How Coworker’s Upward Ingratiation Shapes Performance-goal Orientation and Proactive Task Behavior

Ingratiatory behavior has been demonstrated to have both positive and negative effects on employee’s work outcomes, and while a number of contingencies have been proposed to reconcile the mixed findings, its impact on the broader social context has been understudied, impeding us from a more comprehensive understanding of such behavior. In this study, we draw on goal orientation theory and social comparison theory to explore the mechanism underlying the relationship between coworker upward ingratiation and individual behavioral outcomes from a third-party audience perspective. We predict that coworker upward ingratiation stimulates focal employee’s state performance-prove goal orientation which in turn is positively associated with proactive task behavior. Self-efficacy weakens the relationship between coworker upward ingratiation and focal employee’s state performance-prove goal orientation. In a multilevel regression analysis that assessed 295 employees in a manufacture company across three time points, we find support for our hypotheses that in order to compensate for the potential negative effects of coworker upward ingratiation, employees will increase their own state performance-prove goal orientation and proactive work behavior.