Please Like Me: Ingratiation as a Moderator of the Impact of the Perception of Organizational Politics on Job Satisfaction

A diary study of the impression management strategies utilised by industrial and organisational psychology interns

Orientation: When interns enter a new workplace, they are compelled to create and maintain a good impression through a range of image-enhancing behaviours. Impression management strategies can help interns to do this.Research purpose: This study aimed to understand the strategies used by industrial and organisational (I/O) psychology interns, their goals for using them and the targets of these strategies.Motivation for the study: Interns are generally new to the workplace and, as such, may not be aware of how to play the ‘social game’ to create positive impressions about themselves, be perceived in a positive light, gain projects to fulfil their internship requirements, and, where possible, gain full-time employment from the organisation.Research approach/design and method: A qualitative design was used. Data were collected from 14 I/O psychology interns in the form of diary entries and semi-structured interviews.Main findings: The thematic analysis revealed eight key impression management strategies, some existing and others novel: ingratiation, self-promotion, rendering favours, exemplification, professionalism, openness to learning, conformity and building strategic relationships.Practical/managerial implications: Industrial and organisational psychologists should develop workshops to assist interns in using impression management skills to create a positive internship experience and advance in their respective organisations.Contribution/value-add: The study adds theoretically (the study of impression management is relatively new in South Africa), practically (findings may help direct future I/O psychology interns to the correct strategies for creating a positive impression at work) and methodologically (diary studies are not common in qualitative organisational research).

COVID-19 Anxiety as a Moderator of the Relationship between Organizational Change and Perception of Organizational Politics in Forestry Public Sector

In addition to an outstanding commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDG) agenda to good governance (goal no. 16), there is an argument that the SDGs can only be achieved through good governance with strong political institutions and processes. In Indonesia, a new era in politics has been marked with the new leadership of Joko Widodo (the current Indonesian President) who has a vision to reform the Indonesian bureaucracy. One of the bureaucratic reform implementations is the merging of the Ministry of Forestry and the Ministry of Environment into the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoE). In this kind of organizational change, employees may have increased perceptions of organizational politics and feelings of uncertainty and anxiety. This effect is suspected to be exacerbated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This article, therefore, aims to investigate the effects of organizational change in the public sector. Based on a survey of 112 state civil apparatuses in the forestry sector in Indonesia, we found that organizational change is positively related to employees’ perception of organizational politics. Nevertheless, our most intriguing finding is that the COVID pandemic situation has decreased employees’ perception of organizational politics. This is because political behaviors are difficult to perform in virtual working settings due to reduced face-to-face interaction and limited non-verbal cues.

Being Out of the Loop: Workplace Deviance as a Mediator of the Impact of Impression Management on Workplace Exclusion

This study investigates the extending negative effects of impression management (IM) on organizational outcomes in the nursing context. Specifically, this study aims to understand the impact of IM on workplace exclusion through workplace deviance. The data came from 277 head nurses (nurses in leadership positions) in elderly care homes in Belgium. Structured paper-and-pencil questionnaires were administered on site in the respondents’ workplaces. In the findings of the current research, IM is positively related to workplace exclusion and the relationship is mediated by workplace deviance. Although, initially, IM is performed by the actors as a natural behavior to maintain their image, at some point, the actors can become fatigued with maintaining their image. Under ego depletion theory, the exhausted IM actors will be highly experienced in deviance or bad performance. Furthermore, consistent with social information processing theory and a correlation study between employees’ poor performance and workplace exclusion, the IM actors who fail to deliver good performance or behavior following their like-based rewards may be subject to social exclusion in their workplace.