Do they know how hard I work? Investigating how implicit/explicit achievement orientation, reputation, and political skill affect occupational status

Researchers have yet to precisely test the Socioanalytic proposition that social skill moderates the personality identity – personality reputation relationship. Further, although research has found personality to have both explicit and implicit aspects, scholars have not examined these differences with respect to the Socioanalytic perspective on personality. The present study investigates how explicit and implicit achievement orientation identities relate to one's reputation for that trait in the workplace and to career success, as measured by occupational status. We propose that explicit and implicit achievement orientation, political skill, and their interplay positively relate to reputation of achievement orientation at work, which, in turn, is positively related to occupational status. We found that 1) both explicit and implicit achievement orientation were positively associated with its reputation, as rated by coworkers, 2) reputation mediated both relations between implicit/explicit achievement orientation and occupational status, and 3) heightened political skill strengthened the relationship between explicit achievement orientation and its reputation, as well as its indirect effect on occupational status via reputation (first stage moderated-mediation). Our research provides a potential explanation for why observer ratings of personality are more strongly associated with outcomes than self-ratings: Observers perceive both implicit and explicit personality behaviours.