Organizational Impression Management Behaviors in Social Media: A Perspective of a Social Networking Site Kelsey Terrell Hospitality Management Syracuse University and Linchi Kwok (Lingzhi Guo) Hospitality Management Syracuse University ABSTRACT In the macro-organizational level, Impression Management (IM) is the study of how organizations attempt to manage or control the perceptions others form of them. Among the studies about organizational IM theory, relatively little discussion was framed under the social media settings. This proposed study is designed to use text mining and opinion mining techniques to answer two research questions: (1) What IM tactics do hospitality companies use on Facebook? And (2) how effectively do hospitality companies’ use IM tactics on Facebook? Research findings may help hospitality managers to better manage the impressions among consumers on Facebook. Keywords: Impression Management, Social Media, Hospitality, Facebook INTRODUCTION Impression Management (IM) is the study of how people attempt to manage or control the perceptions others form of them (Bozeman & Kacmar, 1997; Drory & Zaidman, 2007). The goal of impression management is to steer others’ opinion or impression with the use of controlling information in either a personal or social situation (Drory & Zaidman, 2007). In addition to IM being used in an individual setting, IM theory can also be applied at a macro- organizational level (e.g. Avery & McKay, 2006; Mohamed & Gardner, 2004). Organizations use IM tactics to manage their image of the organization and cultivate a positive image with constituencies outside the organization. According to Bozeman and Kacmar (1997), IM theory was first introduced by Goffman in his dramaturgical model of social life in the late 1950s. Since then, many scholarly discussions about IM have been based on Goffman’s framework. A typical IM model contains two key players: an “actor” who engages in “performances” or “IM behaviors” and an “audience” who interacts with “actors” under certain “environmental settings.” IM behaviors can be categorized into two primary categories: assertive strategies, which an actor uses to establish a given desirable identity, and defensive/protective strategies, which are excuses and justifications to repair damaged identities (Drory & Zaidman, 2007).