Measuring Ingratiatory Behaviors in Organizational Settings

1. Abstract

The Measuring Ingratiatory Behaviors in Organizational Settings (MIBOS) scale, formulated by Kamlesh Kumar and Michael Beyerlein (1991), is an established 24-item psychometric instrument engineered to evaluate the frequency with which subordinates deploy upward interpersonal influence tactics toward their organizational superiors. Rooted in social psychological theories of ingratiation and impression management, the MIBOS operationalizes organizational ingratiation across four distinct behavioral dimensions: Opinion Conformity (7 items), Other Enhancement (7 items), Favor Rendering (6 items), and Self-Presentation (often designated in subsequent empirical literature as self-promotion or self-preservation; 4 items). Responses are registered using a five-point Likert-type frequency metric ranging from 1 (“never do it”) to 5 (“almost always do it”).

Psychometrically, the instrument demonstrates robust overall internal consistency across diverse organizational samples, with composite Cronbach’s alpha coefficients routinely spanning .86 to .93. Individual subscale reliabilities fluctuate within acceptable to strong parameters: .56 to .79 for Opinion Conformity, .74 to .84 for Other Enhancement, .72 to .86 for Favor Rendering, and .73 to .77 for Self-Presentation. Construct and criterion-related validity investigations reveal meaningful associations with individual difference markers such as self-monitoring, internal locus of control, need for power, and dyadic workplace phenomena including Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) quality and managerial liking. Concurrently, empirical research by subsequent psychometricians has surfaced critical discussions regarding the scale’s latent factor structure, noting replication challenges within confirmatory factor analysis frameworks. Despite these ongoing structural dialogues, the MIBOS remains a foundational assessment tool within industrial-organizational psychology, organizational behavior, and management studies investigating micropolitics, interpersonal influence, and career navigation.

2. Keywords

Measuring Ingratiatory Behaviors in Organizational Settings, MIBOS, Ingratiation, Impression Management, Upward Influence, Opinion Conformity, Other Enhancement, Favor Rendering, Self-Presentation, Organizational Politics, Leader-Member Exchange, Psychometrics

3. Authors

The MIBOS instrument was conceptualized, constructed, and psychometrically validated by Kamlesh Kumar and Michael M. Beyerlein. At the time of the instrument’s initial development and seminal 1991 publication in the Journal of Applied Psychology, both authors were affiliated with academic research institutions dedicated to advanced organizational analysis and organizational psychology:

• Kamlesh Kumar, Ph.D.: Professor of Management and Organizational Behavior at the College of Business, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, Michigan, United States. His scholarship focuses on organizational politics, workplace conflict, interpersonal influence strategies, negotiation processes, and cross-cultural management dynamics.
• Michael M. Beyerlein, Ph.D.: Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Organizational Human Resource Development, formerly Director of the Center for the Study of Work Teams at the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, and subsequently Professor in Human Resource Development at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States. His scholarship addresses collaborative work systems, team performance, knowledge management, and workplace social interactions.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Measuring Ingratiatory Behaviors in Organizational Settings (MIBOS) scale is to provide researchers, applied psychologists, and organizational practitioners with an empirically derived, domain-specific diagnostic instrument capable of capturing the nuanced, non-coercive, upward influence behaviors employed by subordinates toward organizational authorities. Prior to the construction of the MIBOS, empirical investigations into organizational impression management were profoundly constrained by measurement limitations. Researchers frequently relied on generalized social-psychological scales—such as the Machiavellianism Scale (Mach-IV) or generalized self-presentation inventories—which lacked fidelity to the hierarchical, task-dependent, and politically charged dynamics characteristic of modern workplace environments.

Alternative upward influence measures, most notably the Profiles of Organizational Influence Strategies (POIS) developed by Kipnis, Schmidt, and Wilkinson (1980), emphasized macro-level influence tactics such as assertiveness, rationality, bargaining, and upward appeals. However, these broad frameworks under-theorized and under-measured the subtle, deceptive, or strategic interpersonal flattery behaviors conceptualized within foundational social psychology. Kumar and Beyerlein (1991) engineered the MIBOS specifically to bridge this empirical chasm, creating an assessment instrument fine-tuned to the idiosyncratic power asymmetries inherent in superior-subordinate dyads.

