Effect Of Organizational Politics On Employee Productivity:

Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

Organizational politics and related perceptions have in the recent past received a greater attention and study extensively and have emerged as a good predictor of job performance (Vigoda-Gadot&Drory, 2006).Particularly, scholars have a lot of interest is the negative effect that perceptions of politics seem to have on job attitudes, for instance job satisfaction and organizational commitment and ultimately on affective performance in terms of job stress and job burnout as well as the indirect relationships that potentially mediate or moderate these relationships.
Harold Lasswell defined politics as “who gets what when and how.” Politics is a way of determining, without recourse to violence, who gets power and resources in society, and how they get them. Power is the ability of getting others to get other people to do what you want them to do. German sociologist, Max Weber defined power as “the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance. “ Emersonsuggests that “The power of actor A over actor B is the amount of resistance on the part of B which can be potentially overcome by A.” Politics in reference to organizations refers to the use of power and authority to influence organizational outcomes. The tools of politics are compromise and cooperation; discussion and debate; even, sometimes, bribery and deceit. Politics is the process through which we try to arrange our collective lives in some kind of social order so that we can live without crashing into each other at every turn, and to provide ourselves with goods and services we could not obtain alone. But politics is also about getting our own way.
Talya and Berrin (2014 )in an article on organizational behavior say that organizational politics are informal, unofficial, and sometimes behind-the-scenes efforts to sell ideas, influence an organization, increase power, or achieve other targeted objectives. Aristotle wrote that politics stems from a diversity of interests, and those competing interests must be resolved in some way. “Rational” decision making alone may not work when interests are fundamentally incongruent, so political behaviors and influence tactics arise.

Organizational politics described as an activity that permits people in organization to accomplish goal s without going through proper channels. Whether political activities assist or harm the organization depends on whether the goals of individuals are consistent with the goals of organization. There has no doubt that political beliefs are an ordinary observable fact in every organization. Organizational politics represented devious behavior of employees towards their work environment only for their self-interests. These self-interests may be at the cost of other employees or may be organizational goals as well, (Shamaila, 2012)

Employee performance denotes all the job related activities expected of a worker and how well those activities were executed assessed on annual or quarterly basis in order to help identify areas for improvement. This can be noted through creativity and innovation as opposed to doemanct, Communication to the team, absenteeism, and adherence to company policies. Employee performance can be interpreted as employee satisfaction whereby when the employee is satisfied with his/her job the performance index goes up and incase of dissatisfaction then performance consequently falls. Job satisfaction is the feelings of employees towards their job. Level of satisfaction that employees attain from different roles they play in an organization. It’s simply the perception of employees that how well the job provides those things that are important for them like benefits, promotional opportunities, supervision, coworkers, working condition and the work itself. (Shamaila, 2012).

According to Gotsis andKortezi (2011) organizational politics is a search of selfinterest of individuals in the organization without consider to their effect on the efforts of the organization to achieve its objectives. By adopting an alternative view of behavioral assumptions it deduce a positive political behavior.

Politics is crucial and forms part of every organization, Vigoda-Gadot and Drory (2006) suggest that the issue is of prime importance to any type of organization, in any field, market, sector, and culture reiterating that organizational politics may be used to target, secure or maximize collective interests in cases where several decisions are possible that affect different interests.

On the other hand as was suggested by Kacmar and Ferris (1991) and Kacmar and Carlson(1994), perceptions of organizational politics represent the degree to which employees view their work environment as political in nature promoting the self-interests of others and thereby unjust and unfair from the individual’s point of view. Bounded selfinterest assumption is more representative of actual human behavior. Some of the selfish organizational members primarily promote self-interest even at the expense of organizational objectives and revealed their activities in the direction of greater organizational good.

Gadot (2007) shows the intervening effect of the politics of organization on the relationship between headship and performance. Performance includes the mode by which the employees perform their work and the flexible behavior of individual to go ahead of the basic requirements of job for the benefit of organization. He says that there is a direct and positive relationship between headship and performance. The individuals who show high involvement in their jobs consider their work to be a very important part of their lives.

