Do impression management tactics and/or supervisor–subordinate guanxi matter?

This study compares the relative role of impression management tactics and the other form of supervisor–subordinate guanxi (s–s g) in predicting supervisor-rated employee performance. Empirical data were collected from 175 supervisor-subordinate dyads working full-time in Taiwanese organisations. Specifically, this study uses the Dominance-based Rough Set Approach (DRSA) to formulate employee social skills by generating “if–then” decision rules. Then, flow network graphs are applied to represent employee decision rules. The results indicate that the personal-life inclusion of supervisor–subordinate guanxi matters more than various impression management tactics in achieving high performance ratings. Additionally, employees avoiding engaging in the supplication tactic may face in low performance ratings. The findings have implications for many of the decision rules that influence performance ratings from supervisors.