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The present study was undertaken to find out whether different influence tactics are evaluated the same way, or differently, in downward and upward exercise of influence; and whether appropriateness and effectiveness constitute two different dimensions of evaluation. Data were collected from 144 bank managers. Discusses implications of these findings. Results showed that for influencing subordinates, many more tactics are seen as being highly appropriate and effective, than for influencing superiors. Appropriateness and effectiveness emerged as two different dimensions of evaluation.

By combining the influence tactics and team development literatures, this paper aims to propose a new team-level approach to influence tactics in self-managed teams and a temporal account of the extent to which team-level influence tactics are associated with team performance as a dynamic process.

Using 75 self-managed teams, we examined the relationship between the proportion of team members who tend to use each influence tactic to a high degree and team performance at initial versus advanced stages of team development.

Results demonstrated at initial stages of team development, a high proportion of team members who tend to use assertiveness was detrimental to team performance, whereas at advanced stages of team development, a high proportion of team members tending to use ingratiation was detrimental, while rationality was positively associated with team performance. Additionally, a Fuzzy Qualitative Comparative Analysis showed that at advanced stages of team development, tactics configuration matters.

This study sets the stage for a team-level theory of influence tactics by examining the relationship between the proportion of team members who tend to use influence tactics to a high degree and team performance at initial versus advanced stages of team development, and the configurations of tactics associated with better team performance at these developmental stages. While the individual-level literature on influence tactics is based on notions of power and politics, in a team context and specifically with self-managed teams, there is a need to integrate theories of team processes and dynamics to understand how influence tactics are associated with performance.

This paper aims to examine how remote (i.e. global, regional or divisional) management accountants communicate in interpersonal contacts with operational managers when trying to exert influence on them.

An ethnographic field study focusing on budgetary control meetings between regional management accountants and operational managers is used as the basis for a micro-level analysis of situated face-to-face interactions and communicative influence tactics.

Remote management accountants mainly use soft rather than hard influence tactics. They, furthermore, employ what is referred to as “panoramic knowledge” gained explicitly from their structurally as well as physically removed “meta-positioning” to suggest certain measures to operational managers that have proved successful in other units and – by doing so – try to exert influence on these managers. Moreover, they use information that they gain in their position in between senior and operational managers by acting as “double agents” – that is, informing operational managers about senior managers’ focus as well as making transparent to operational managers that they will inform senior management about specific operational matters. By doing so, they try to prompt operational managers to address these issues. Additionally, strengthening their verbally articulated suggestions, as “minute takers” they are able to document their suggestions by moving from spoken to a more binding written text. Through these purposeful and rather unobtrusive tactics, remote management accountants try to take influence on operational managers without generating their resistance.

The paper shows how remote management accountants (as staff members) can skillfully turn their apparently powerless position within the organization into a source of strength to exert influence on operational managers.

Adaptive selling can help build positive relationships between salespeople and consumers. The literature shows that consumers respond positively to salespeople under approach but not avoidance motivations. This paper aims to demonstrate a circumstance under which consumers with avoidance motivations can also respond positively, something not previously shown in the literature.

This research paper uses three experimental between-subject designs to test hypotheses.

The current research identifies appropriate sales influence tactics (e.g. a customer-autonomy-oriented or a loss-avoidance-oriented influence tactic) where consumers with avoidance motivations can also respond to sales agents positively by the evidence of higher purchase intentions. In addition, this research shows that consumers with approach motivations may not always respond positively to salespeople. Further, goal facilitation appraisals of the salespeople serve as a mechanism between consumers’ shopping motivations and their behavioral responses (e.g. purchase intentions).

First, while the previous literature demonstrates that approach motivations generally lead to more positive effects (Elliot and Trash, 2002), this research indicates that avoidance motivations can also have positive effects, which is a finding that has not been demonstrated in the literature thus far. Second, this research identifies goal facilitation appraisals as one underlying process that explains the interactive effect between matching influence tactics and consumers’ approach/avoidance motivations when shopping. Third, the authors integrate regulatory focus theory by using gain- or loss-avoidance-oriented sales influence tactics to match approach and avoidance motivations.

