Implicit Motives as Determinants of Networking Behaviors

In today’s world of work, networking behaviors are an important and viable strategy to enhance success in work and career domains. Concerning personality as an antecedent of networking behaviors, prior studies have exclusively relied on trait perspectives that focus on how people feel, think, and ac...

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Main Authors: Hans-Georg Wolff, Julia G. Weikamp, Bernad Batinic
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-04-01
Series:Frontiers in Psychology
Subjects:
Online Access:http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00411/full
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spelling doaj-59340583162e46529b719602aed64a072020-11-25T00:55:24ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782018-04-01910.3389/fpsyg.2018.00411313984Implicit Motives as Determinants of Networking BehaviorsHans-Georg Wolff0Julia G. Weikamp1Bernad Batinic2Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities, University of Cologne, Cologne, GermanyDepartment of Psychology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, GermanyDepartment of Education and Psychology, Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Linz, AustriaIn today’s world of work, networking behaviors are an important and viable strategy to enhance success in work and career domains. Concerning personality as an antecedent of networking behaviors, prior studies have exclusively relied on trait perspectives that focus on how people feel, think, and act. Adopting a motivational perspective on personality, we enlarge this focus and argue that beyond traits predominantly tapping social content, motives shed further light on instrumental aspects of networking – or why people network. We use McClelland’s implicit motives framework of need for power (nPow), need for achievement (nAch), and need for affiliation (nAff) to examine instrumental determinants of networking. Using a facet theoretical approach to networking behaviors, we predict differential relations of these three motives with facets of (1) internal vs. external networking and (2) building, maintaining, and using contacts. We conducted an online study, in which we temporally separate measures (N = 539 employed individuals) to examine our hypotheses. Using multivariate latent regression, we show that nAch is related to networking in general. In line with theoretical differences between networking facets, we find that nAff is positively related to building contacts, whereas nPow is positively related to using internal contacts. In sum, this study shows that networking is not only driven by social factors (i.e., nAff), but instead the achievement motive is the most important driver of networking behaviors.http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00411/fullnetworkingsocial capitalimplicit motiveswork behaviorsocial interactioncareer self-management
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Hans-Georg Wolff
Julia G. Weikamp
Bernad Batinic
spellingShingle Hans-Georg Wolff
Julia G. Weikamp
Bernad Batinic
Implicit Motives as Determinants of Networking Behaviors
Frontiers in Psychology
networking
social capital
implicit motives
work behavior
social interaction
career self-management
author_facet Hans-Georg Wolff
Julia G. Weikamp
Bernad Batinic
author_sort Hans-Georg Wolff
title Implicit Motives as Determinants of Networking Behaviors
title_short Implicit Motives as Determinants of Networking Behaviors
title_full Implicit Motives as Determinants of Networking Behaviors
title_fullStr Implicit Motives as Determinants of Networking Behaviors
title_full_unstemmed Implicit Motives as Determinants of Networking Behaviors
title_sort implicit motives as determinants of networking behaviors
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
series Frontiers in Psychology
issn 1664-1078
publishDate 2018-04-01
description In today’s world of work, networking behaviors are an important and viable strategy to enhance success in work and career domains. Concerning personality as an antecedent of networking behaviors, prior studies have exclusively relied on trait perspectives that focus on how people feel, think, and act. Adopting a motivational perspective on personality, we enlarge this focus and argue that beyond traits predominantly tapping social content, motives shed further light on instrumental aspects of networking – or why people network. We use McClelland’s implicit motives framework of need for power (nPow), need for achievement (nAch), and need for affiliation (nAff) to examine instrumental determinants of networking. Using a facet theoretical approach to networking behaviors, we predict differential relations of these three motives with facets of (1) internal vs. external networking and (2) building, maintaining, and using contacts. We conducted an online study, in which we temporally separate measures (N = 539 employed individuals) to examine our hypotheses. Using multivariate latent regression, we show that nAch is related to networking in general. In line with theoretical differences between networking facets, we find that nAff is positively related to building contacts, whereas nPow is positively related to using internal contacts. In sum, this study shows that networking is not only driven by social factors (i.e., nAff), but instead the achievement motive is the most important driver of networking behaviors.
topic networking
social capital
implicit motives
work behavior
social interaction
career self-management
url http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00411/full
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