Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Organizational Politics

Organizational Politics: “Behaviors that occur on an informal basis within an organization and involve intentional acts of influence that are designed to protect or enhance individuals’ professional careers when conflicting courses of action are possible” (Drory, 1993, p.59).
The view of organizational politics, just like the politics of nations and states, is too often sullied by manipulative, power-grubbing behavior of an individuals and groups. The best of politics is, however, about working to achieve consensus, to effectively align people through integration of interests, and persuasion and influence rather than authority or dominance. It is about decision making by representatives, with bottom-up delegation from the many to a trusted few. It is about caring passionately enough about an outcome to work at overcoming objections and resistance not by any means at all, but with personal integrity and insight into the hopes, values, and concerns, that all play a role in making or obstructing progress.
Background: We can consider organizations as political systems. The political metaphor helps to understand power relationships in day-to-day organizational relationships. Kacmar and Baron (1999) offered the following definition: “organizational politics involves actions by individuals, which are directed toward the goal of furthering their own self-interests without regard for the well-being of others or their organization”.
There is a growing acknowledgment that politics play a prominent role in organizational policies and processes and likely influence several important work-related attitudes and behaviors. For example, organizational politics perceptions have been found to be related to increased job anxiety (Anderson, 1994; Cropanzano, 1997), reduced job satisfaction, reduced satisfaction with supervisor (Drory, 1993; Ferris et al., 1996b), and increased intent to turnover (Cropanzano et al., 1997). Additionally, research suggests that individuals who perceive high levels of organizational politics also are likely to enact political behavior themselves (Ferris, Harrell-Cook, & Dulebohn, 2000), thereby creating a self-perpetuating cycle.
Organizational politics has been conceptualized as a source of stress and conflict in the work environment, with the potential for dysfunctional outcomes at both the individual and organizational level. One possible consequence of politics is the exercise by employees of withdrawal behaviors, particularly absenteeism.
According to Aristotle, politics stems from a diversity of interests. To fully understand the politics of the organization, it is necessary to explore the processes by which people engage in politics. Consistent with Aristotle's conceptualization, it is a given that, within the organization, all employees bring their own interests, wants, desires, and needs to the workplace. Organizational decision-making and problem-solving, while seemingly a rational process is also a political process. Organizational actors seek to satisfy not only organizational interests, but also their own wants and needs; driven by self-interest.
According to Farrell and Peterson (Farrell and Peterson, 1982), the successful practice of organizational politics is perceived to lead to a higher level of power, and once a higher level of power is attained, there is more opportunity to engage in political behavior.

Looking into organizational politics: Conditions encouraging political activity in an organization are unclear goals, autocratic decision making, ambiguous lines of authority, scarce resources and uncertainty. The researches have underway focuses on the nature of political skill and how it can contribute to influence and effectiveness in the workplace. So they define political skill as the ability to effectively understand others at work, and to use such knowledge to influence others to act in ways that enhance one’s personal and/or organizational objectives. Therefore, individuals high in political skill combine social astuteness with the capacity to adjust behavior to changing situational expectations in a way that appears to be sincere, inspires support and trust, and effectively influences and controls the responses of others.
The political element of the management process is non-rational. Organizations cannot pretend to engage in rational decision-making processes so long as political influences play a role and they always will. Most organizational politicking occurs in the internal-vertical-legitimate realm. An example would be individuals trying to achieve personal gain by giving "voice" to their demands or needs.
Farrell and Peterson (1982) proposed a three-dimensional typology of Organizational Political. The dimensions are:
1. Where the political activity takes place, inside or outside the organization.
2. The direction of the attempted influence, vertically or laterally in the organization.
3. The legitimacy of the political action.

Impact on individuals because of OP can be categorized as, decreasing loyalty and increasing focus on self interest, Hoarding of information and control, Stress and anxiety, Paranoia and perceptual distortions, Excessive worrying about status and perceived slights, Defensiveness about errors and mistakes and Mistrust of the validity of feedback.

Ferris, Russ, and Fandt (1989) note two features of organizational politics that should be considered when investigating its relationships with employee attitudes and behaviors. First, perceptions of organizational politics are more important than reality (Ferris et al., 1989). As Lewin (1936) noted many years ago, people respond to their perceptions of a situation, which may be different from the situation itself. As such, perceptions of organizational politics should be the focus of politics research, even if these perceptions represent inaccurate depictions of the actual organizational environment.
Second, organizational politics may be interpreted as either beneficial or detrimental to an individual’s well-being. Organizational policies and practices that are viewed as highly political can create situations of potential gain (i.e., opportunity) as well as potential loss (i.e., threats) (Ferris et al., 1996b). Thus, organizational politics perceptions may result in differing responses to organizational policies and practices depending on whether politics are viewed as an opportunity or as a threat.

