Embeddedness Perceptions and Job Performance: A Regulatory Focus Perspective

Abstract

There are two common types of embeddedness perceptions—employees’ perceptions of their own embeddedness and their supervisors’ embeddedness. Although research has documented that employee embeddedness is predictive of many work outcomes, the intrapsychic mechanisms through which embeddedness influences employee performance are still unclear. We first argue that the association between these two types of embeddedness perceptions depends on the quality of leader-member exchange. More importantly, guided by regulatory focus theory, we develop and test a theoretical model in which promotion focus is posited as the underlying mechanism that relates both types of embeddedness perceptions to job performance. Matched data collected from 406 employees and their supervisors generally supported the proposed relationships. The moderating role of leader-member exchange was supported as well. Crucially, promotion focus mediated the effects of both perceived supervisor embeddedness and employee embeddedness on supervisor-rated performance outcomes, including task performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and innovative behavior.