Social Construction of Impression Management

Social Construction of Impression Management

This study examines how female employees employ impression manageirent strategies relative to structural support, including supervisory support and informal social networks. By adopting the social construction perspective, it is argued that female employees impression management strategies have recursive relationships with structural support. To illustrate this argurrent, these recursive relationships are captured in an empirical model. Because recursive relationships are inherently dependent on the span of time, time-variant predictors, namely turnover experience and work experience, are considered to estirmte the recursive relationships. That is, it is hypothesized that there is a relationship between work experience and the dominance of impression management tactics over structural support. To test the hypotheses, a measure that considers impression management strategies and structural support simultaneously is developed. An estimltion molel is then constructed by using a system dynamics framework. The results of a survey of 163 female employees in the Korean financial industry indicate that the recursive relationship between impression management and structural support of female employees can be balanced as work experience increases.