Observers frequently make inferences of what consumers are like based on the products they use. The general view in social cognition is that the consumption behavior of others is taken at face value, where observers do not question the image being portrayed by product users. This assumption persists even though it is well known that consumers use products to manage the images they create. This dissertation aims to enrich our understanding of this issue by arguing that, under certain conditions, observers will make the inference that consumers use products to deliberately try to create certain impressions (i.e., perceptions as being phony, fake, or a poseur). Specifically, these inferences will undermine the impression, creating more negative attitudes towards the consumer. In fact, this dissertation argues that this inference can also play an important role in consumer decision making, impacting product evaluations directly (i.e., when consumers avoid products because they are concerned that others will infer they are impression managing). Five experiments examined elements of the product, the target, the situation, and the observer themselves to better understand the causes and effects of inferences of impression management. Taken as a whole, this dissertation highlights the central roles of the product’s contribution towards the target’s appearance, the attractiveness of their appearance, product functionality and feelings of observer threat in shaping impression management inferences. In doing so, it contributes to the impression management and impression formation literatures, both in marketing and more broadly, by offering an organizing theoretical framework for understanding the bases of impression management judgments. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2013-08-09 16:37:13.87

I den här kvalitativa netnografiska studien analyseras råd och tips inför arbetsintervjuer riktade till män respektive kvinnor. Datamaterialet kommer från online-forumen Flashback och Familjeliv men även från artiklar med tips från bemanningsföretagen Poolia och Monster, Arbetsförmedlingen, tidningen Karriär och fackförbundet Unionen. Den teoretiska grunden är baserad på Goffmans teori om “impression management”, Hirdmans genusteori, Heiders attributionsteori och Zimmerman och West ”doing gender”. Resultatet visar att kvinnor får fler råd om utseende än män och råden som ges är även mer specifika. Typiskt manliga egenskaper är de mest åtråvärda och präglar därför en majoritet av intervjutipsen, även de som är riktade till kvinnor. Kvinnor uppmanas till att agera typiskt maskulint, och att inte vara för feminina då det kan minska deras jobbchanser. Män uppmanas till att vara sig själva medan kvinnor får mer tydliga direktiv om hur de ska bete sig, hur de ska klä sig och vad de ska säga. Feminina egenskaper anses vara dåliga och manliga/diskreta egenskaper är önskvärda. Kvinnor uppmanas även till återhållsamt uppförande medan män uppmanas till att framhäva sig. Ett beroendeförhållande där arbetsgivaren har övertaget framkommer också. Detta upprätthålls genom att den arbetssökande uppmuntras anpassa sig efter arbetsgivarens behov. Även arbetsgivare deltar i nätmaterialet och bidrar till att reproducera de observerade normerna.

This paper examines the effect of impression management on goal level and commitment to the goal. Participants involved in a goal-setting program in the United States were asked to complete a web survey regarding their desire to impress superiors and their commitment to the goal. The specific dependant measures were self-set goal and goal commitment. No statistically significant differences were found between high and low desires to manage impressions with respect to goal set, but a higher desire to manage impressions was positively correlated with a higher degree of goal commitment. This finding suggests that triggering impression management is beneficial for situations in which high goal performance is desired as it increases goal commitment. Future studies could verify these results using larger sample sizes and tackle such issues as goal performance.