In applied and research contexts, the MIBOS serves multiple critical functions:

• Deconstructing Organizational Micropolitics: The scale enables organizational analysts to quantify the prevalence of political maneuvering, flattery, and strategic compliance within administrative hierarchies, illuminating informal power structures that operate beneath formal organizational charts.
• Evaluating Performance Appraisal Distortions: In human resource management studies, the MIBOS is leveraged to analyze how non-performance-related socio-behavioral tactics distort supervisory performance appraisals, compensation allocations, promotion pacing, and succession planning decisions.
• Investigating Dyadic Relational Dynamics: Organizational behaviorists deploy the tool within Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) frameworks to elucidate how subordinate ingratiation fosters interpersonal liking, perceived homophily, and psychological safety, and conversely, when it triggers the “ingratiator’s dilemma” by signaling manipulative ulterior motives.
• Individual Difference Correlational Research: In personality and differential psychology, the MIBOS functions as an operational criterion variable to examine which dispositional profiles (e.g., high self-monitors, dark triad personalities, individuals with external vs. internal locus of control) are systematically inclined toward upward strategic flattery.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct assessed by the MIBOS is organizational ingratiation. Rooted in the seminal social-psychological work of Edward E. Jones (1964), ingratiation is formally conceptualized as a strategic class of illicit or non-coercive interpersonal behaviors intentionally elicited by an individual to alter the perceptual appraisals, affective reactions, and behavioral outputs of an observer—typically an authority figure possessing differential access to organizational resources, rewards, or sanctions. While generalized impression management can be oriented laterally toward peers or downward toward subordinates, ingratiation within organizational hierarchies is essentially an upward, asymmetric interpersonal transaction designed to elicit managerial liking, psychological indebtedness, and favorable evaluation.

The MIBOS operationalizes this overarching construct into four distinct yet functionally interrelated behavioral subdimensions:

Opinion Conformity

Opinion conformity involves the strategic alignment of one’s publicly verbalized judgments, values, convictions, and behavioral orientations with those expressed by the direct supervisor. As conceptualized by Kumar and Beyerlein (1991), this subscale does not capture genuine or spontaneous ideological agreement; rather, it reflects instrumental, calculated agreement deployed even when the subordinate privately harbors contrary assessments. The psychological mechanism relies on the similarity-attraction effect: individuals inherently display heightened interpersonal attraction, affective warmth, and cognitive validation toward others who mirror their belief systems. Within the MIBOS, this dimension encompasses verbal acquiescence regarding operational ideas, expressing simulated enthusiasm for managerial proposals, matching the supervisor’s work schedules (e.g., ostentatiously remaining late or working weekends), and laughing heartily at managerial humor that is not genuinely amusing.

Other Enhancement

Other enhancement embodies the strategic deployment of direct praise, adulation, flattery, and verbal magnification of the superior’s competencies, virtues, leadership attributes, and personal qualities, while deliberately ignoring, downplaying, or minimizing their structural shortcomings. Grounded in theories of self-esteem and social validation, other enhancement functions on the premise that target individuals experience psychological gratification and narcissistic reinforcement when praised, which they subsequently project back onto the praiser as interpersonal affection. MIBOS items assessing other enhancement capture behaviors such as seeking managerial counsel in areas where the supervisor prides themselves on their intellect, exaggerating the leader’s admirable qualities, communicating that only the supervisor possesses the exceptional insight required to resolve a crisis, and delivering public acclaim regarding leadership successes in settings outside the supervisor’s physical presence.

Favor Rendering

Favor rendering captures discretionary, unsolicited assistance, personal accommodations, and service provision performed by the subordinate for the supervisor, purposefully executed to establish social debt and obligate interpersonal reciprocation. Drawing upon the sociological norm of reciprocity, this dimension goes beyond formal organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Whereas genuine citizenship behavior is oriented altruistically toward organizational functioning or coworker support, ingratiatory favor rendering specifically targets the superior’s personal convenience or private welfare. Behaviors cataloged within this subdimension include running personal errands for the manager, utilizing one’s personal networks or social contacts to benefit the supervisor, offering logistical aid in personal domestic matters (such as apartment hunting or finding insurance agents), and intentionally spending time actively listening to the supervisor’s personal or familial problems despite lacking genuine emotional interest.

