This study examined relationships among remote work, demographic dissimilarity, social network centrality, and the use and effectiveness of impression management behaviors. In our findings, a higher proportion of time spent working remotely from supervisors increased the frequency of supervisor-and job-focused impression management, but reduced social network centrality decreased job-focused impression management. Social network centrality moderated the relationships between jobfocused impression management and both remote work and sex dissimilarity. Sex dissimilarity intensified a negative association between job-focused impression management and performance appraisal. Both sex dissimilarity and network centrality enhanced the positive association between supervisor-focused impression management and performance appraisal.Work arrangements in organizations are increasingly characterized by remote work, demographic diversity, and mobility. Creating and maintaining a positive workplace identity amidst this welter of new work arrangements may prove problematic. Increased remoteness from and demographic dissimilarity to other organization members, as well as changes in social network position attendant on these new arrangements, may diminish employees' organizational visibility, enhancing their extant baseline motivation to manage impressions. In addition, these factors may limit social interaction and interpersonal understanding, thereby reducing the perceived opportunity to manage impressions effectively. In this paper, we make explicit the link between remote work, demographic dissimilarity, social network centrality, and employees' motivation and perceived opportunity to manage impressions. We discuss the often-competing pressures between the motivation and perceived opportunity to manage impressions and empirically examine the relationship between these three situational influences and impression management. We also explore how demographic dissimilarity and social network centrality relate to the effectiveness of impression management by examining subsequent performance appraisal.Motivation and opportunity have both been widely acknowledged as critical determinants of individuals' impression management behavior (Jones & Pittman, 1982;Leary & Kowalski, 1990;Liden & Mitchell, 1988). While the importance of "impression motivation" has been explicated in the existing literature, the notion of "impression opportunity" has not been as clearly articulated, nor has its relationship to motivation been explicitly examined (see Jones & Pittman, 1982;Liden & Mitchell, 1988). Various elements of this notion of impression opportunity have been identified in previous models of impression management, including the perceived risks in engaging in impression management behaviors (Liden & Mitchell, 1988); the perceived probability of those behaviors being successful (Jones & Pittman, 1982;Liden & Mitchell, 1988); the appropriateness of those behaviors (Jones & Pittman, 1982); and the probable costs and benefits of those behaviors ...

SummaryThis paper addresses two important questions concerning social fragmentation in work teams. First, from where do disconnections between team members, measured in terms of the proportion of structural holes within the work team, derive? Second, what are the consequences for team performance of having more or less structural holes between team members? In answering the first question, the research investigated whether demographic diversity in teams played a role in predicting the proportion of structural holes in team friendship networks. For 19 teams at a wood products company, there were no effects of ethnic and gender diversity on structural hole proportions. However, age diversity significantly reduced the extent of structural 'holeyness.' In investigating the second question, two countervailing tendencies were considered. In the absence of structural holes, teams are likely to be at low risk for new ideas. But fragmented teams in which team members are separated by many structural holes are likely to have difficulty coordinating. The researchers demonstrated a curvilinear effect: a moderate level of structural diversity in teams was positively associated with team performance. Thus, the research suggested that it is structural diversity (measured in terms of the proportion of structural holes) rather than demographic diversity that matters in the prediction of team performance.

This article seeks to test whether a leader's position in the team's informal network strengthens or weakens the leader's team. Based on data collected from 231 employees working in 19 teams in a manufacturing organization, the study tested whether two different leader network centralities in teams' advice networks predicted team conflict and viability. Teams with more prestigious formal leaders (i.e., leaders whom a high proportion of subordinates sought out for advice) experienced lower levels of team conflict and had higher levels of team viability. In contrast, teams with leaders who brokered across subordinates within a team's advice network (i.e., leaders who had advice ties with subordinates who did not have advice ties with each other) reported elevated levels of team conflict and lower levels of team viability, even when controlling for the team leader's prestige. Team conflict mediated the effects of the two leader network positions on team viability.

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