Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Drawing from sociologists such as Erving Goffman ( Brissett and Edgley, 1990 ), social influence in performance evaluations envisions actors engaging in “performances,” or acts, delivered to help shape definitions of reality. This broad domain includes impression management, self‐presentation, influence tactics, and organizational politics, among others ( Ferris et al., 2002 ). Some acts may be specifically targeted toward managing impressions in hopes of more favorable evaluations. Others may be a part of a social fabric that unintentionally affects perceptions and performance evaluations. Typically, the focus is on the former class of acts. The general model includes an actor (the ratee) that engages in various activities designed to dispose the audience (the rater) toward giving a favorable rating. The objective typically is a positive disposition toward the actor, but may at times focus on the outcome, as when blackmailing someone in authority over you to get better ratings. Thus, a social influence perspective focuses on the process . Employees can employ a number of forms of influence, and the usefulness of different tactics appears to be contingent on the context, source, and target of the influence efforts ( Ferris et al., 2002 ). Typically, the dependent variable is performance ratings, although other outcomes such as perceptions of fairness ( Dulebohn and Ferris, 1999 ... log in or subscribe to read full text