Does political skill promote knowledge hiding? An impression management perspective

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to critically review the extant western literature on political skill and impression management in human resource management and organisational behaviour and applies an inductive approach to explore an equal Chinese concept of office politics in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).Design/methodology/approachAn empirical study conducted in a wide range of Chinese organisational forms, employing an inductive approach based on critical incident technique.FindingsData collected from 173 employees supported this model and indicated the existence of 14 clusters of behaviours that characterise political skill, impression management and the overlap between the two. Extending impression management theory, the authors found that individual players’ political skill drives the dynamics of Chinese office politics and may help a subordinate gain a favourable image with superiors and serve as the overlap between individual political skill and impression management from the Chinese perspective.Originality/valueThe authors used a grounded theory approach to report the construct of a Chinese concept of office politics in the PRC, which is much similar to the western concept of political skill in organisation. Compared with western political skill literature, this study found both universal and cultural-specific phenomena on political perspective in Chinese organisations.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the moderating effects of social competencies, specifically, political skill, self‐monitoring and emotional intelligence, on the workplace conflict‐abusive behavior relationship.Design/methodology/approachThe study utilized data collected from graduate and undergraduate students majoring in psychology, management, human relations and social work who were recruited from two mid‐sized mid‐western universities. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to test the study hypotheses.FindingsResults indicated that interpersonal conflict in the workplace is associated with employee engagement in counterproductive work behaviors. Results also suggested that social competencies interacted with interpersonal conflict to predict the likelihood of abusing others at work. Politically skilled workers and high self‐monitors were more likely to engage in abusive behaviors when experiencing high levels of interpersonal workplace conflict.Originality/valueThe study is the first to show that certain social competencies may actually have negative ramifications in the workplace. Specifically, individuals who are politically skilled and/or high self‐monitors are more likely to abuse others when they themselves experience interpersonal conflict.

In this study, the authors investigated the effect of an individual's political skill on the relationships between 5 different impression management tactics (intimidation, exemplification, ingratiation, self-promotion, and supplication) and supervisor evaluations of performance. To test these relationships, the authors used a matched sample of 173 supervisor-subordinate dyads who worked full time in a state agency. Findings showed that individuals who used high levels of any of the tactics and who were politically skilled achieved more desirable supervisor ratings than did those who used the tactics but were not politically skilled. Opposite results were found when impression management usage was low. That is, individuals who were not politically skilled created a more desirable image in their supervisors' eyes than did their politically skilled counterparts when they did not use these tactics. Practical and research implications for the findings as well as directions for future research are offered.

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.

Recent studies have attempted to clarify the detrimental consequences of compulsory citizenship behaviors (CCB; employees are pressured or forced to engage in extra-role activities). Based on the retributive justice and impression management perspectives, we simultaneously examine potentially harmful outcomes (i.e., destructive voice, DSV) and constructive outcomes (organizational citizenship behaviors, OCB) of CCB, and propose justice and impression management mechanisms and boundaries to explain the dark and potential bright sides of CCB. Data was collected from 276 supervisor-subordinate pairs across various industries at different time points. The results show that CCB increases DSV through increased perceived distributive injustice, while employees’ equity sensitivity further enhances such effects. Moreover, the indirect effect of CCB on OCB via increased impression management motive depends on employees’ self-monitoring: it becomes positive when employees rate high in self-monitoring. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Enhancing financial performance with social media: An impression management perspective

Research has shown that impression management helps entrepreneurs access critical resources, but insights into applying concrete impression management techniques in new venture recruitment remain scarce. This knowledge gap represents a challenge for new ventures facing disadvantages in recruitment. We propose self‐presentations of entrepreneurial hustle as an effective impression management technique for entrepreneurs. Such self‐presentations to applicants increase the perceived competence and thereby the attractiveness of entrepreneurs' new ventures. We introduce applicants' individual entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurs' gender as factors influencing the relationship between entrepreneurial hustle and perceived entrepreneurial competence. Employing an experimental vignette methodology across three samples – a main sample drawn from mTurk (N = 613) and two additional samples from Prolific (N = 130) and German management students (N = 188) – we find that perceived competence mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial hustle and perceived organizational attractiveness. While individual entrepreneurial orientation weakens the effect of entrepreneurial hustle self‐presentations on perceived competence, we do not find an influence of entrepreneurs' gender. This research indicates mechanisms and contingencies regarding the effect of entrepreneurial hustle self‐presentations. Our results advance not only research on entrepreneurial hustle but also theory on interviewer‐level impression management and new venture recruitment.

We examined how knowledge sharing behavior on social network sites is associated with impression management motivations as knowledge sharing can be regarded as a self-representation behavior that people perform to impress others. We collected data through an online survey in which 705 respondents participated. To answer the research questions and test hypotheses, a set of hierarchical regression models were employed. We found that both motivation for impression management and the explanatory variables of self-determination theory played important roles in explaining knowledge sharing behavior on Facebook. However, the explanatory variables of self-determination theory were positively associated with the dependent variable, whereas motivations for impression management were negatively associated. We further found that the exact relationship between the motivation to impress others and knowledge sharing varied according to the topic of the knowledge that people shared on Facebook. That is, impression management motivation played a more negative role for topics that require more expertise, such as “politics,” “economics,” and “health” topics, than for more casual topics. This suggests that people might have greater fear of negative evaluation when they are considering posts related to “politics,” “economics,” and “health” topics.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of employees' upward self-presentation through modesty and political skill on their subsequent career success. Study 1 used a predictive design over a 3 year period with 141 employees, controlling for age, gender, and self-esteem. Political skill positively moderated the relationship between employees' upward modesty and career success (attained position, career satisfaction) after 3 years. Study 2 (n = 132 employees) provided construct validation, demonstrating high discriminant validity of the impression management through modesty scale used in Study 1 with a trait-modesty scale, thus attenuating rival explanations of the findings in Study 1. Implications, limitations, and future directions for research are discussed.

