Perceived politics and job outcomes: Moderating effect of personality types

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1 Available Online at (c) EJRE published by International Association of Social Science Research - IASSR ISSN: European Journal of Research on Education, 2013, Special Issue: Human Resource Management, European Journal of Research on Education Perceived politics and job outcomes: Moderating effect of personality types Muhammad Umer Azeem a * a Lecturer, University of Central Punjab, Lahore.Pakistan Abstract With the sample of 200 respondents, which has been collected from Lahore (Pakistan), current research intended to investigate the POP-outcome relationship. Moreover, responding to the call of many researchers to investigate the buffering effects of personality types other than BFI, the researcher put efforts to probe the moderating role of other personality types such as Mach, Narcissism, Core-Self Evaluation and Equity Sensitivity. Results showed some encouraging support for study s arguments regarding personality types as moderators. Practical and theoretical implications have been discussed at the end along-with call for further research by giving directions European Journal of Research on Education by IASSR. Keywords: Perceived politics, mach, narcissism, core-self evaluation, equity sensitivity; 1. Introduction The basic purpose of our research is to check the impact of politics in the presence of the moderating effects of Equity sensitivity, Narcissism, Mach and Core self-evaluation. 1. The first purpose of our research is to know the impact of perception of politics on Job satisfaction outcomes in the presence of the moderating effect of Equity Sensitivity. 2. The second purpose of our research is to know the impact of perception of politics on Job satisfaction outcomes in the presence of the moderating effect of Narcissism. 3. The third purpose of our research is to know the impact of perception of politics on Job satisfaction outcomes in the presence of the moderating effect of Mach. 4. The fourth purpose of our research is to know the impact of perception of politics on Job satisfaction outcomes in the presence of the moderating effect of Core Self Evaluation. The perception of politics has already been studied widely with different outcomes, such as (job performance, job satisfaction, commitment and workplace aggression) in the broad field of organizational behaviour, by different scholars of organizational behavior (Ferris & Kacmar, 1994; Bennet & Robinson, 1995). Today perception of politics exists in almost every firm and it has negative as well as positive effects on different outcomes (Ferris et al., 1989; Drory, 1993; Corpanzano, Howes, Grandey, & Toth, 1997). Due to Perception of politics Job Satisfaction reduces whereas work stress and Intention to quit increases. Our research is worth-full because researchers have identified the relationship of the Perception of Politics to Job Satisfaction, Job stress and I2Q separate and combine, but it has seldom been identified by using Equity sensitivity, Narcissism, Mach and Core-self-evaluation as moderator. * address: omer.azeem@ucp.edu.pk

2 Muhammad Umer Azeem 2. Literature Review 2.1. Perception of Politics: Gandz and Murray (1980) defined perception of politics as A subjective state in which organizational members perceive themselves or others as intentionally seeking. Selfish ends in an organizational context when such ends are opposed to those of others. To check that behaviour of a person is non-self-serving or serving is a difficult task, the difference in the perception of people creates political because it totally depends upon their perception (Harris et al., 2007). There are 3 dimensions perception of politics (Ferris et al., 1989). General political behaviour focuses to achieve the individual goals by serving own cause (Fandt & Ferris, 1990; Ferris et al., 1989; Kacmar & Ferris, 1993; Kacmar & Carlson, 1997). In Go along to get ahead a person shows less of his/her interest in actions also tries to remain silent and mould so that the situation could be in his/her interest (Byrne, 2005). In pay and promotion policies to make decisions and promotional policies, an individual is a part of the political situation (Ferris et al, 1989) Equity sensitivity: According to (Houseman, Hatfield & Miles, 1987) Equity sensitivity is a personality variable that explains individual differences in reaction to inequity. We perceived those employees, which have a high ratio of equity sensitivity, have more focus on benefits and they think currently provided benefits are not enough, also least social responsibility and weak ethical work mostly included equity sensitivity (O Neil & Mone, 1998) Narcissism: According to {DSM-4} American psychiatric association (1994) Narcissists are preoccupied with dreams of success, brilliance, power, beauty, and brilliance. According to DSM there are two types of Narcissism, one is pathological Narcissism which is based on extremism and the other is reflect Narcissism which is based on less extreme and both are used as personality traits (EMMONS, 1987) Mach: An individual that has an immoral reputation for dealing with others to accomplish his/her own objectives and for manipulating others for his/her own purpose (Christie and Geis, 1970, p, 1). High self-monitored and Machs generally view their work environment more political as compared to their coworkers (Ferris et al., 1989). (The Calhoon, 1969, p, 211) defined Mach as the people which are associated with Mach are a type personality like they are aggressive, highly oriented to achieve their ambitions or goals at the organizational level and at a personal level at any cost Core Self Evaluation: In (1997) Judge et al. Introduced core-self-evaluation s concept for the very first time while discussing satisfaction. They defined Core self-evaluation as fundamental premises that individual holds about themselves and their self-worth. (Judge, T.A., Locke, E.A., & Durham, C.C., 1997). Judge et, al. Used 3 different criteria for searching and measuring the existing Equity traits of CSE, these criteria are, (a) Evaluation-focus (b) Fundamentality, identified by (Cattle, 1965). (c) Breadth of scope which was identified 76