Self-Presentation

Self-presentation (labeled in various validation studies as self-promotion or self-preservation) entails explicit, proactive behavioral and verbal declarations designed to highlight, accentuate, or inflate the subordinate’s professional competencies, internal virtues, performance milestones, and interpersonal popularity. While other enhancement focuses externally on elevating the target, self-presentation focuses reflexively on orchestrating an aura of exceptional personal efficacy, indispensability, and social desirability in front of the organizational authority. The operational items on this subscale capture behaviors such as systematically ensuring the supervisor is cognizant of personal successes, deliberately communicating one’s broad organizational popularity, engineering situations to showcase personal strengths, and persuasively framing one’s inherent virtues during operational discussions.

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture undergirding the Measuring Ingratiatory Behaviors in Organizational Settings scale is anchored in the convergence of several foundational paradigms across sociology, social psychology, and organizational sociology:

Jones’ Strategic Social Ingratiation Paradigm

The paramount theoretical scaffolding for MIBOS derives directly from Edward E. Jones’ (1964) landmark monograph, Ingratiation: A Social Psychological Analysis, as well as subsequent extensions by Jones and Pittman (1982). Jones postulated that in social dyads marked by unequal power distributions, the subordinate actor encounters structural dependencies regarding reward access. To counterbalance this power differential without provoking defensive retaliation or defiance, the dependent actor utilizes non-confrontational impression management tactics. Jones delineated the precise fourfold taxonomy that Kumar and Beyerlein adapted: opinion conformity, other enhancement, favor doing, and self-presentation. Central to Jones’ formulation is the ingratiator’s dilemma: as the subordinate’s structural dependence upon the superior increases, the incentive to ingratiate correspondingly elevates; however, the supervisor’s vigilance and suspicion regarding the instrumental intentionality behind such flattery likewise intensify, requiring the ingratiator to deploy increasingly sophisticated, subtle, and naturalistic tactics.

Dramaturgical Perspective of Human Interaction

The sociological foundation of the MIBOS heavily incorporates Erving Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical framework outlined in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Goffman posited that social actors engage in continuous theatrical performances, dividing workplace behavior into “front-stage” performances (where idealized, socially normative, compliant identities are exhibited to satisfy institutional and hierarchical expectations) and “back-stage” realities (where authentic beliefs, private resentments, and discordant opinions reside). In the context of MIBOS, items capturing opinion conformity and simulated amusement directly quantify the subordinate’s capacity to stage a front-stage performance of subservience and alignment, ensuring organizational harmony and safeguarding interpersonal standing.

Social Exchange Theory and the Norm of Reciprocity

The mechanistic engine driving favor rendering within MIBOS is explained by Social Exchange Theory (Blau, 1964) and the universal norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960). Under these theoretical tenets, human relationships are governed by psychological ledgers of obligations and credits. When a subordinate performs an extra-role personal favor for a supervisor, the psychological tension of indebtedness is activated within the supervisor. Because institutional authority dynamics forbid leaders from appearing overtly indebted to subordinates, managers often discharge this social debt indirectly through organizational currencies: granting higher performance ratings, assigning high-visibility projects, offering scheduling flexibility, or advocating for upward promotional mobility.

Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory

Within organizational psychology, Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995) provides the contextual organizational frame. LMX posits that leaders do not treat all subordinates uniformly; instead, they cultivate idiosyncratic, differentiated dyadic relationships characterized either as high-quality “in-group” affiliations (founded on mutual trust, subjective liking, respect, and reciprocal loyalty) or low-quality “out-group” relationships (confined to formal transactional employment contracts). Ingratiatory tactics operationalized by the MIBOS function theoretically as intentional behavioral strategies deployed by subordinates to penetrate the supervisor’s psychological in-group, leveraging subjective interpersonal liking to circumvent formal institutional gatekeeping.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the MIBOS has been extensively scrutinized across diverse organizational settings, spanning corporate, healthcare, academic, and industrial workforces:

Construct and Convergent Validity

In their initial scale development and validation study involving 311 full-time employees, Kumar and Beyerlein (1991) established that the four MIBOS subscales exhibited positive, statistically significant intercorrelations with one another, establishing their theoretical commonality under the overarching latent construct of ingratiation. Convergent validity analyses revealed that total MIBOS scores correlated positively and significantly with established personality constructs theoretically associated with strategic interpersonal manipulation, notably self-monitoring (as measured by Snyder’s scale, showing that high self-monitors who actively regulate their expressive presentation score higher on MIBOS) and need for power (McClelland’s motive construct).