With the widespread fusion of social media and knowledge economy, paid Q&A platform has become one of the most prominent ways for people to seek knowledge online. More and more users enroll as answerers to answer questions for gaining extra money, so it is necessary for them to find out ways to attract more askers in this competitive market. When investigating influential factors on the ask intention, most previous research focuses on the objective data displayed on answerers’ accounts such as number of followers and price per question, while largely ignores the information that was voluntarily disclosed by answerers. In this regard, we draw from impression management theory to explore the role of answerers’ self-image which is built through active information disclosure in this Q&A process. We constructed a cross-sectional dataset with 9,887 answerers on Weibo Q&A platform to test hypotheses. Using zero-inflated negative binomial model, we find that the congruence between answerers’ self-image and their provided knowledge has a significant positive impact on knowledge seekers’ ask intention. Particularly, the larger the congruence between those actively disclosed text information (i.e., biography) and picture information (i.e., avatar) and provided knowledge, the higher the askers’ willingness to ask questions. Managerial implications on paid Q&A platforms are thus provided.

A plenty of studies have demonstrated that political skill is beneficial to followers in interpersonal interactions. Based on social influence theory, our research challenges previous wisdom by identifying the potential dark side of follower political skill. We propose that leader-perceived follower political skill can lead to the conjecture of follower manipulation tendency, which further decreases the leader’s motivation to build a relationship with such a follower. Furthermore, we suggest that follower political skill can be observed through by the leader only when the leader has high political skill. To test our hypotheses, we conducted an Implicit Association Test and a field study with a multiple-source, time-lagged design, in which the results supported our hypotheses. Taken together, our research reveals the perils of follower political skill and the importance of examining the characteristics of influence target in the social influence process.

Faced with a growing number of countries considered hyperinflationary, this study explores the characteristics of reporting related to the application of IAS 29 within CAC 40 groups. We present IAS 29 Financial Reporting in Hyperinflationary Economies, as well as a literature review of its application. From an impression management perspective, the annual reports (2023) from the groups with holdings in Argentina and Turkey were studied. This analysis shows that some of the companies concerned by the standard make no mention of it. If they do, different degrees of detail are provided, ranging from the mention of a non-significant effect, without presenting a materiality criterion, to the calculation of a comparable turnover excluding hyperinflation. This heterogeneity calls into question the compliance, completeness, and comparability of information. It examines the willingness of groups to commit to a dynamic of impression management on performance in a hyperinflationary context.

This article links institutional and impression management perspectives in a process model of how controversial and possibly unlawful actions of members of organizations can lead to endorsement and support from key constituencies. This model is grounded in interview, archival, and observational data concerning eight illegitimate actions attributed to members of two social movement organizations. We found that institutional conformity and decoupling illegitimate activities from legitimate structures facilitated spokespersons’ efforts to use impression management tactics that shifted attention away from the controversial actions and toward the socially desirable goals endorsed by broader constituencies. As a result, these organizations used publicity generated by illegitimate actions to obtain endorsement and support from those constituencies. We discuss the implications of the model for other kinds of organizations and derive testable propositions. We also consider implications for institutional and impres...

Workplace ostracism (WO) has an unfavourable impression on the outcomes of employees. For the past few years, its power has grown as a type of “cold violence” in several categories of organizations. The purpose of the present research is to find significant contributors, current dynamics, domains and advocates further directions in the study arena of workplace ostracism. The paper adopted content analysis (CA), bibliometrics and network analysis (NA) on a sample of 144 documents extracted from Web of Science and Scopus database to observe the research happenings that have occupied a place on this theme. The key research focus is mainly on theory testing related to WO. Workplace ostracism antecedents, consequences, job performance, social ostracism, workplace incivility, social exclusion, emotional exhaustion, psychological empowerment, counterproductive work behavior, proactive customer service performance, proactive personality and political skill, emotional silence and model of workplace ostracism are also prominent research issues in this arena. After observing the different perspectives of the study like initial data structures, bibliometric, network and content analysis, the study will assist as a fundamental base for understanding the concept of WO in various organizations, its recent footprints and the direction where the research is evolving. Unlike the prior analysis, the study methodology used in this research is an amalgamation of network and content analysis and systematic literature review, which enabled the recognition of the intellectual structure to produce an inclusive summary of the study area.

Christian higher education has been experiencing frequent transformational organizational change (e.g., downsizing, elimination of departments, technological innovations, addition of majors, etc.). These changes are significantly impacting faculty members. In other contexts, researchers have asserted that organizational change correlates with interpersonal conflict for employees and that such conflict is associated with counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs). If these associations are occurring for faculty members in Christian higher education, the result of CWBs as well as the consequences of conflict could result in lowered faculty engagement levels, turnover intentions, and other typical negative behaviors reflective of these variables in other contexts. Because faculty members in Christian higher education institutions are a vital link to student learning and faith integration within the curriculum, it is important for leaders to understand how change efforts might have unintended consequences that ultimately could undermine change efforts and impact the student experience. We utilized a multivariate analysis of theoretically identified variables related to CWBs, while examining faculty alignment with university values. A cross-sectional survey design assessed faculty (N = 267) perceptions of organizational change, interpersonal conflict, CWBs, and organizational identification at five Christian universities. The results indicated that organizational change was significantly correlated with interpersonal conflict and conflict was significantly correlated with CWBs. Organizational identification revealed an intervening effect on conflict and CWBs. A model applying open systems theory suggested that leaders in Christian higher education must consider the systemic effects of organizational change as they implement change initiatives.