Politics as a Threat: Organizational politics perceptions generally appear to be detrimental to organizations, both for individuals within the organization and for the organization as a whole. Research has consistently found perceptions of organizational politics to be negatively related to various favorable outcomes such as job satisfaction, perceived organizational support, and satisfaction with supervisor (Drory, 1993; Ferris et al., 1996b). Likewise, organizational politics perceptions have been found to be positively related to several negative outcomes such as intent to turnover and job anxiety. For many individuals, the perceptions of organizational politics are viewed as a threat to their well-being and result in a variety of negative affective reactions (Kacmar & Baron, 1999).

Politics as an Opportunity: Organizational politic perceptions are not always negative for the employee. For example, Ferris et al. (1989) suggested that while some individuals perceive organizational politics as a threat, others may perceive politics as an opportunity. In these situations, organizational politics perceptions may have a positive (or at least a less negative) impact on employee attitudes.
With respect to performance appraisals, Longenecker et al. (1987) found that supervisors often provide political ratings to achieve their own personal goals within an organization. When using performance ratings to achieve personal goals, raters may desire to project a positive image, secure organizational resources for one, and avoid confrontations with, or disapproval from, others (Murphy & Cleveland, 1995).

Perceptions of organizational politics were measured using Ferris and Kacmar’s (1992) Perceptions of Organizational Politics Scale (POPS). The POPS is designed to measure respondents’ perceptions regarding the level of political behavior in their organizations.
Considering of methods, Qualitative research methods are employed using both focus group and interview formats. Interviewing is the key to many forms of qualitative educational research (Tierney & Dilley, 2002). Drory (1993) designed the Political Climate Scale for use in a study of 200 employees. Employees, who have access to sources of organizational power and status, are in a position to take advantage of the political game and to gain a greater share of organizational benefits than they formally deserve.

Conclusion: As managers, it is useful to be able to predict behaviors; this includes political behavior. Exchange Theory and power (Dependency Theory of Power), provides some insight into people's political behavior in organizations. They can view this from four variables includes investment, alternatives, trust and efficacy.
Managers really do have a far wider scope for shaping decisions than most organization theories acknowledge. And they have much more choice in strategic change strategies than they are willing to acknowledge. After all, advertising one’s power and revealing one’s political strategies will almost certainly decrease their effectiveness. Managers need to retain some control over their organizations’ futures. However, political motives will also sometimes drive change and political tactics will always be used in some measure in the implementation of change. Managers therefore need to see these tactics in both positive and negative ways and not try to eliminate.

I can see two principal directions for future research on organizational politics. First, political skill should be a main effect predictor of job performance and career progress. Furthermore, a related area for future work concerns the nature of leader political skill, and its effects on followers. Second, political skill should serve as a potentially important moderator that should facilitate the effectiveness of influence tactics on performance. Furthermore, we would expect to see political skill act as a moderator of the stress–strain relationship, serving as an antidote of sorts, as some of our research already has reported, whereby strain reactions to workplace stressors are neutralized for high political skill individuals but result in negative consequences for those low in political skills.

References:
1.ARONOW, Jule A. Paleen. [2004]. “The impact of organizational politics on the work of the internal human resource professional”. Available electronically from http://www.uwstout.edu/lib/thesis/2004/2004aronowj.pdf Accessed September 01, 2006
2.KACMAR K.M.; BOZEMAN D.P.; CARLSON D.S.; ANTHONY W.P [1999].
“Human Relations: An Examination of the Perceptions of Organizational Politics Model: Replication and Extension” Volume 52, Number 3. Abstract available electronically form http://www.ingentaconnect.com Accessed September 02, 2006
3.WEIR .M..[1999] “When Does Politics Create Policy? The Organizational Politics of Change” Available electronically.
http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/weir/weir_pdf/Weir%20Yale%2005A.pdf#search=%22main%20questions%20in%20organizational%20politics%22 Accessed September 7, 2006
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http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/1650/htmlpolitc01.html Accessed September 7, 2006
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Accessed September 01, 2006
6.KACMAR, K. M. and CARSON, D. S. [1997] ‘Journal of Management: Further Validation of the Perceptions of Politics Scale (Pops): A Multiple Sample Investigation’, 23(5): 627 - 658.
7.FERRIS R., KACMAR K. Michele [1992] “Perceptions of organizational politics - includes appendix “ Available electronically from
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4256/is_n1_v18/ai_12289739/pg_1
Accessed September 3, 2006
8.Website : http://www.organizationalpolitics.org/ Accessed September 3, 2006
9.Website : http://www.systems-thinking.org/bop/bop.htm Accessed September 4, 2006
10.Website : http://www.mindspring.com/~criv/orgpol.htm Accessed September 1, 2006

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