This paper examines the effect of impression management on goal level and commitment to the goal. Participants involved in a goal-setting program in the United States were asked to complete a web survey regarding their desire to impress superiors and their commitment to the goal. The specific dependant measures were self-set goal and goal commitment. No statistically significant differences were found between high and low desires to manage impressions with respect to goal set, but a higher desire to manage impressions was positively correlated with a higher degree of goal commitment. This finding suggests that triggering impression management is beneficial for situations in which high goal performance is desired as it increases goal commitment. Future studies could verify these results using larger sample sizes and tackle such issues as goal performance.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence of two significant impression management strategies, thematic and reading ease manipulation, across a range of distinct corporate communications and explore the determinants of such practices. While previous studies have examined thematic and reading ease manipulation, these have viewed such impression management techniques in isolation. This research is the first to simultaneously examine the prevalence of these impression management strategies across such a range of corporate communications. In particular, no previous studies have looked at the thematic and reading ease manipulation of standalone CSR reports or compared the various sections/disclosures included within the same annual report. Of significance are the inclusion of several additional themes, namely Activity; Optimism; Certainty; Realism and Commonality, advancing the scope of thematic manipulation research from the limited positive and negative themes. It is important to examine a range of correspondence because no one form of correspondence is the same. Financial notes are heavily regulated and audited and thus should be less susceptible to manipulation. CSR disclosures have little to no regulation or audit process and as such are very susceptible to manipulation. Likewise, the two distinct reports service different audiences, who can be expected to have different expertise. This research discovers what firm characteristics are determinates of the readability and thematic content in particular specific disclosure types, industries and country of listing. Financial performance tests reveal that there is evidence of manipulation of readability to obfuscate the disclosures of poor performing companies while the themes of these poorly performing company’s disclosures closely mirror those that are performing well. In addition to the traditional performance based tests, a novel new test that combines the traditional thematic positivity variable and readability shows that positive disclosures are significantly more readable than negative ones, strengthening the obfuscation hypothesis. This research also motivates the need of a purpose built reading ease formula based on corporate disclosures that outputs a result that allows the comparison of disclosures. Indeed a very basic example of such a formula is developed as a starting point for additional research.

Facebook (FB) is a ubiquitous category of web 2.0 technology that has embedded itself in the present day reality of people worldwide. It represents the constantly evolving online environment and brings to light the associated implications of synthesising people’s online private and work life. FB can act as a platform for employees to create and manage the impressions formed of them in their work context. On the backdrop of the social capital theory, this research explored the relationships between FB experience, perceptions of FB privacy and FB career impression management (FB CIM) and specifically whether perceptions of FB privacy moderated the impact of FB experience on FB CIM. Phase 1 was concerned with creating reliable scales through the implementation of a pilot study. Phase 2 initiated the main study with a convenience sample of 217 respondents, made up of FB users and non- users, recruited online on social networking sites and within a South African based IT organisation. They completed an online survey consisting of biographical information; FB experience, perceptions of FB privacy and FB CIM items (self-developed scales). From the analyses conducted it was found that the constructed scales were reliable, with co-efficient alpha’s yielding scores of above 0.6; and structurally valid as seen with the factor analyses. It was found that younger respondents experienced higher FB experience than older respondents (r=-0.39). FB experience was related to perceptions of FB privacy with an increase in FB experience being related to increased levels of trust (r=0.16) (part of the perceptions of FB privacy subscale). FB experience was associated with increased FB CIM activities (self- monitoring r=0.26; work relations r=0.23) with FB experience being the strongest predictor of FB CIM. As such FB experience and one’s perceived importance of FB privacy may have an influence on the degree to which one actively engages in FB CIM.

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Drawing upon media agenda-setting theory and previous studies in organizational impression management, this paper empirically investigates the influence of tax avoidance news on corporate tax reporting. This study is based on the pronounced discontinuity in the amount of news articles related to tax avoidance in the United Kingdom over two periods (2010-2011 and 2012-2013). A difference-in-differences design is employed in order to enable a comparison of the media effects on those firms that have been reported in tax avoidance news versus those without media attention. Using a sample of annual reports of UK FTSE 100 companies across the period 2010 to 2013, I test the impact of tax avoidance news on quality and quantity of tax disclosure. The results suggest that the recent increase in media attention on tax avoidance does not stimulate firms to improve the quality and the quantity of tax disclosure in their corporate reporting. Rather, firms can be discouraged from discussing the most relevant tax items in their reporting, as shown in the case of financial firms which were the subject of the largest amount of tax avoidance news. (author's abstract) / Series: WU International Taxation Research Paper Series