3 Perceived politics and job outcomes: Moderating effect of personality types by Allport, in (1961). Four traits are there that covers these 3 criteria (Judge et al. (1997), Judge, Erez and Bono (1998), Judge, Locke, et al. (1998) Perception of politics and outcomes: According to Vigoda (2002) Employees face pressure in the presence of politics in their workplace, so they show nervous behavior and feel stress. Perception of politics has inverse relationship with job satisfaction (Ferris et al., 1989). According to Farris et al. (1989) in the presence of politics at least 3 responses in the presence of politics would be to withdraw from the firm (I2Q). Hypothesis 1: (H1) Perception of politics has a negative relationship with Job satisfaction whereas have a positive relation with work stress and with I2Q Equity Sensitivity and Outcomes: Equity sensitivity is negatively related to Job Satisfaction and organizational commitment and it s positively related to Intention to quit (Miles, Hatfield, & Houseman, 1994). Hypothesis 2: (H2) Equity sensitivity will weaker the relationship between Perception of politics and Job Satisfaction and will stronger the relationship between perception of politics and work stress as well as I2Q Narcissism and Outcomes: According to Kowske, et al. (2010) Millennials are highly satisfied with their job performance as compared to the older generation and highly optimistic with their carriers. People who are engaged in job will work hard and their minds will be positive and they will have aggressive thinking. If they are ready to do their work they will work as much as according to a given task (Bakker & Demerouti, 2008). Hypothesis 3: (H3) Narcissism will weaker the relationship between Perception of politics and Job Satisfaction and will stronger the relationship between perception of politics and work stress as well as I2Q Mach and Outcomes: The study of Gemmill and Heisler (1972) determined that people of Mach personality are positively related with job satisfaction and they have less job stress and their intention to quiet level is less. Stress is the factor that creates blood pressure and if it is constant then the heart and arteries are the cause of damages (O'Flynn Comiskey, 1979, pp ). High self-monitors and Machs generally view their work environment more political as compared to their co-workers (Ferris et al., 1989) Hypothesis 4: (H4) Mach will stronger the relationship between Perception of politics and Job Satisfaction and will weaker the relationship between perception of politics and work stress as well as I2Q Core-Self-Evaluation and Outcome: There is a positive relationship between Job satisfaction and levels of Core-Self-Evaluation (Bono & Judge, 2003; Judge, Bono, & Locke, 2000). In different studies it came to know that the relationship between traits of CSE and job stress comprises (Kahn & Byosiere, 1992; Rector & Roger, 1997; Salanova, Peiro, & Schaufeli, 2002). Hypothesis 5: (H5) 77

4 Muhammad Umer Azeem Core-Self-Evaluation will stronger the relationship between Perception of politics and Job Satisfaction and will weaker the relationship between perception of politics and work stress as well as I2Q. 3. Methods 3.1. Sample and Procedure: Our data consists of workers of different well established public and private sector organizations in Pakistan. These organizations include, Banks, NGO and Multinational Paint Company. The access of the research was gained by professional and personal contacts. Questionnaires were distributed to the employees at all levels of the above mentioned firms. We also included a cover letter which described the purpose of our research to show that the employees are not being monitored by the employer. Also they could participate more in filling these questionnaires with more interest Measures: The overall measures obtained through Self-reported questionnaires. Validated scales are used from previous researches. Following are study s major variable s instruments: 3.3. Mach: The Mach personality was measured with Mach IV 20 item scale that was developed in 1970 by Christie and Geis. The alpha reliability was.54 of Mach Perception of Politics: Perception of politics was measured with a 12 item scale developed by Keckmer & Ferris in the year The reliability of this measure was Core Self Evaluation: A 12 item scale based on a 5 Likert scale developed by Judge et al., in 2003 was used to measure Core Self Evaluation. The reliability of this scale was Equity Sensitivity: Equity Sensitivity was measured with the help of 16-item scale EPQ (Equity Preference Questions) developed by Sauley and Bedeian in The reliability of this measure was Narcissism: 16-item scale developed by Daniel R. Ames, Paul Rose, and Cameron P. Anderson was used as a short measure of Narcissism in the year of The reliability of this scale was Results 78