Non-technical skills are of increasing importance for safety engineers to perform their job. In their position as expert consultants, they work closely with managers. Thus, gaining management support is oftentimes crucial for safety engineers to successfully improve occupational health and safety. Drawing on organizational support theory (OST), this study investigates how safety engineers’ non-technical skills in communication and persuasion (i.e. rational and hard influence tactics) are related with their management support, and how management support is related with their individual task proficiency (ITP). The purpose of this paper is to examine the moderating role of safety engineers’ expert power in this context.

Using an online questionnaire, survey data were collected from 251 safety engineers working in Austria.

Rational influence tactics are positively related to ITP via management support, whereas hard influence tactics are not. Safety engineers’ expert power moderates the relationship between influence tactics and management support and, consequently ITP. High (vs low) expert status strengthens the positive relationship of rational influence tactics on ITP via management support. For hard influence tactics, high (vs low) expert power buffered the negative relationship of upward appeal and pressure on ITP via management support.

Safety engineers should rely on rational persuasion when cooperating with management to obtain support and improve their own performance.

This study connects the effect of influence tactics in the context of safety engineers’ work performance with OST. It demonstrates that safety engineers’ influence tactics are related to work role performance through management support and that these relationships are moderated by expert power.

Influence tactics are prevalent in the workplace and are linked to crucial outcomes such as career success and helping behaviours. The authors argue that sex role identity affects women’s choice of influence tactics in the workplace, but they only receive positive performance ratings when their behaviours are congruent with gender role expectation. Furthermore, the authors hypothesize that these relationships may be moderated by occupational continuance commitment. Results suggest that femininity is negatively related to the use of influence tactics overall, and this relationship is moderated by occupational continuance commitment.

In all, 657 women working in the construction industry were surveyed for their continuance occupational commitment and sex role identity and 465 supervisors whose responses are linked with the subordinates are surveyed for the women’s influence tactics and performance ratings.

Results suggested that femininity was negatively related to the use of influence tactics overall, and this relationship was moderated by occupational continuance commitment. Results also showed that women’s use of influence tactics was only positively received in terms of performance ratings when the influence tactic was congruent with gender role expectations.

The results of this current study suggest that not all women are equally likely to use influence tactics and not all tactics result in positive perceptions of performance. Feminine women in general refrain from using influence tactics unless they are driven to stay in a given occupation, but they only receive positive results when their behaviours are congruent with society’s gender role expectations.

Past research has mostly focused on broad differences between males and females, and this study has shown that there are more nuanced differences that can more accurately describe the effects of gender disposition (i.e. sex role identity) on influence tactics. It also emphasizes the importance of occupational commitment as a boundary condition, which influences women to step out of their gender roles even though they may be penalized with lower performance ratings.

Prior research has identified the outcomes of influence tactics as short-term task commitment, compliance and resistance. This paper argues that leaders’ downward influence behaviors should also have an impact on followers’ organizational commitment. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of three influence strategies (11 downward influence tactics) on organizational commitment, and the moderating effect of national culture.

The study draws on survey data (n=185) and follow-up interviews (n=19) from Hong Kong Chinese employees who work for Hong Kong Chinese or Japanese managers.

The quantitative results show that all rational tactics, the inspirational appeal and pressure tactics had effects on organizational commitment. Drawing on the survey and follow-up interview data, three specific factors in the use of influence tactics on organizational commitment are identified. Results suggest that some tactics are more universal and able to provide “long-lasting” effects compared with other tactics in enhancing or reducing employees’ organizational commitment. The results of the entire study also show that most rational influence tactics seem to be convergent; yet, there is also evidence that other tactics are more culturally specific in generating employee commitment.

This is the first empirical study to examine the effects of influence behaviors on organizational commitment with both inter- and intra-cultural samples. The study has also drawn on interview data to demonstrate examples of effective and ineffective influence tactics used by superiors, thereby offering managerial hints to managers on how to exercise their influence behaviors effectively.