Further convergent validity was substantiated by Harrison, Hochwarter, Perrewé, and Ralston (1998) in an extensive multi-sample examination. They demonstrated that subordinate MIBOS dimensions correlated significantly with validated measures of upward organizational influence, such as Kipnis et al.’s (1980) POIS subscales. Specifically, Harrison et al. (1998) demonstrated that:

• Favor Rendering correlated significantly with influential reasoning, bargaining skills, assertiveness, reliance on higher authority, interpersonal skills, manager-subordinate liking, and perceived managerial similarity.
• Self-Presentation exhibited strong, positive correlations with influential reasoning, bargaining, and assertiveness, corroborating findings by Wayne, Liden, Graf, and Ferris (1997).
• Opinion Conformity and Other Enhancement correlated systematically with measures of subordinate political skill and managerial liking.

Discriminant Validity

To demonstrate that the MIBOS measures upward political flattery rather than generalized task-related communication, Kumar and Beyerlein (1991) examined correlations between the MIBOS and scales measuring rational persuasion tactics. The results showed that the composite MIBOS demonstrated only small, negligible positive correlations with rational persuasion (typically r < .20), demonstrating that employees clearly discriminate between objective, data-driven rational argumentation and strategic, socio-emotional flattery. Discriminant validity was also established between MIBOS behaviors and standard, non-targeted Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCB-O), demonstrating that ingratiation is psychologically distinct from generalized organizational loyalty.

Criterion-Related and Predictive Validity

Empirical investigations have supported the predictive capacity of MIBOS regarding career outcomes, albeit revealing complex boundary conditions. Wayne et al. (1997) documented that other-enhancement and favor-rendering behaviors significantly predicted managerial liking and high-quality LMX dyadic development, which sequentially translated into elevated supervisor-rated performance appraisals and promotion recommendations. However, Wayne and colleagues also noted that overt self-presentation frequently demonstrated negative direct associations with supervisory liking if perceived by the superior as self-aggrandizing arrogance, empirically illustrating the fine line demarcating the ingratiator’s dilemma.

8. Reliability

The reliability parameters of the MIBOS have been evaluated across several independent organizational investigations, demonstrating stable composite reliability alongside varying subscale consistency metrics:

Internal Consistency

In the seminal validation by Kumar and Beyerlein (1991), the composite 24-item instrument yielded an internal consistency coefficient (Cronbach’s alpha) of .91, indicating high item homogeneity and minimal measurement error for the global measure. Across subsequent independent validation samples, the composite alpha has remained within .86 to .93 (Harrison et al., 1998; Kacmar & Valle, 1997), confirming exceptional internal consistency when the instrument is scored as a unified, global index of upward ingratiatory activity.

When evaluated at the multi-dimensional subscale level, internal consistency estimates exhibit varying degrees of dispersion across published investigations:

• Opinion Conformity (7 items): Coefficient alpha estimates range from .56 to .79 across samples. The lower end of this range (observed in Kacmar & Valle, 1997) reflects the substantive breadth of the items, which combine verbal cognitive agreement with behavioral imitation (e.g., mimicry of late-working hours) and nonverbal emotional expressions (e.g., smiling, laughing at jokes). In more homogeneous corporate samples, alpha regularly stabilizes between .72 and .79.
• Other Enhancement (7 items): Reliabilities range consistently between .74 and .84. These robust alpha parameters indicate high internal cohesion among items reflecting flattery, praise, and deliberate managerial adulation.
• Favor Rendering (6 items): Reliability values range from .72 to .86 across industrial and healthcare cohorts, evidencing sound psychometric reliability for measuring discretionary, non-work personal assistance provided to superiors.
• Self-Presentation (4 items): Despite possessing the fewest items, this subscale demonstrates respectable internal consistency, with alpha coefficients consistently clustered between .73 and .77.

