JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS

ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 13, 2020 Different Techniques Used in Organizational Settings

Spoorthi GVN1 1South Dakota State University

Received: 11 May 2020 Revised and Accepted: 09 July 2020

ABSTRACT: This paper is about impression management techniques that have focused on the performance of an employer or employee. The current study explores five impression techniques widely used in organizations that related to work outcomes. Results suggest that the most useful technique that effective and employees tend to use the tactics in an organization to achieve success and satisfaction. These tactics can be used for personal gains under professional influences based on the situations. KEYWORDS: impression management, organizations, , , exemplification

I. INTRODUCTION Goffman in and Jones and Pittman in social have done influential works on interpersonal communications on how people attempt to influence the way they are perceived by others. Scholars were interested in different impression management (IM) techniques that people use in order to be liked or perceived to be likable. People use impression management techniques to get a favorable reward such as a promotion or anticipate a threat to their faces. The impact on impression management has been an assortment of contexts ranging from organizational behaviors to health risk conduct (Nurat, 2016). So, the method of IM that was introduced by Ervin Goffman in his book ‘the presentation of in everyday life’ argues about social interaction requires immediate judgment. The dramaturgical approach is divided into two parts; front stage and backstage. The front stage is essentially a performance that an individual puts on in a social setting. Backstage is a place where a person can just be themselves when the act is over. So the tool that we use to make ourselves presentable on the front stage and to look appealing is called IM. The researcher would like to explore different IM techniques that individuals use to sustain in organizational settings.

II. RESEARCH QUESTION The research question guiding this study is, what are the different impression management techniques used in organizational settings?

III. LITERATURE REVIEW Impression management is important theory in the theories of identity performances according to Goffman (1959), ‘individuals will have to act so that he intentionally or unintentionally express himself, and the others will, in turn, have to be impressed in some way to him’ (Goffman 1956:2) In other words, people tend to live a life of performances as they interact with others. Goffman (1956) conceives a performance as any activity meant to influence the other participants in the interaction. As a matter of intentionality, just like in symbolic interactionism, an individual will convey an impression to others which it is in his interests to convey (Goffman 1956: 3). Essentially, we could say that the act of impressing others is separate from the person from whom it comes from. While Schlenker and Walther (2011) explained that IM as a social interaction that is controlled either intentional or unintentional effort. Although, IM encompasses the impression that is established by another individual by whom they are influenced (Tedeschi and Riess 1981). However, researchers investigated an individual through organizational settings, how they behave or perform in an organization (Schneider and Samkin 2010). Additionally, this scenario is a notion when an organization attempts to manage their employees. Thus, this research paper tries to pay particular towards the use of IM techniques employees use in organizations, the researcher would be explaining the IM techniques offered by Jones and Pittman (1982) which

1430

JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS

ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 13, 2020

is divided into five strategies: (1) Ingratiation, (2) Intimidation, (3) Self-Promotion, (4) Exemplification, and (5) Supplication.

IV. METHOD IM techniques will be explained to how organizations and employees in the organization use to achieve positive rewards. Starting with ingratiation

V. INGRATIATION Ingratiation is one of the most important self-presentation phenomena that is centralized on social behavior which is influenced by others to like us with characteristics including warmth, humor, reliability, charm, and . Ingratiation can be defined as “a class of strategic behavior illicitly designed to influence a particular other person concerning the attractiveness of one’s personal qualities” (Jones and Wortman 1973:2). Individuals do favors and use to elicit an attribution of likability from observers (Gwal 2015). Ingratiation technique has been used in the organization during employee interview, performance appraisal, new employees. For an interview, the IM technique is used to increase interpersonal attraction or liking by employing subtle mechanisms of influence (Kacmar et al., 1992). For performance appraisal, IM has a significant incremental amount of variance in supervisor ratings for employee performance (Zivnuska et al. 2004). New employees are categorized to be friendly, hardworking like their supervisors when compared to their subordinates (Wayne and Liden, 1995). New employees try to impress their supervisors and subordinates so as to become likable and make a good impression on the organization. Many scholars have been researching on ingratiation techniques such as self-presentation and likability that are utilized to influence people. There are many ways people can ingratiate themselves such as asking questions, paying attention, showing interest in another person. Another strategy is to do favors or help another person. For instance, an employee may offer their colleague a cup of coffee. They might show support and loyalty in a meeting with their supervisor or simply smile and be friendly to people to make them likable. Another way to express admiration could be flattering people and trying to like them in return. All the behaviors potentially enhance likability and lead to ingratiation. These forms of behavior depend upon the motive of an employee. Leary and Kowalski (1990) discussed two forms of IM used in his research; (1) impression motivation and (2) impression construction. The initial form is where individuals or organizations are motivated to influence the way they present themselves in front of the public. The latter form is the process of ascertaining the impression that an entity would like to provide in order to accomplish an impression. Motivation such as the goal, how important other people think in order to achieve goals and the value of the desired goal. Impression construction analysis about individuals and organizations see themselves, and how others see them. Therefore, the process of IM is to examine and fill the gap and find the differences in the prevailing and aspired position, and then adopt the best IM technique (Leary and Kowalski 1990).