5 Perceived politics and job outcomes: Moderating effect of personality types In the table 1 the correlations and descriptive statistics among the variables are shown. Correlations more than the 0.14 magnitude are significant at the p < 0.05 those with above 0.17 and significant at the p < The mean for equity sensitivity was 3.17, and the mean for the Perception of Politics was The correlation between these two variables was The mean of Narcissism was 3.07 with a standard deviation S.D =.577. The bivariate associations that are shown in correlation matrix indicates the provisional support for all the main effects hypotheses deal with different personalities, such as (Mach, Narcissism, Core self Evaluation and Equity sensitivity), perception of organizational politics and job outcomes. However some of the hypotheses were not supported Regression analysis: Hierarchical regression analysis performed to test hypotheses. Gender as control variable was entered in all regressions in the first step. It was because, our study included different types of personalities. In all the cases we conducted separate regression analysis for our dependent variables such as (Job stress, job satisfaction and intention to quit) with the independent variable Perception of politics, while our control variable was Gender. This separate analysis corresponded more closely towards the theoretical thinking and that guided the development for the specific hypotheses. In total we reported three analyses that do assess the results, and these are as follows. 79

6 Muhammad Umer Azeem 4.2. Outcomes: We did perform a regression analysis to test the perception of politics with job outcomes such as, job stress, job satisfaction and intention to quit. The regression of each of the three outcomes with the perception of politics resulted in 3 regression equations. The results of these equations are presented in the table 3. Hypothesis 1a Perception of politics is negatively related to job satisfaction (ß = -0.21, p <.01) Whereas other parts of this hypothesis such as hypothesis 1b and hypothesis 1c were not significant and hence rejected Moderator analysis: The moderator analysis of regression was used to examine the interactive effects of different personality types, e.g. Mach, Narcissism, Equity Sensitivity and Core-self evaluation in the presence of perception of politics on job outcomes, such as job stress, job satisfaction and intention to quit Equity Sensitivity and outcomes: In the First step we did enter the control variable in the model and that was gender. For second step we entered the perception of politics along with Equity sensitivity. After this in the last step we entered the interaction terms 80

7 Perceived politics and job outcomes: Moderating effect of personality types between the Perception of Politics and Equity sensitivity. The results are presented in table 4. So checking perception of organization politics with job outcomes in the presence of the moderating effect of equity sensitivity, hypothesis 2a that Equity sensitivity weaker the relationship between perception of politics and job satisfaction was confirmed with (ß = , p <.01). Hypothesis 2b that, Equity sensitivity stronger the relationship between the perception of politics and job stress was not confirmed and hence rejected. Moreover hypothesis 2c that tells, equity sensitivity stronger the relationship between perception of politics and intention to quit was also confirmed with (ß = 0.178, p <.10) Narcissism and outcomes: Again we did run all three steps but with a different moderator named, Narcissism. While checking perception of politics and job stress with the moderating effect of Narcissism, hypothesis 3a that suggests, narcissism weaker the relationship between perception of politics and job satisfaction, was confirmed with (ß = 0.192, p <.05). Our hypothesis 3b that tells, narcissism will stronger the relationship between perception of politics and job stress was not confirmed and was rejected. Moreover hypothesis 3c that indicates, narcissism stronger the relationship between perception of politics and intention to quit was also confirmed with (ß = , p <.01) Mach and outcomes: Similarly we just changed our moderator as, Mach and again did the three steps to run moderation. Gender was our control variable in step one, in step 2 we took perception of politics and Mach and in the third step we entered the interaction term between perception of politics and Mach. So checking perception of organization politics with job satisfaction in the presence of the moderating effect of equity sensitivity (hypothesis 4a) tells that Mach will stronger the relationship between perception of politics and job satisfaction was not confirmed so we reject it. After this for hypothesis 4b (ß = 0.124, p <.05) It confirmed our hypothesis 4b that Mach will weaker the relationship between Perception of politics and Job stress and we accept this hypothesis. In other words, people who have politics in their organizations do feel stress but if they have Mach personality they do not feel stress as compare to those of other people. On the other hand hypothesis 4c, that Mach will weaker the relationship between perception of politics and intention to quit was not confirmed so we reject the hypothesis 4c Core-Self Evaluation and outcomes: We again just run three steps of moderation with another moderator named, Core-Self Evaluation. Gender was our control variable in step 1 and in step 2 we enter perception of politics and core-self evaluation, and finally in step 3 we enter the interaction term between perception of politics and the core-self evaluation. Our results for hypothesis 5a that tells, core-self evaluation will stronger the relationship between perception of politics and job satisfaction was not confirmed so it was rejected. On the other hand, the hypothesis 5b that describes, core-self evaluation will weaker the relationship between perception of politics and job stress was confirmed with (ß = 0.161, at p <.10). Also our last hypothesis the name of which was hypothesis 5c, that tells core-self evaluation will weaker the relationship between perception of politics and intention to quit was confirmed with (ß = 0.122, with p <.10). 5. Conclusion Overall our hypotheses 1a, 2a, 2c, 3a, 3c, 4b, 5b and 5c were accepted and the hypothesis 1b, 1c, 2b, 3b, 4a, 4c and 5a were rejected. The culture of Pakistan is different from the other countries so it might have been the reason of the rejection of our hypothesis. The students of research, managers, psychologist, NGOs, teachers, marketers and many others can get benefits from our research. The managers will get the most benefits from this research. Managers should motivate their employees to get the maximum output and to take them away from the stress. Before 10 years when Raja et al, did 81

