Politics perceptions as moderator of the political skill – job performance relationship: A two-study, cross-national, constructive replication

We developed a two-study, cross-national, constructive replication to examine the role of organizational politics perceptions as a contextual moderator of the political skill – job performance relationship. Specifically, we hypothesized that high levels of political skill would demonstrate its strongest positive effects on job performance when politics perceptions were perceived as low. Conversely, we hypothesized that political skill would demonstrate no relationship with job performance under conditions of high politics perceptions. Across studies conducted both in the United States and Greece, the hypothesis received strong support. In settings characterized by lower perceived politics, high levels of political skill predicted significant increases in job performance, whereas these effects were attenuated in environments characterized by high perceived politics. Contributions and implications of this research, strengths and limitations, and directions for future study are discussed.     

Perceptions of organizational politics as a moderator of the relationship between conscientiousness and job performance

Meta-analytic studies of the relationships between the five-factor model of personality constructs and job performance indicate that conscientiousness has been the most consistent predictor. Recent research has sought to identify situational factors that may explain additional variance beyond what has been reported by simple bivariate relationships. The authors hypothesized that perceptions of organizational politics would moderate the relationship between conscientiousness and job performance. Data collected from 234 male and 579 female workers in 4 organizations indicated that conscientiousness was related to job performance among workers perceiving average to high levels of organizational politics but unrelated to performance among workers perceiving low levels of organizational politics. Moreover, perceptions of organizational politics were negatively related to job performance only among workers of average to low levels of conscientiousness.     

工作场所的组织政治会危害员工绩效吗？基于个人-组织契合理论的视角

本研究基于个人-组织契合理论的视角, 通过对286份员工与直接主管的配对数据, 揭示了组织政治知觉对员工绩效(任务绩效和组织公民行为)的影响, 马基雅维利主义人格对这两者之间关系的调节作用, 组织认同在这两者之间的中介作用。层次回归分析结果发现：组织政治知觉对任务绩效、组织公民行为具有显著的消极影响, 马基雅维利主义人格可以显著调节组织政治知觉与任务绩效、组织公民行为两者之间的关系, 而组织认同是组织政治知觉与任务绩效、组织公民行为之间的完全中介变量。调节路径分析结果表明：马基雅维利主义对组织政治知觉与员工绩效之间关系的调节作用也是以组织认同为中介, 具体表现为被中介的调节作用。     

Perceptions of Older Versus Younger Workers in Terms of Big Five Facets,Proactive Personality,Cognitive Ability,and Job Performance

We examined whether older and younger workers are perceived differently in terms of job‐related individual differences and dimensions of job performance. Findings across 2 experimental studies indicated that older workers were perceived more positively in terms of crystallized intelligence and facets of conscientiousness, while younger workers were perceived more positively in terms of fluid intelligence and proactive personality. With regard to work performance, older workers were perceived more positively in terms of organizational citizenship behavior directed toward the organization. Similar perceptions were held by older and younger respondents. Results illustrate that job performance dimensions and work‐related individual differences may provide useful frameworks for understanding stereotypes regarding older and younger workers.     

Positive Affectivity and Collective Efficacy as Moderators of the Relationship Between Perceived Politics and Job Satisfaction

This study explores the moderating potential of positive affectivity (PA) and perceived collective efficacy (PCE) on the relationship between 3 dimensions of politics perceptions and job satisfaction. We hypothesized that high levels of PA and PCE, in unison, would buffer the harmful effects of perceived politics on job satisfaction. Regression analyses for the 3 dimensions (i.e., general politics, go along to get along, and pay and promotion) yielded a significant finding for the PA × PCE × Go Along to Get Along 3-way interaction only. Consistent with our expectations, low PA-low PCE individuals were less satisfied with their jobs when levels of go-along-to-get-along politics increased. Contrary to our hypothesis, however, high PA-high PCE individuals reported a significant inverse relationship between perceived politics and job satisfaction. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are provided.     

The Interactive Effects of Positive Affect and a Sense of Competency on the Politics Perceptions-Job Satisfaction Relationship

Previous research has examined factors capable of moderating the relationship between politics perceptions and work outcomes. What is absent in the literature, however, is an assessment of multiple moderators, which include dispositional and ability factors. In the current study, positive affect (PA) and sense of competency (SOC) were hypothesized to affect the relationship between politics perceptions and job satisfaction. Data gathered from 210 employees provided evidence of moderation. Specifically, the inverse relationship between politics perceptions and job satisfaction was significant for the low PA-low SOC and low PA-high SOC subgroups. For individuals possessing high levels of PA and high levels of SOC, the relationship was minimal. These results suggest that having high PA and high SOC may serve to buffer the harmful effects of politics perceptions. Implications, strengths and limitations, and directions for future research are provided.     

