The moderating role of interviewer's regulatory focus in the effectiveness of impression management tactics: Regulatory fit as a source of subjective value

Abstract

Based on the recently explored regulatory fit effect in social contexts, the present research is the first to investigate the interaction between interviewer's regulatory focus and interviewee's impression management (IM) tactics. We hypothesized that assertive and defensive IM tactics would fit with interviewer's promotion and prevention focus, respectively, and that interviewer's experience of this regulatory fit would lead to enhanced interview evaluation. We conducted four studies in which the participants were asked to rate an interviewee after reading a list of the interviewee's IM‐related behaviours or watching a videotaped interview. Additionally, the participant's regulatory focus was operationalized as both an induced situational state and a measured chronic trait. The results supported our hypotheses by showing a significant interaction of the interviewer's regulatory focus and the IM tactics on interview evaluation: the promotion‐assertive and the prevention‐defensive ratings were more positive than the prevention‐assertive and the promotion‐defensive ratings. Moreover, mediation analysis revealed that the interaction exerts its effects on interview evaluation by providing interviewers with an intrapersonal regulatory fit experience.

The Relationship between the Company’s Value and the Tone of the Risk-Related Narratives: The Case of Portugal

“…The obfuscation technique obscures the intended message, masking adverse organizational outcomes, evidencing positive organizational performance (Martínez-Ferrero et al 2019). Accordingly, assertive tactics are used to promote qualities and improve skills, while defensive tactics are used to repair or justify negative results (Bian et al 2020).…”

Financial performance of the United Kingdom's national non-profit sport federations: a binary logistic regression approach

“…The first justification of the study is that the results will help redefine the financial performance of NNSFs to include both financial effectiveness and financial efficiency, and not mere opinions from managers as commonly used in past studies (Papadimitriu, 1998; Bayle and Madella, 2002; Winand et al , 2010) This is because most previous studies were based on structured or unstructured interviews of senior management, which often suffer from impression management due to self-promotion, deception, false narratives and biases (Bian et al , 2019; Peck and Levashina, 2017; Bolino et al , 2016).…”

“…As indicated in Table 2, the performances of NNSFs are multidimensional, and the results were largely generated from structured or unstructured interviews of senior management, which may suffer from impression management, such as self-promotion, deception, false narratives, biases, etc. (Bian et al , 2019; Peck and Levashina, 2017; Bolino et al , 2016).…”

Making the Right Decision: Intensifying the Worth of a Chosen Option

“…These regulatory fit effects also have important workplace consequences. For instance, in the context of a hiring process, interviewers’ experience of regulatory fit in the interview process influences how they evaluate the impression management tactics used by the interviewee (Bian et al., 2020). Furthermore, within an organization, employees whose regulatory focus fits their supervisor's leadership style show decreased turnover intentions (Hamstra et al., 2011).…”