The authors examine the relationship between leader-member exchange (LMX) and the selection of upward influence tactics. The purpose of this paper is to integrate research on perceptions of justice, LMX, and influence tactics in order to empirically test an integrative model.

Questionnaires were administered to n=407 employed Masters of Business Administration students at a private Southeastern University in the USA. Structural equation modeling was used to test the statistical significance of paths specified in the models.

Results indicate that perceptions of organizational justice have indirect effects on upward influence tactics reported. LMX had mediating effects on the relationship between interactional justice and the use of rational and coalition tactics.

The data are cross-sectional and were collected using self-reports, which limits the conclusions that can be drawn. The findings however, suggest that perceptions of interactional justice are associated with LMX, whose effects in turn are associated with the use of influence tactics.

Coalition strategies were used more when subordinates experienced poor LMX. The research suggests that perhaps for individuals experiencing poor relationships with the supervisor, coalition strategies might present an alternative to “rational” influence tactics (which are used more in high-quality relationships).

The current study extends LMX research by examining differing subordinate influence strategies in high- and low-quality relationships. It also extends organizational justice research by examining the effects of the interpersonal implementation of fair procedures on the dynamics between leadership and upward influence.

This study seeks to demonstrate that employees' reactions to their supervisors' influence behaviors are governed by meanings inferred from the behaviors. Another aim is to develop a method in which “weights” for predicting employees' reactions are assigned using mean ratings of perceptions of the features and social/organizational implications of the influence behaviors.

Employees of an energy utility completed survey questionnaires concerning the extent of their supervisors' use of specified influence tactics. Employees' organizational commitment, supervisor commitment, turnover intention, and stress also were surveyed. A separate, community sample rated the influence tactics for dimensions of meaning or implications of the tactics. Data from the two samples were combined in a novel arithmetic scoring procedure as one of several analyses looking for evidence of the specified dimensions' effects.

The study finds that employees' work attitudes and other outcomes were predicted to a statistically significant degree by dimensional, perceptual characterizations of the influence tactics used by their supervisors. In culminating multiple regression analyses, respectfulness was associated with supervisor commitment, turnover intention, and emotional distress; directness was associated with organizational commitment. Additional analyses indicated that other dimensions of meaning also were associated with outcomes.

The meanings of supervisors' influence behaviors are somewhat culture‐specific, so the generalizability of findings to other cultures is uncertain. However, the central role of social inferences in reactions to supervisors' influence behaviors may be replicable to other cultures if culture‐specific content or ratings are substituted there. This research also has the usual limitations of cross‐sectional, correlational research.

In their interactions with employees, managers and supervisors should be aware that their influence behaviors, collectively, generate reactions that are significant for employees' motivation and well‐being. Supervisory behaviors and work contexts should be managed so that employees will infer that their supervisors are showing respect and are being honest and direct.

Processes previously assumed to intervene between supervisory influence behavior and employee reactions were operationalized and demonstrated. Novel methods were developed for this research, and these methods may also be applicable to other research domains that involve sets of behaviors that parallel existing schemes for influence behavior.

Interest in the nature of influence attempts in the performance evaluation process has increased in recent years. Researchers have conducted a number of important and revealing cross‐sectional investigations, but there remains virtually no longitudinal work in this area. The present study attempted to address this need by conducting a multi‐period investigation of influence tactics use and affect that addressed three questions: (1) Are individuals consistent in their use of influence tactics across evaluation periods? (2) Are prior‐period performance ratings reflected in subsequent influence tactic use? (3) What role does affect, both supervisor and subordinate, play in this process? A latent variable structural model was tested using longitudinal data from managers and employees of food services units. Our results indicated that there is a cycle of continued influence tactic use across time periods, performance ratings help to determine subsequent tactic use, and both supervisor and subordinate affect play a role in the influence‐evaluation process. Implications of these results and directions for future research are discussed.