Doing More Harm Than Good: When Is Impression Management Likely to Evoke a Negative Response?

Impression management tactics do not always successfully influence observers, and may in fact create undesirable impressions. Hypotheses are derived concerning the conditions under which observers may respond more or less positively to impression management tactics. Qualitative data from an experiment manipulating two impression management tactics—self-handicapping and causal accounts—in conjunction with successful or failed performance outcomes were content-analyzed for subjects' general impressions of an actor. In turn, these ratings were subjected to an ANOVA. Results suggest that impression management tactics are differentially effective and under certain conditions can actually create negative images. The consistency of impression management tactics, performance outcomes, and observers' expectations form the basis for observers' general impressions of impression managers.     

Proactive personality and career success.

This study examined the relationship between proactive personality and career success by surveying a sample of 496 employees (320 men and 176 women) from a diverse set of occupations and organizations. Proactive personality was positively associated with both self-reported objective (salary and promotions) and subjective (career satisfaction) indicators of career success. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that proactive personality explained additional variance in both objective and subjective career success even after controlling for several relevant variables (demographic, human capital, motivational, organizational, and industry) that have previously been found to be predictive of career outcomes. These findings were consistent using both self-report and significant--other ratings of proactive personality.     

Handicapping: the effects of its source and frequency

Using a sample of 246 working adults, the authors created a 2 x 2 x 2 experimental design to isolate the influence of performance outcome, source of handicapping, and frequency of handicapping on reactions to handicapping in organizations. Dependent measures were observers' allocations of credit/blame, interpersonal affect, and the perceived credibility of the explanation. Results showed direct effects on observer impressions for all 3 independent variables, along with a significant Source x Frequency interaction. Handicapping information presented by others yielded more favorable observer impressions than did self-handicapping, and frequent handicapping decreased observer impressions. The least credible handicapping strategy was multiple self-handicaps. A significant 3-way interaction showed that source and frequency affected perceived credibility differently, depending upon whether actual performance was a success or a failure.     

Proactive Personality, Employee Creativity, and Newcomer Outcomes: A Longitudinal Study

Purpose  To examine the relationship between proactive personality, employee creativity, and newcomer outcomes (i.e., career satisfaction and perceived insider status). Design/methodology/approach   A survey was conducted using a 3-wave longitudinal design with 146 Hong Kong Chinese employees from various organizations. Structural equation modeling was used to test the research hypotheses including the mediation effects. Findings   Proactive personality was positively associated with employee creativity and employee creativity was positively associated with career satisfaction and perceived insider status. In addition, employee creativity fully mediated the relationships between proactive personality and career satisfaction and perceived insider status. Implications   Based on self-reported responses, these data show that newcomers with a proactive personality shape their work environments in part through creative behavior, which in turn leads to feelings of career satisfaction and perceptions of being an organizational insider. Our study’s results also show that employee creativity is positively and significantly related to workers’ career satisfaction and perceived insider status, suggesting that employee creativity can improve employees’ attitudes toward their career and perceptions as valued and contributing organizational insiders. Future research may examine other possible variables that might mediate the relationship between proactive personality and individual outcomes. Originality/value  One of the few studies that have examined the intervening mechanism by which proactive personality leads to employee outcomes and examined the effects of proactive personality on employee outcomes in Asian culture. Received and reviewed by former editor, George Neuman.     

Role stressors and counterproductive work behavior: The role of negative affect and proactive personality

Based on the stressor‐emotion model, we propose that negative affect mediates the relationship between three role stressors (i.e., role ambiguity, role conflict, and role overload) and counterproductive work behavior (CWB), while proactive personality moderates the relationships between negative affect, role stressors, and CWB. We tested our hypotheses using data from 332 employees in Mainland China. We found that negative affect mediated the relationships between the three dimensions of role stressors and CWB. Role ambiguity was most strongly associated with CWB, followed by role conflict and then role overload. Proactive personality moderated the role ambiguity‐negative affect, role conflict‐negative affect, and negative affect‐CWB relationships, but not the relationship between role overload and negative affect.     

Proactive yet reflective? Materializing proactive personality into creativity through job reflective learning and activated positive affective states

Studies linking proactive personality to creativity have primarily taken a future-oriented perspective, describing a process where individuals assess future opportunities and risks of creative endeavors. Complementing this approach, we draw on an attribution theory perspective to delineate how proactive personality relates to employee creativity through the serial mediating effects of job reflective learning—a backward-looking cognitive process—and activated positive affective states. Job reflective learning captures backward-looking self-assessments and the underlying internal causal attributions, and it is differentiated into two valences: job reflective learning from successes and from failures. Based on two separate multi-wave, multi-source field studies, our findings consistently show a serial mediation process linking proactive personality to creativity through both valences of job reflective learning and activated positive affective states. Job reflective learning from successes breeds joviality, whereas job reflective learning from failures arouses attentiveness. Joviality and attentiveness—both types of activated positive affective states—in turn promote creativity. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of how proactive employees manifest their proactivity trait into actual creativity through backward-looking cognitive and affective processes.     

Dispositional Antecedents of Demonstration and Usefulness of Voice Behavior

Purpose  

To examine the relationship between Five-Factor Model (FFM) and non-FFM personality traits that are theoretically relevant to voice behavior and the demonstration and usefulness of voice behavior.     

Potential job applicant reactions to employee drug testing: The effect of program characteristics and individual differences

An experiment varied two aspects of employee drug-testing programs: the purpose of the program (to rehabilitate or to punish) and the drug-testing selection method (for due cause or random and mandatory). Dependent variables were potential job applicants' attitudes toward, intention to apply to, and willingness to accept a job offer from the company. Although the manipulations had no effects, several individual difference variables (personal use of drugs, attitudes toward drugs and drug testing, and subjective norms toward drug testing) predicted the dependent variables.