8 Muhammad Umer Azeem their research, only 6% female ratio were in Pakistan who were working in different organizations but by the passage of time this ratio is continuously increasing. This research is very helpful for future researchers they can do more work on it Managerial Implementation: If the researchers will read our paper, they will be able to find the effect of independent effect of perception of politics in the moderating effect of different personalities on the different job outcomes. Future researchers should see this research in different culture e.g. in their or any other culture. This is a cross sectional research study because we collected all the data in time one from different organizations. Future researchers can do a longitudinal research study to reduce the bias errors Research Limitations: Our research was conducted only in Lahore, Pakistan. This research could have seen in other cultures. It is a cross sectional research because we just got filled out questionnaires in time one, so it could also be a longitudinal research. There could have been culture difference and our variables that have reliability less than.60 is just because of Pakistan s culture. As the culture of Pakistan is different from other cultures, our total respondents were 200, and if this number would have been more than it would be more reliable research. References Aalsma, M., Lapsley, D.K. & Flannery, D. (2006). Narcissism, personal fables, and adolescent adjustment. Psychology in the Schools. 43, Allport, G. W. (1961). Pattern and growth in personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston. American psychiatric association (1994) diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4 th ed.)washington,dc:author. Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2008). Towards a model of work engagement. Career DevelopmentInternational, 13(3), Buffardi, L. E., & Campbell, W. K. (2008). Narcissism and social networking web sites. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, Blos, P. (1962). On adolescence. New York: Free Press. Cattle, R. B. (1965). The scientific analysis of personality. Baltimore, MD: Penguin. Cropanzano, R., Howes, J. C., Grandey, A. A. & Toth, P. (1997). The relationship of Organizational politics and support to work behaviors, attitudes, and stress. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 18, Christie, R. and F L. Geis: 1970, Studies in Machiavellianism (Academic Press, New York Calhoon, R. P.: 1969, 'Niccolo Machiavelli and the Twentieth Century Administrator', Academy of Management Journal 2, Emmons, R.A (1987) Narcissism: theory and measurement journal of personality and social psychology, Emmons, R. (1984). Factor analysis and construct validity of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. Journal of Personality Assessment, 48, Eysenck, H.J., & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1968). Manual for the Eysenck personality inventory. San Diego, CA: Educational and industrial testing service. Ferris, G. R., Frink, D. D., Gilmore, D. C., & Kacmar, K. M.(1994). Understanding as an antidote for the dysfunctional consequences of organizational politics as a stressor. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24, Ferris, G. R, Russ G. S., & Fandt P.M., (1989) Politics in organizations. In Impression Management in the Organization, Giacolone RA, Rosenfeld P (eds). Lawrence Erlbaum: Hillsdale, NJ; Ferris, G.R., Russ, G.S., & Fandt, P.M Politics in organizations. In R.A. Giacalone & P. Rosenfield (Eds.), Impression management in the organization: Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Gandz J, Murray VV (1980). The experience of workplace politics. Acad. Manage. J., 23: Gemmill, G. R. and W J. Heisler: 1972, 'Machiavellianism as a Factor in Managerial Job Strain, Job Satisfaction, and Upward Mobihty', Academy of Management Journal 1 (15), Harris KJ, Andrew MC, Kacmar KM (2007). The moderating effects of justice in the relationship between organizational politics and workplace attitudes. J. Bus. Psyc. 22:

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