VI. INTIMIDATION Ingratiation challenges to convince a target person that he is likable, on the other hand, intimidation tries to convince a target person that he is dangerous (Jones and Wortman 1973). For example, a robber who extracts money from a pedestrian by brandishing a gun or a knife (Jones and Wortman 1973). Similarly, to avoid disapproval or , an individual might employ strategies and tactics to protect him/herself (defensive practices), and so would be the goal if the same individual wants to protect another (protective practices) (Goffman 1956:7). Analytically, we could place these protective tactics under forms of acting. In emphasizing how human beings act out in social encounters, Goffman (1955:213) asserts that people tend to act out a line; a pattern of verbal and nonverbal acts by which we try to the explicit situation and evaluate other participants. To avoid , an individual puts on the face of a positive social value (Goffman 1955:213). Thus, people maintain face when they get positive feedback from others. According to Jones and Warton (1973), intimidation can create pressures and make people apart that can commonly be seen in relationships of employees and employers or families or military service. Consequences of such intimidation can result in delinquency, divorces and takes various forms of sabotage and insurgency. In an organization, intimidation is considered as , when a supervisor or colleagues use physical violence or threats to manipulate a company employee for some professional advantage. It happens over a period of time or developed during a pattern of mistreatment that could adversely affect employee motivation, performance or even physical and mental health (Schallcross, 2013).

1431

JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS

ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 13, 2020

VII. SELF-PROMOTION Jones and Warton (1973) define self-promotion as the attribution of competence with reference to general ability level such as intelligence, athletic ability or to a specific skill such as typing excellence, flute playing ability, etc. This implies that self-promotion is when we are trying to let people think that we are capable, intelligent or talented. And it is often used when the change of their claims being challenged or discredited is low (Rosenfeld et al., 1995:51). This means when individuals show their abilities in order to been competent by observers. The self-promotional IM technique in an organization can be applied mostly in performance appraisal. Where an employee tries to convince the supervisor about their accomplishments in order to gain potential rewards such as a promotion or monetary benefits. Karin et al. (2014) combined ingratiation and self-promotion IM techniques to discover the effecting on interview evaluation. It was found that IM techniques employed by the interviewee in an interview are ingratiation and self-promotion (Stevens and Kristof 1995) and these techniques could be taken advantage of in interviews. For instance, an applicant who has extracurricular activities could give him extra credits that could benefit him in this organization. Results suggest that ingratiation and self-promotion have a positive relationship with interview evaluation. Moreover, the self-promotion technique was more effective than the ingratiation technique but, it led to the second interview and a combination of techniques of self-promotion and ingratiation led to more job offers. From the two scenarios of performance appraisal and interview evaluation using self-promotion techniques, interview evaluation has more advantages than performance evaluation (Gordon 1996). People always try to draw attention consciously to manage impressions they convey to others in interpersonal interactions (Goffman 1995). To save face, Goffman (1955) classifies two sorts of face-work: avoidance process (forfeiting contacts where a threat can occur), and corrective process (an act of disgrace). Faceworks tend to lead to ritualism. According to Goffman (1955:219), a ritual is something that symbolizes a person’s worth and that of others. Maintaining face requires rituals such as apologizing when in wrong or forgiving when a person wrongs you. Even at the end of social relations, the face is maintained by such words or rituals like goodbye, farewell, see you again, etc. Sometimes, ritual order is organized based on accommodative lines. One way is that if a person wishes to maintain respect, he must work hard for it (merit). Gossiping, for instance, leads to a loss of trust (Goffman 1955:230). Thus, Goffman concludes that an explanation of people’s behavior should be based on their social encounters.

VIII. EXEMPLIFICATION Self-promoter and exemplifier want to be respected and to be admired, but there are subtle and important differences in the attributions they seek (Jones and Worton 1973). Self-promoter pursues to be competent, masterful, and, olympian. Whereas, exemplifier pursue to be project integrity and moral worthiness. This means people who self-sacrifice or out of box call of duty to gain the attribution of dedication from observers. Exemplification can influence IM, organizational and public (Benthaus, Risius, & Beck, 2016). In organizational settings, exemplification and ingratiation are employed to create a favorable image of oneself, without specifically highlighting one’s accomplishments (Bolino and Turnley 1999). For example, individuals who portrait their behavior such as working late or arriving early at work in order to be seen dedicated, this act may pressurize on their subordinates. However, this technique of IM might backfire at times. Exemplification is a self-presentation strategy that people want to think that they are morally worthy, honest, generous and self-sacrificing . IX. SUPPLICATION Supplication is a final self-presentation strategy to those who lack the resources implied by the preceding strategies; that is a person may exploit his own weakness and dependence (Jones and Worton 1973). This means an individual who advertises their weaknesses or shortcomings in order to elicit and attribution of being needy from observers (Gawl, 2015). Supplication and intimidation are perceived as negative techniques in IM. For example, laziness or incompetence may lead to a supplication strategy. Supplicants in organizations were less likely to receive help from others but were more likely to be viewed as lazy (Turnley and Bolino 2001). In the literature of organizations, supplication has less attention when compared to ingratiation and self-promotion (Lai et al. 2010). Supplication is intended to appear incompetent and need of help (Brickman & Seligman, 1974). So, supplication can be characterized as a technique of IM to advertise one’s dependence and inability, in order to solicit help (Jones & Pittman, 1982). That means supplication might not need that audience should have prior knowledge about the supplicant. As such, supplication has a negative relation to job performance as rated by a