The Moderating Effects of Justice on the Relationship Between Organizational Politics and Workplace Attitudes

Research suggests that perceptions of organizational politics consistently result in negative outcomes for individuals. In the current study, distributive and procedural justice are explored for their effects on the relationships between perceptions of organizational politics and turnover intentions and job satisfaction. We tested these relationships in a sample of 311 employees of a water management district. Results indicated the politics––turnover intentions and politics––job satisfaction relationships were weaker when perceptions of both forms of justice are high. Further, and potentially more interestingly, politics mattered the most when the distribution of outcomes was unfair (distributive justice) as opposed to when procedures were unfair (procedural justice). Implications for future research and management practice are discussed.     

Organizational Politics,Perceived Control,and Work Outcomes: Boundary Conditions on the Effects of Politics1

This investigation examined the moderating influences of perceived control (i. e., personal control and job self‐efficacy) on relationships between perceptions of organizational politics and organizational commitment, job satisfaction, intention to turnover, and job stress. Although results failed to support predictions concerning the interaction of perceptions of organizational politics and personal control, some support was found for predictions concerning the interactive influence of perceptions of organizational politics and job self‐efficacy on outcomes. Data from 189 hotel managers supported the hypothesized interactive effects of perceptions of organizational politics and job self‐efficacy for the outcomes of organizational commitment and job satisfaction. These results suggest that job self‐efficacy exacerbates the relationship between perceived politics and certain dysfunctional attitudes.     

Placing perceptions of politics in the context of the feedback environment, employee attitudes, and job performance

The authors proposed a model suggesting that organizational environments supporting high levels of informal supervisor and coworker feedback are associated with lower employee perceptions of organizational politics. Furthermore, these lowered perceptions of politics were proposed to result in higher employee morale (as reflected in job satisfaction and affective commitment) and, through morale, to higher levels of task performance and organizational citizenship. The proposed mediational model was supported with empirical results from 150 subordinate-supervisor dyads sampled across a variety of organizations. Higher quality feedback environments were associated with lower perceptions of organizational politics, and morale mediated the relationships between organizational politics and various aspects of work performance. These findings suggest that when employees have greater access to information regarding behaviors that are acceptable and desired at work, perceptions of politics are reduced and work outcomes are enhanced.     

Perceptions of Organizational Politics: A Meta-analysis of Outcomes

Organizational researchers during the past few decades have increasingly focused on the role of subjective work issues and their impact on important worker-related outcomes. One of the most prominently studied factors, perceptions of organizational politics, has received much recent conceptual and empirical attention. In an effort to better understand the relationship between perceptions of organizational politics and key outcomes, we apply meta-analysis on 79 independent samples from 59 published and unpublished studies involving 25,059 individual participants. Results indicate strong negative relationships between POP and job satisfaction and between POP and organizational commitment, moderately positive relationships between POP and the outcomes of job stress and turnover intentions, and a non-significant relationship between POP and in-role job performance. Moderator tests show that age, work setting (i.e., public sector or private sector), and cultural differences (i.e., domestic sample or international sample), have contingent effects on certain POP relationships.     

Looking back and falling further behind: The moderating role of rumination on the relationship between organizational politics and employee attitudes,well-being,and performance

The current study tested the theoretically relevant, yet previously unexamined, role of rumination on the relationship between politics perceptions and a variety of threat responses. Drawing from Response Styles Theory, it was argued that rumination amplifies the effects of politics by enhancing the influence of negative information on cognition, interfering with problem-solving, and undermining sources of social support. The work stress literature, along with extant politics research, served to identify four variables – job satisfaction, tension, depressed work mood, and employee effort/performance – that served as study outcomes. Across three unique samples, hypothesized relationships were strongly supported, indicating that politics perceptions negatively affected work outcomes of high ruminators, but demonstrate little influence on those who engage in less rumination. Moreover, the nonlinear influences of the focal constructs were considered and the results confirmed atypical relational forms. Contributions, implications for theory and practice, strengths and limitations, and future research directions are described.     

Coworker attributes as potential correlates to the perceptions of older workers' job performance: An exploratory study

This study examined coworker attributes as potential correlates to the perceptions of older workers' job performance. It was found that increased education, more positive attitudes toward retirement, and experience working with older workers might lead to more positive perceptions of older workers' job performance.     

Relationships Between Politics, Supervisor Communication, and Job Outcomes

Perceptions of organizational politics (POPs) are ever present and have been shown to have many negative effects. This study investigated the influence of perceptions of politics on the consequences of turnover intentions and job frustration; 2 important outcomes in the organizational politics literature. Additionally, this study examined the role of supervisor communication as a moderator of these relationships. We investigated the relationships in a sample of 246 alumni from a midwestern university who were working in a wide range of occupations. Our results provide support for positive associations between POPs and intentions to turnover and job frustration; supervisor communication moderated these relationships. Managerial recommendations and suggestions for future research are offered.     

