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INTRODUCTION
As the information highway makes ever increasing inroads through the internet into our homes and offices, thousands of commercial, academic, and government organizations have discovered a new medium for conveying information about their products, services, and achievements to interested parties world wide (Cronin, 1994). However, computer-mediated promotions are just the latest manifestation of organizational efforts to favorably shape their organizations' impressions. More conventional media and presentations include: 1) corporate advertising (Sethi, 1977), 2), glossy annual reports (Smilowitz and Pearson, 1989), 3) well orchestrated "pseudo-events" that promote organizational achievements and are covered by the mass media (Alvesson, 1990), and 4), and concerted efforts at "damage control" following image-threatening predicaments (Dutton and Dukerich, 1991; Ginzel, Kramer, and Sutton, 1992). While the circumstances and purposes for which these presentations are used clearly vary, each represents a means whereby organizations attempt to manage the impressions they make on key audiences.
Organizational leaders and representatives engage in impression management because they believe such behavior will improve the organization's relations with key constituencies. Indeed, as Pfeffer (1981, p. 26) observed, "Every organization has an interest in seeing its definition of reality accepted, ... for such acceptance is an integral part of the legitimation of the organization and the development of assured resources." Hence, in addition to striving to achieve organizational performance, top management is expected to manage constituent perceptions of performance by making sense of the organization's actions and projecting a favorable image (Ginzel et al., 1992).
PRIOR RESEARCH
The last decade has witnessed growing academic interest in the impression management behaviors exhibited both within, and by, organizations. The term "impression management" refers to the regulation of actions and/or information to shape others' perceptions of oneself (Schlenker and Weigold, 1992). Increasingly, scholars have adapted impression management theory from social psychology and applied it to organizational settings. While most focus on individual behaviors (Bozman and Kacmar, 1997; Gardner and Martinko, 1988; Giacalone and Rosenfeld, 1989, 1991; Wayne and Liden, 1995), a few researchers have shown the applicability of this construct at the macro-organizational level. For example, Sutton and Kramer (1990) demonstrated how President Reagan's administration was able to manage the impressions of the world's press in the Iceland arms control talks with the Soviet Union. Elsbach and Sutton (1992) concluded...