How a powerful audience and audience feedback moderate the relationship between performance-approach orientation and exaggerated self-promotion

Abstract

The drive for employees to perform well may tempt them to practice exaggerated self-promotion tactics. The supposition is that those with a strong performance-approach orientation are especially inclined to do this, but that contextual variables are relevant. In this study, I examined the influence of the combination of two contextual variables (perceived audience power and feedback) on the relationship between performance-approach orientation and exaggerated self-promotion. A sample of 277 employees from two companies participated in the study. I found that the presence of a powerful audience weakened the positive relationship between performance-approach orientation and exaggerated self-promotion if the feedback from that audience was highly salient, and that a powerful audience strengthened this relationship if the salience of this feedback was low.