Sticking out versus fitting in: A social context perspective of ingratiation and its effect on social exchange quality with supervisors and teammates.

Abstract

Research indicates that whereas ingratiation directed toward one's supervisor enhances employee-supervisor social exchange quality, it diminishes social exchange quality with those who observe this behavior, such as team members. However, because researchers have largely overlooked the role of social context in shaping supervisors' and teammates' reactions to ingratiatory employees, current understanding of how ingratiation plays out in complex organizational settings may be incomplete, and perhaps misleading. In this study, we augment a social context perspective with social exchange theory to propose that comparative levels of ingratiation, determined by the focal employee's ingratiation in the context of other team members' ingratiation, shape social exchange quality with supervisors and teammates. The results from a multi-wave multi-source field study of 222 employees and their supervisors from 64 teams show that higher levels of ingratiation relative to other team members increases the employee's social exchange quality with the supervisor, whereas congruence between the employee's and other team members' ingratiation enhances social exchange quality with team members. We also find that relative ingratiation and ingratiation congruence increase citizenship received from supervisors and team members, respectively, via social exchange quality with the corresponding actor(s). Overall, our research contributes to a more complete understanding of ingratiation, especially in regard to how reactions to this behavior are largely a function of the social context in which it occurs.

The father's and the mother's intrinsic work motivation and their work‐to‐family conflict perceived by the adolescent: Dyadic and triadic analyses

“…Equations 1a (father) and 1b (mother) in the Appendix show the detailed model specifics for the dyadic polynomial regression model (Model 3). To evaluate the effect of relative intrinsic motivation (H2a and H2b), we followed past research (Hu & Liden, 2013; Kim et al, 2022) by examining the significance of the slope for the incongruence line using the following equation: a 3 = b 1 − b 2 ( b 1 refers to the father's coefficient and b 2 refers to the mother's coefficient in Equation 1a, and vice versa in Equation 1b). A significant and positive a 3 , when the dependent variable is the father's WFC perceived by the adolescent, means the father's WFC perceived by the adolescent is higher when his relative intrinsic motivation is higher.…”

“…Drawing on family systems theory, we propose the notion of relative intrinsic motivation to refer to the level of one partner's intrinsic motivation relative to the level of intrinsic motivation of another partner (Kim et al, 2022). Higher relative intrinsic motivation means an individual's intrinsic motivation is higher than that of the partner, whereas lower relative intrinsic motivation means the opposite.…”

“…Additionally, we introduce the notion of relative intrinsic motivation , referring to the level of one focal partner's intrinsic motivation relative to the other partner's intrinsic motivation (Kim et al, 2022). By examining relative intrinsic motivation, we are able to compare the effects of the father's work experience with those of the mother's.…”

“…Specifically, our study offers a more complete view of the effects of intrinsic motivation by considering the role of all members sharing the same family system. Our examination of relative intrinsic motivation allows us to change the existing conversation that tends to ignore the intra‐family dynamics among dual‐earning couples (French et al, 2016), suggesting that the relative levels of intrinsic motivation among the two partners may offer insights unavailable if only the absolute level of one partner is considered (Kim et al, 2022). Finally, past research tends to focus on how individuals' GE may impact their own experience at home or at work (e.g., Evertsson, 2014; Kaufman & Bernhardt, 2015; Moon & Shin, 2018).…”

Moral attentiveness as a boundary condition: Servant leadership and the impact of supervisor affiliation on pro‐group unethical behavior

“…Integrating servant leadership theory with social exchange theory (Blau, 1964; Flynn, 2003), we propose supervisor affiliation as a mechanism that explains why this impact occurs. Supervisor affiliation, a key component to reflect social exchange quality (Blau, 1964; Kim et al, 2022), refers to “the degree to which people (in this case, the servant leaders) have close interpersonal bonds, harmonious relationships, and a sense of communion with others (in this case, their followers)” (Depue & Morrone‐Strupinsky, 2005; Mehrabian & Ksionzky, 1974; Ozcelik & Barsade, 2018). Servant leaders focus on promoting employees’ interests (Graham, 1991; Liden et al., 2008; Walumbwa et al., 2010), serving employees (Liden et al., 2014), and considering themselves as morally responsible for their employees (Ehrhart, 2004; Walumbwa et al., 2010).…”