1432

JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS

ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 13, 2020

supervisor (Harris, Kacmar, Zivnuska, & Shaw, 2007). Finally, supplication provides the audience with a sense of superiority and responsibility to help (Lai et al, 2010)

Figure 1: A taxonomy self-presentational strategy classified

X. RESULTS The aim of this research paper is to investigate the comparative effectiveness of impression management techniques employed in organizational settings. This research contributes towards the current literature in the sense that the capability of the five tactics stated by Jones and Pittman (1982); ingratiation, intimidation, self- promotion. exemplification, supplication. Out of these five strategies, self-promotion and ingratiation techniques are more effective in interviews. According to Kacmar et al. (1992), self-promotion is more effective than ingratiation. It means, if an individual uses a self-promotion technique in an interview to prove himself as a good candidate for the job position and a good fit for the organization, he has more chances of getting selected. Therefore, ingratiation is less effective than self-promotion in interview settings. However, the ingratiation technique is effective in terms of performance ratings. According to Arif et al. (2012), ingratiation and exemplification are positively related to performance rating while self-promotion, intimidation, and supplication had a negative impact on performance rating. In his study, with exemplification strategy, employees tend to prove themselves as dedicated and loyal to the organization. On the other hand, the ingratiation technique tends to show hardworking and career-oriented at the beginning of their job. Later as they become experienced, they being to start to apply impression management techniques to benefit within the organization like rewards, promotion, pay, etc., Moreover, ingratiation suggests that individuals using this technique are engaged in favor- doing or using flattery which can be viewed as friendly or likable. While exemplification technique suggests that individuals engaging the behaviors such as staying late at work or arriving at work early in order to be dedicated and loyal. Finally, according to Jones and Pittman (1982), “the ingratiator wants to be liked and the intimidator wants to be feared. Self-promoter and exemplifier both wanted to be respected” (Jones and Pittman 1982:245). Likewise, impression management techniques utilized by an individual have a negative impact and risk one seeking to make a place in the organization. For example, supplication techniques might lead to laziness and incompetence. This will have an impact on their performance appraisal and likely to backfire the understanding process of IM.

XI. IMPLICATIONS Based on the preceding research that examined IM techniques in organizational settings, this paper is limited to organizations such as business, information technology, marketing and organizations. Other organizations

1433

JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS

ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 13, 2020

can be taken into consideration to study different techniques employed in impression management and which technique is more dominant. The literature review is limited in this study due to accessibility, there may be many published articles that are not included in this paper. IM is a comprehensive concept and this study did not consider demographics such as age, sex, tenure and other factors that might contribute in relation to IM techniques. However, all the experiments are done in an observational setting, the real-life scenarios might be different and need further research. XII. CONCLUSION IM is a phenomenon exhibited by an individual either in an intentional or unintentional manner in an organizational setting. This study demonstrates the importance of IM techniques in relation to organizations. Individuals do not want to use IM techniques, but they should know the unwritten penalties for not delivering and being seen to deliver what the organization wants and needs. IM is neither good or bad, it is an integral part of our social interaction and everyone gets involved in it every day. IM gains more attention from scholars and stakeholders because it has an impact on investors' assessment of organizational performance. Jones and Pittman (1982) suggested that IM techniques may be successful if used moderately and could backfire with overuse. Hence the IM techniques engaged individual in portraying a positive and sometimes in a negative impression on organizational performance and employee performance depending upon the situation and the technique have a different impact. It is important to understand why and when employees use certain IM techniques to the exclusion of others and which techniques are most likely to be used in combinations.

XIII. REFERENCE [1] Arif, Ahmed & Rizvi, Syed & Abbas, Quaiser & Akhtar, Chaudhry & Imran, Mohammad. (2012). Impact of Impression Management on Performance Rating. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business. 3. 711-728. [2] Benthaus, J., Risius, M., & Beck, R. (2016). management strategies for organizational impression management and their effect on public perception. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 25(2), 127–139. DOI:10.1016/j.jsis.2015.