Temporal Stability (Test-Retest Reliability)

Investigations utilizing longitudinal designs across 6- to 8-week intervals have yielded test-retest reliability coefficients ranging between .68 and .81 for the subscales, and .84 for the composite index. These findings indicate that while ingratiatory behavior is partly responsive to situational triggers (such as imminent performance reviews or leadership transitions), an employee’s habitual propensity to deploy specific upward influence tactics represents a stable, cross-situational behavioral repertoire.

9. Factor Analysis

The factorial validity of the MIBOS has been the focal point of critical psychometric discourse within industrial and organizational psychology literature, highlighting a divergence between exploratory derivations and confirmatory replications:

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During scale development, Kumar and Beyerlein (1991) subjected an initial pool of candidate items to Exploratory Factor Analysis utilizing principal component analysis followed by orthogonal (Varimax) and oblique rotations. The exploratory extraction yielded a clean four-factor solution accounting for a substantial proportion of the total item variance. The empirical factor loadings conformed neatly to the hypothesized theoretical framework:

• Factor 1 (Other Enhancement) displayed item loadings ranging from .51 to .78, with negligible cross-loadings onto alternative dimensions.
• Factor 2 (Opinion Conformity) captured items reflecting ideological and behavioral mimicry, with primary loadings ranging from .46 to .74.
• Factor 3 (Favor Rendering) isolated the six personal favor-doing behaviors, yielding primary loadings between .53 and .76.
• Factor 4 (Self-Presentation) clearly delineated the 4 self-promoting items, with factor loadings spanning .58 to .81.

On the basis of this clean factorial extraction, Kumar and Beyerlein concluded that the MIBOS possessed strong multidimensional structural validity reflecting Jones’ theoretical taxonomy.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) Controversies

Subsequent psychometric evaluations challenged the stability of this four-factor structure. Kacmar and Valle (1997) conducted an extensive re-examination utilizing independent employee samples and attempted to reproduce the measurement model through both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Kacmar and Valle found that the four-factor oblique model failed to meet conventional psychometric standards of good model fit (yielding elevated root mean square errors of approximation [RMSEA] and inadequate incremental fit indices [CFI, GFI < .85]). Furthermore, their attempts to force an alternative EFA extraction produced cross-loadings that blurred the operational boundaries between other-enhancement and opinion-conformity items.

Similarly, Harrison, Hochwarter, Perrewé, and Ralston (1998) systematically evaluated the factorial validity of MIBOS across two independent employee cohorts using modern structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques. Harrison et al. tested both the original four-dimensional model and a unidimensional (single-factor) model. Neither specification achieved acceptable goodness-of-fit benchmarks (e.g., Comparative Fit Index [CFI] values remained below .90, while Chi-Square to degrees-of-freedom ratios were inflated).

These factorial replication difficulties highlight several psychometric nuances:

1. Behavioral Interdependence: In practical organizational life, ingratiatory tactics rarely occur in isolation. Subordinates engaged in heavy opinion conformity simultaneously practice other enhancement, generating high inter-factor correlations (often r > .60) that degrade discriminant factorial fit in CFA.
2. Utility of the Global Composite: Due to these shared variance dynamics, psychometricians (e.g., Harrison et al., 1998; Kumar & Beyerlein, 1991) recommend that while researchers can explore the four subscales for granular, diagnostic insights, the MIBOS can be reliably aggregated into a single composite score of global upward ingratiation for predictive and structural modeling purposes.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Measuring Ingratiatory Behaviors in Organizational Settings (MIBOS) scale is structured as follows:

• Instrument Designation: Measuring Ingratiatory Behaviors in Organizational Settings (MIBOS).
• Authors: Kamlesh Kumar and Michael M. Beyerlein (1991).
• Target Population: Full-time or part-time working adults, subordinates, and professionals nested within hierarchical organizational structures possessing direct managerial or supervisory oversight.
• Format & Administration: Self-report paper-and-pencil questionnaire or computerized survey. Administration duration is approximately 5 to 8 minutes.
• Total Item Count: 24 operational items.
• Dimensional Architecture:
  • Opinion Conformity: 7 items
  • Other Enhancement: 7 items
  • Favor Rendering: 6 items
  • Self-Presentation: 4 items
• Authentic Response Scale: Responses are obtained using an authentic 5-point Likert-type frequency scale:
  • 1 = never do it
  • 2 = seldom do it
  • 3 = occasionally do it
  • 4 = often do it
  • 5 = almost always do it
• Scoring and Computational Rules:
  • Reverse Scoring: There are no reverse-coded items in the MIBOS instrument; all 24 items are framed positively toward the execution of ingratiatory influence behaviors.
  • Subscale Scores: Calculated by computing either the arithmetic sum or the mean across the specific items defining each dimension. Subscale mean scoring (ranging from 1.0 to 5.0) is standard in academic literature to facilitate comparison across dimensions possessing unequal item counts.
  • Composite Score: A global ingratiation index is derived by summing all 24 items (score range: 24 to 120) or calculating the grand mean across all 24 items (score range: 1.0 to 5.0). Higher scores indicate more frequent upward ingratiatory maneuvering.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The MIBOS instrument was formally published in 1991 in the Journal of Applied Psychology (Volume 76, Issue 5, pages 619–627). The complete 24 items were published within Table 2 of the original article. The copyright for the original publication and the specific item formulation is held by the American Psychological Association (APA) (Copyright © 1991 by the American Psychological Association).

Licensing and Usage Conditions:

• Academic Research and Educational Use: In accordance with standard fair-use academic provisions and APA copyright policies, the scale may generally be reproduced, distributed, and utilized by individual academic researchers, university faculty, graduate students, and non-commercial institutional investigators without royalty fees for non-profit, non-commercial empirical investigations, provided complete bibliographic attribution is accorded to Kumar and Beyerlein (1991) and the American Psychological Association.
• Commercial and Organizational Consulting: Utilization of the MIBOS within proprietary leadership assessments, commercial human resource screening batteries, paid organizational development consulting interventions, or software-as-a-service (SaaS) psychometric platforms requires prior formal permission and licensing clearance from the American Psychological Association Permissions Office.

12. References

• Blau, P. M. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. John Wiley & Sons.
• Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Anchor Books.
• Gouldner, A. W. (1960). The norm of reciprocity: A preliminary statement. American Sociological Review, 25(2), 161–178. https://doi.org/10.2307/2092623
• Graen, G. B., & Uhl-Bien, M. (1995). Relationship-based approach to leadership: Development of leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership over 25 years: Applying a multi-level multi-domain perspective. The Leadership Quarterly, 6(2), 219–247. https://doi.org/10.1016/1048-9843(95)90036-5
• Harrison, A. W., Hochwarter, W. A., Perrewé, P. L., & Ralston, D. A. (1998). The measurement of ingratiation: An assessment of Kumar and Beyerlein’s (1991) MIBOS scale. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(5), 793–799. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.83.5.793
• Jones, E. E. (1964). Ingratiation: A social psychological analysis. Appleton-Century-Crofts.
• Jones, E. E., & Pittman, T. S. (1982). Toward a general theory of strategic self-presentation. In J. Suls (Ed.), Psychological perspectives on the self (Vol. 1, pp. 231–262). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Kacmar, K. M., & Valle, M. (1997). Dimensionality and validity of the Measuring Ingratiatory Behaviors in Organizational Settings (MIBOS) scale. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 57(4), 653–664. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164497057004008
• Kipnis, D., Schmidt, S. M., & Wilkinson, I. (1980). Intraorganizational influence tactics: Explorations in getting one’s way. Journal of Applied Psychology, 65(4), 440–452. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.65.4.440
• Kumar, K., & Beyerlein, M. (1991). Construction and validation of an instrument for measuring ingratiatory behaviors in organizational settings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76(5), 619–627. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.76.5.619
• Wayne, S. J., Liden, R. C., Graf, I. K., & Ferris, G. R. (1997). The role of upward influence tactics in human resource decisions. Personnel Psychology, 50(4), 979–1006. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1997.tb01491.x

13. Items of the Scale