What you see may not be entirely negative : an impression management approach to job insecurity and its consequences

Abstract

Drawing upon personal control model (Rothbaum, Weisz, & Synder, 1982) and interpersonal dependence theory (Rusbult & Van Lange, 2003), the paper mainly argues that insecure employees tend to apply impression management tactics, including ingratiation (i.e., appearing to be friendly), self promotion (i.e., appearing to be competent) and exemplification (i.e., appearing to be dedicated), to cope with job insecurity. Impression management is essentially a process of indirectly gaining control through impressing powerful others who may have better control of the situation. This link is further strengthened by the high level of interpersonal dependence highlighted by job insecurity. The findings suggest that cognitive job insecurity has differential effects on the three impression management behaviors. In particular, the effect of cognitive job insecurity on exemplification is fully mediated by affective job insecurity. The indirect effect is stronger when employees perceive their supervisors have power to reward and punish. Such indirect effect only exists when employees have a high sense of power. However, cognitive job insecurity influences ingratiation directly and has no effect on self promotion.