondary wage earners in their families could affect them at work. Using an experimental design and a sample of 306 college students, I explored how females who are the primary wage earners in their families and males who are the secondary wage earners are perceived and evaluated in a work setting. I proposed, and found, that female primary wage earners are seen as the least overqualified and are given lower reward recommendations than equally qualified male peers (i.e., peers with exactly the same credentials and job performance). Male secondary wage earners are seen as being the most overqualified and are given higher reward recommendations than equally qualified female peers. Results demonstrate how the lack of fit model, which has been shown to penalize women who succeed in traditionally masculine domains (Dipboye, Acad Manag Rev 10:16–127, 1985; Heilman, Res Organ Behav 5:269–298, 1983, J Soc Issues 57:657–674, 2001), can be applied to situations where gender-incongruent behavior exists in the form of women being primary wage earners in their families. I refer to this phenomenon as “home-related spillover discrimination,” named after the spillover effects that derive from societal expectations that are transferred into employment situations (Nieva and Gutek, Acad Manag Rev 5:267–276, 1980). The practical implication of this finding is that this may present a new form of sex discrimination against women that has not yet been considered. This is the first study to show how violating stereotypical roles in terms of family wage earner status can influence outcomes in work settings.

Employee self-enhancement motives and job performance behaviors: Investigating the moderating effects of employee role ambiguity and managerial perceptions of employee commitment.

This study examined the effects of employee self-enhancement motives on job performance behaviors (organizational citizenship behaviors and task performance) and the value of these behaviors to them. The authors propose that employees display job performance behaviors in part to enhance their self-image, especially when their role is not clearly defined. They further argue that the effects of these behaviors on managerial reward recommendation decisions should be stronger when managers believe the employees to be more committed. The results from a sample of 84 working students indicate that role ambiguity moderated the effects of self-enhancement motives on job performance behaviors and that managerial perceptions of an employee's commitment moderated the effects of those organizational citizenship behaviors that are aimed at other individuals on managers' reward allocation decisions.

What is acceptable for women may not be for men: The effect of family conflicts with work on job‐performance ratings

We conducted a laboratory study examining the effect of a family conflict with work on performance appraisal ratings given to men and women. Overall, the experience of a family conflict was associated with lower performance ratings, and ratee sex moderated this relationship. Men who experienced a family conflict received lower overall performance ratings and lower reward recommendations than men who did not, whereas ratings of women were unaffected by the experience of a family conflict. The sex bias was not evident when performance was evaluated on the more specific dimension of planning. Neither rater gender nor work‐family role attitudes moderated the sex bias. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

The influence of Ratee Gender on Ratings of Organizational Citizenship Behavior1

Two studies were conducted to examine discrepancies in the evaluation of men and women regarding the performance of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). In Study 1, base‐rate differences in the perceived frequency and value of citizenship behaviors performed by males and females were investigated. A gender by job type interaction was found indicating that women were perceived to engage in OCB more frequently than were men in gender‐neutral and male‐typed jobs. No gender differences were found regarding the value associated with citizenship behaviors. In Study 2, undergraduates rated videotaped male and female instructors who exhibited different levels of OCB. Results revealed a gender by OCB interaction such that more accurate behavioral observations were made when observing males exhibiting OCB and females exhibiting no OCB than when observing males who did not exhibit OCB and females who did exhibit OCB. No gender by OCB interactions were found with regard to ratings of overall performance evaluation or reward recommendations.

Parental Leave of Absence: Some Not So Family‐Friendly Implications1

This experiment examined the effects of ratee gender, type of leave of absence, and level of performance on perceptions of organizational commitment, work commitment, family commitment, and recommendations for organizational rewards. The proposed 3‐way interactions between gender, type of leave of absence, and performance level were not supported; however, main effects and 2‐way interactions were revealed. Moreover, perceived organizational commitment and work commitment were found to moderate the relationship between performance level and reward recommendations. The findings also indicated that men who were depicted as taking a leave of absence from work for parental reasons were less likely to be recommended for rewards than were males who had not taken a leave of absence.

Evidence for terror management theory: I. The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values.

On the basis of terror management theory, it was hypothesized that when mortality is made salient, Ss would respond especially positively toward those who uphold cultural values and especially negatively toward those who violate cultural values. In Experiment 1, judges recommended especially harsh bonds for a prostitute when mortality was made salient. Experiment 2 replicated this finding with student Ss and demonstrated that it occurs only among Ss with relatively negative attitudes toward prostitution. Experiment 3 demonstrated that mortality salience also leads to larger reward recommendations for a hero who upheld cultural values. Experiments 4 and 5 showed that the mortality salience effect does not result from heightened self-awareness or physiological arousal. Experiment 6 replicated the punishment effect with a different mortality salience manipulation. Implications for the role of fear of death in social behavior are discussed.