Whether you are trying to impress others, communicate efficiently, develop trust with your teammates or followers, or choose key partners to work with, you need to accurately anticipate what others think of you. This process, which is called meta-perception (Laing, Phillipson, & Lee, 1966), is thus crucial for your day-to-day life, and also at work. Still, meta-perception fails to be considered as a key individual process in the field of Organizational Behavior – OB. Therefore, this dissertation aims to gather empirical and theoretical evidence showing that meta-perception is an important process for organizational life. Thus, this dissertation focuses on the process itself (i.e. meta-perception and meta-accuracy), its antecedents and its outcomes, applied to social evaluation situations that are common at work. First, I aim to provide the bases of a consensual and context-specific approach of meta-perception enabling its study in the field of OB by differentiating the manifestations of meta-accuracy and by using statistical methods that consider both components of meta-accuracy, namely meta-perception and other-perception (Edwards, 1995, 2002; Shanock, Baran, Gentry, Pattison, & Heggestad, 2010). Second, I aim to examine whether meta-perception, its bias and its accuracy are affected by specific antecedents (i.e. narcissism and leadership style) that have received growing attention in OB. Third, I aim to study the effect of meta-perception and its accuracy on outcomes usually influenced by person perception, such as performance and hireability, and characterized by social evaluation. To achieve these aims, four research projects were performed (i.e. three empirical projects, gathering eight studies, and one theoretical project). The first project examines the link between narcissistic tendencies and a specific form of meta-perception. The second project tests the effect of leadership style on the accuracy of meta-perception and whether this accuracy has a positive impact on task performance. The third project provides a theoretical framework on the advantages of including meta-perception of performance in Multi-Source Feedback. The fourth project tests whether meta-perception and its accuracy play a role in hireability. These research projects led to key contributions to the literature on meta-perception and its accuracy, narcissism, leadership and the field of OB. First, this research contributes to the literature on meta-perception by proposing a context-specific approach of meta-perception. This dissertation specifically justifies the need to (a) differentiate the aspects on which meta-perception focuses (e.g. emotions, behaviors, skills, traits), (b) study meta-perception as related to self-perception and other-perception to gain knowledge about the bias and accuracy of meta-perception, and (c) examine the role of meta-accuracy in predicting organizational behaviors according to its three dimensions (i.e. size, direction, and favorability). Second, it contributes to the literature on leadership by studying the effect of narcissism and leadership style on meta-perception through the assessment individuals’ egocentrism and flexibility. Third, it contributes to the OB field and meta-accuracy literature by showing that the three dimensions of meta-accuracy (i.e. size, direction and favorability) have specific effects on task performance, professional development and hireability. In fine, this dissertation constitutes a well-documented plea for the integration and recognition of meta-perception as a key process in Organizational Behavior studies. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Purpose: This thesis deals with some questions from the field of empathic accuracy, i.e. ability to correctly and accurately infer mental states of others. We were especially interested in question whether people are able to reflect their own empathic accuracy and their own meta-accuracy, i.e. recognize how other people view them. We were also interested in the role of motivation for empathic accuracy. Methods: Experiment based on the method of interactions. After the interaction phase were the participants asked to fill in forms concerning their own experience and experience of their partner and try to estimate, how the partner viewed them. They also estimated the accuracy of their answers. Results: Experiment has shown that participants have quite accurate idea about what has their partner experienced and how they were perceived although the degree of right guesses was various. However the reflection of their empathic skill was minimal. Participants mostly could not estimate, whether their guesses were accurate or not. Self-evaluation of participants, who were less successful in recognition of others experiences, was less accurate than the self-evaluation of the more successful ones.

This study identified the accuracy with which local career and technical education (CTE) administrators perceive the stereotypes of CTE students, teachers, and programs held by Virginia Department of Education administrators. In order to measure the aforementioned meta-accuracy: (a) the stereotypes of CTE students, teachers, and programs held by (VDOE) administrators were determined, (b) the meta-stereotypes of local CTE administrators regarding the stereotypes of CTE programs, students, and teachers held by VDOE administrators were established, and (c) the stereotypes and the meta-stereotypes were compared. Data analyzed revealed that some of the traditional stereotypical descriptors of CTE teachers, students, and programs were held by VDOE administrators. Some stereotypes of note were: (a) CTE students do not plan to go to college, (b) CTE students are good with concrete concepts, (c) CTE students enjoy nonacademic classes more than academic ones, (d) CTE students are not from middle to upper socioeconomic class, (e) CTE teachers have lots of on-the-job experience, and (f) CTE programs are isolated from the rest of the school. Local CTE administrators possessed meta-stereotypes that indicated that VDOE administrators would stereotype CTE students as: (a) not being leaders in school, (b) not having college-educated parents, (c) being motivated by material rewards, (d) enjoying nonacademic classes more than academic ones, (e) being easily influenced by peers, and (f) not being from middle to upper socio-economic class. Local CTE administrators had meta-stereotypes that indicated VDOE administrators would stereotype CTE teachers as: (a) being more of a practitioner than a theorist, (b) being good with concrete concepts, and (c) not possessing master's degrees. Local CTE administrators had meta-stereotypes that indicated VDOE administrators would stereotype CTE programs as: (a) being a good return on investment, (b) providing for the education of the whole person, (c) being beneficial to all students, (d) being expensive to maintain, (e) having enrollment typically of students from blue-collar or agriculture background, and (f) being for students who work better with their hands. Local CTE administrators were accurately able to predict the way VDOE administrators would respond to the statements depicting stereotypes of CTE students, teachers, and programs for 45 of the 62 items. Conversely, they were not able to accurately predict 17 out of the 62 statements. Overall, the accuracy of the meta-stereotypes (meta-accuracy) of local CTE administrators varied depending upon what was being measured. The meta-accuracy in relation to CTE teachers was highest (11 out of the 12 items) and the meta-accuracy was lowest in relation to CTE programs (10 out of 17 items). In relation to CTE students, local CTE administrators were accurate in predicting 24 out of the 33 items. / Ph. D.