Mind the ad: How personality requirements affect older and younger job seekers' job attraction

Age discrimination may explain lower labour market chances of older and younger job seekers. What remains underresearched, however, is how older/younger job seekers might self-select out from early recruitment procedures due to stigmatizing information in job ads. Building on theories of metastereotypes and the linguistic category model, two experimental studies investigated how personality requirements that older/younger job seekers hold negative metastereotypes about and the way in which these requirements are worded (behavioural vs. dispositional) affected their job attraction. Within-participant mediation analyses showed that as expected, job attraction was higher for older (N = 123, aged 50 years or more) and younger (N = 151, 30 years or less) job seekers when requirements were worded in a behavioural way (e.g., ‘You can be flexible’), compared with a dispositional way (e.g., ‘You are flexible’). This relation was mediated by perceptions of challenge among younger but not older job seekers. Contrary to expectations, perceptions of threat did not explain the effects of negatively metastereotyped personality requirements on job attraction. Understanding how job seekers perceive information in job ads might help recruiters to design age-sensitive recruitment policies.     

Understanding as an Antidote for the Dysfunctional Consequences of Organizational Politics as a Stressor 1

The proposition that organizational politics perceptions are potential stressors with potentially dysfunctional outcomes was set forth based on previous theory. The hypothesis that the dysfunctional outcomes of stress associated with the perceptions of the organizational political climate can be ameliorated by understanding the environment was tested in a field study. Results provided strong support for the hypothesis, demonstrating a significant interaction of politics x understanding on job anxiety, and showing that understanding can serve as an antidote of sorts to the dysfunctional effects of organizational politics.     

Better understanding the perceptions of organizational politics: its impact under different types of work unit structure

Research has uncovered inconsistent results regarding the influence of the perceptions of organizational politics (POP) on employee job performance, suggesting the existence of boundary conditions for such an influence. Drawing from uncertainty management theory, we investigated the interaction effect of POP and work unit structure on job performance, and examined the mediating role of taking charge. We tested the theoretical model with data gathered across three phases over 6 months from 577 individuals and their supervisors in 133 work units. Results showed that when the unit operated an organic structure, POP was significantly negatively related to job performance. In contrast, results demonstrated that when the unit operated a mechanistic structure, POP was significantly positively related to job performance. Furthermore, the results of the mediated moderation analysis revealed that POP was negatively associated with job performance through taking charge in an organic structure, and the indirect effect disappeared in a mechanistic structure.     

The Contribution of Positive Politics to the Prediction of Employee Reactions

This study investigates whether perceptions of positive (i.e., beneficial) political behaviors are distinct from those of negative political behaviors and the extent to which positive politics perceptions contribute to the prediction of organizationally relevant employee reactions. Data were drawn from 119 survey respondents. The results indicate that, rather than 2 ends of a continuum of political behavior, positive and negative politics represent separate perceptions both of which are seen to occur for individual, group, and organizational foci. In addition, perceptions of positive politics contribute significantly beyond perceptions of negative politics to the prediction of the 4 outcomes used in this study (satisfaction with one's job, supervision, and coworkers; and fulfillment of one's psychological contract with the organization).     

Creating One’s Reality: The Interaction of Politics Perceptions and Enactment Behavior

ABSTRACT

The current study investigated the previously unexamined relationship between politics perceptions and employee enactment behavior. Consistent with previous job stress and sense-making research, we hypothesized that individuals reporting low levels of enactment behaviors would be more adversely affected by politics perceptions than those who engaged in high levels of enactment behavior. Results across two samples provided strong support for the hypothesized relationships. Specifically, employees who reported low levels of enactment behavior experienced less satisfaction, less person–environment fit, and reported lower levels of effort when faced with highly political environments. Conversely, levels of satisfaction and person–environment fit perceptions of individuals reporting high levels of enactment behaviors were largely unaffected by highly political contexts. Implications of these findings, strengths and limitations, and avenues for future research are provided.     

工作重塑：获得意义性工作与个人成长的新途径

工作重塑是组织行为学中新近出现的一个热点话题,是指员工通过自己对工作进行重新建构来形塑自己的工作认同以及工作角色,其核心目的就是员工对他们的工作进行再设计以获得较高的工作意义感、工作投入以及工作满意度等,进而快乐地工作。在系统梳理有关工作重塑的理论与实证研究文献的基础上,从工作重塑概念的解读、工作重塑的方式与方法、工作重塑的预测因素、工作重塑对个体与组织的影响以及工作重塑的培养策略等方面进行了综述,以便人们更深入地体会其丰富的理论内涵和实践价值;最后,该文指出未来工作重塑的研究应继续注重理论建构的丰富与完善、关注工作重塑的个体与群体差异性以及深化工作重塑与组织之间的关系研究。     

The Role of Person Characteristics in Perceptions of the Validity of Cognitive Ability Testing

Individuals vary in how they perceive cognitive ability tests; thus, it is useful for organizations to consider how individual differences influence applicant perceptions of selection tools. The present study examined the influence of implicit theories of ability and locus of control on perceptions of face validity and predictive validity for two cognitive ability tests. Relationships between perceptions and test experience, job‐relevant experience, and job familiarity were also examined. Interactions between implicit theories and self‐assessed performance in predicting perceptions were found, although not of the form hypothesized. Furthermore, job familiarity and prior success in selection contexts were related to perceptions. Finally, sample type interacted with test type to influence perceptions. Implications for selection system design and research on applicant perceptions are discussed.