The movement of blog is its usage of friendly interface, which makes fearful people overcome the barriers to the technology. Moreover, blog makes people hold the power, which in the past only a few privileges could have to contact the society. Its model of usage also becomes uploading from downloading. Blogging has people be the public communicators to the whole world. Blogging, which contains the characteristics of personality, free writing style, immediateness, and hyperlinks, has become the top ten of popular internet activities in Taiwan since 2006. Blog is the virtual environment controlled by its owner. Therefore, the correct self-image presented in front of the audiences is quite important. Trammell and Keshelashvili found that A-list bloggers not only express much more self information than common users but also actively engage in the impression management. The purpose of this research uses the dramaturgy of Goffman, self-concept of James, and impression management of Jones to discuss these popular bloggers how to play each self-performance and fulfill the dreams to be super stars in their fields through the usage of some blog elements, such as words, multimedia and so on. A-list blogs are not merely searched, hyperlinked and subscribed by other blogs but their views can compete with the mainstream media as well. Therefore, this research has tried to investigate the internal characteristics of blog content and the self-presentation and the strategies of impression management of A-list bloggers. The results of this research are divided by the discussions in the three dimensions. First, the external characteristics of A-list blogs remain the basic or original structure and a little change. Moreover, A-list blogs use few stretched elements and their articles are published with both words and pictures. Second, the research has found that these A-list blogs are mainly diary-type and besides, personal and life-style typologies. In other words, A-list bloggers view blog as the platform of their expression and self-record. Especially, the female A-list bloggers prefer to the diary-type blogs. On the contrary, more male A-list bloggers have the filter-diary blogs. Furthermore, hyperlinks extend the bloggers¡¦ views, express their personal information and also present the image as¡§blog is me¡¨. Third, the self-presentation of A-list bloggers is the performance of the front stage, which most bloggers carefully control in front of the audiences to get their liking and praise with the ingratiation and self-promotion.

Leadership represents a diverse and dynamic area of study, occupying a vast area in sociological literature. However, the nonprofit sector is somewhat neglected in literature that examines leadership as a performance. Heightened demand for accountability, funding shortages and other challenges in the nonprofit sector have spurred recent trends such as coalition-building and business-like practices. Nonprofit leaders must satisfy multiple internal and external stakeholders with opposing values and expectations. This creates a rich and yet incomplete area in which to study impression management. This thesis employs an interpretivist perspective, specifically utilizing symbolic interactionism to understand how the participants create and maintain impressions. By employing Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical metaphors, this thesis addresses how the participants use symbolic representations of leadership in order to create desired impressions. It also explores the strategies used by the participants in order to present a front of competent leadership during the interviews. Lastly, the research asks the participants to reflect on their impression management activities. To address these questions, 19 leaders were interviewed at 11 different nonprofits in Canada and in Egypt for approximately one hour each, using face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Simple observation was also applied. A combination of purposive, snowball and convenience sampling was used to select the organizations. iv The research offers a number of significant findings. First, the manner and appearances of the leaders and the design of their office space provides avenues in which to convey leadership, financial and organizational messages, as well as information about the leaders’ roles and statuses. For example, visual cues may be used to express their participative approach to leadership, convey organizational frugality or success and create a corporate culture. Second, the participants commonly self-identified as benevolent and humble “servant leaders” by attempting to appear as mentors. They downplayed their authority and claimed to integrate staff feedback into the organization. They also claimed to employ a benevolent form of discipline that focuses on learning. When discussing mistakes, the participants claimed to respond in an ideal way, by apologizing and learning from their errors. However, they claimed to, at times, act authoritatively and convey “professionalism.” The leaders displayed their authority during the course of the interview and laid claim to qualifications that made them especially suited for the job. These kinds of inconsistencies suggest that impression management is not static or flawless, but rather a series of performances fraught with contradiction and tension. Third, about half of the participants admitted to consciously changing their behaviour, language and appearances in situations in order to build trust with stakeholders. This involves at times appearing “professional” while at other times self-humbling in order to build a shared-identity with others. The participants struggle to appear sincere, but recognize that their impressions are sometimes met with suspicion. There are limitations to the sampling technique and research design. A larger sample that interviewed a group of leaders from one region would be preferable to this small, cross-national one. In this thesis it is impossible to know whether the participants’ claims are warranted. Longitudinal participant observation would enable the researcher to see inconsistencies and also to understand how others interpret the leaders’ impression management attempts. However, the research has many benefits; in addition to contributing to the literature and providing examples of Goffman’s dramaturgical metaphors in the context of nonprofit leadership, this thesis may assist leaders in their goals. This thesis could lead to increased self-reflexivity or sharing of impression management techniques and could potentially assist nonprofit leaders with their tenuous missions.