According to Poon(2006), trust in supervisor and employee willingness to assist the coworker observes less politics. According to Field (2011) interest of members of organization are intimidated by the pay renegotiation and performance management which are also helpful for organizational change and learning.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Kacmar and Ferris 1991 while discussing Organizational politics consider it an elusive type of power relations in the workplace representinga unique domain of interpersonal relations, characterized by the direct or indirect ,active or passive engagement of people in influence tactics and power struggles. These activities are frequently aimed at securing or maximizing personal interests or, alternatively, avoiding negative outcomes within the organization.
Vigoda (2000) in an attempt to establish the relationship between organizational politics and employee performance explained that organizational political principles had a pessimistic association with work feelings of employment fulfillment and managerial loyalty. Further, Steers and Porter (1979) described organizational politics is the primary variable in establishing job attitudes. It consists of participation in and recognition with the association and it is appreciably influenced by work satisfaction and on the whole environment thereby affecting performance.

K.A.M.S Kodisinghe (2010) explained the influence of supposed organizational political affairs on work pleasure of workers. The study used the sample size of 300 employees. Research examined the data by using regression analysis and correlation analysis. Hypothesis of the research tested in it. In this study, it is concluded that there is an inverse relationship between which implies that organizational politics negatively influences employee performance.
Typically, scholars have focused on the negative aspects of organizational politics, seeing it as representative of the dark side of human conduct. Organizational politics has been considered almost synonymous with manipulation, coercive influence tactics, and other subversive and semi-legal actions (Ferris & King, 1991; Mintzberg, 1983; 1985). This depiction led to the assumption that organizational politics contradicts the common goods of the organization and may damage performance at any level be it individual, team, unit, or system. During the 1990s and on into the 2000s, the interest in organizational politics took a more cognitive direction. To date the cognitive perspective is the dominant approach in the study of organizational politics and has led to an increase in the number of studies on the influence of organizational politics on lecturers’ attitudes behavior and especially performance in the workplace.

The relationship between organizational politics and employee performance and outcomes is important because it has both theoretical and practical implications. It can potentially help us better understand the meaning of organizational conflict, power, and influence tactics and posit hypotheses regarding their meaning for micro- and macro-level organizational outcomes. Furthermore, it can point to practical tools for handling workplace politics and minimizing its negative effect on individuals, teams, and the organization as a whole.

These research narrows down to University of Mkar with the aim of establishing the relationship between organizational politics and lecturers and general employee performance and evaluating the extent to which organizational politics can affect performance of individuals in organizations.

1.3 Purpose of the Study

This study sought to establish the influence of organizational politics on employee productivity: a study of university of Mkar, Mkar

1.4 Objectives of the Study

This study was guided by the following objectives:

To establish how the type of leadership influences on employee performance in University of Mkar.

To establish the extent to which group orientation influences employee performance in University of Mkar.

To assess how organization structure influences on employee performance in University of Mkar.

1.5 Research Questions

The research endeavoured to seek responses to the following research questions:

To find out the extent to which the types of leadership styles influence on employee performance in University of Mkar?

How does group orientation influence on employee performance in University of Mkar?

How do organization structure influence on employee performance in University of Mkar?

1.6 Significance of the Study

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of organizational politics in on employee performance. With an endeavor to emphasize the latest advances in thought with the help of research and practice, the research breaks down organization politics into various dimensions of type of leadership, group orientations and centers of power existing within an organization have an influence on employee performance. Further, the study extends the existing research in this area by focusing on the impact of these political forces on employee performance and ultimately organization. The research aim is to make research a useful resource for scholars who want to have well incorporated reviews of the literature, advancement in research methods, and thoughts about practice which will open new ways of working within organizations to motivate employees and create successful change.

1.7 Delimitations of the Study

The study focused on the influence of organization politics on employee performance in the University of Mkar. The study covers all territories of EB in Nigeria sampling responses from the Sales Director, Business Development Management, TMRs, TDRs and DSRs.

1.8 Assumption of the Study

There is an assumption that participants understood what organizational politics is and gave true reflection on the requirement of employee performance. Also there is an assumption that participants understood the various dimensions of organizational politics as to do with types of leadership, group orientation and organization structure. There is also an assumption that participants gave honest response that saw the success of this study.

1.9 Definition of Key Terms

Management

Management in this sense refers to the line management in charge of reams and territories and anyone above or higher on ranking.

Organizational Politics

Organizational politics described as an activity that permits people in organization to accomplish goal s without going through proper channels but at the same time can be a foundation for growth, zeal and enthusiasm on the part of employees therefore should be viewed positively.

Employee Performance

Employee Performance includes the mode by which the employees perform their work and the flexible behaviour of individual to go ahead of the basic requirements of job for the benefit of organization.

1.10 Organization of the Study

The study was organized into five chapters.

Chapter One include the background of the study, statement of the problem, purpose of the study, objective of the study, research questions, significance of the study, limitation of the study and definition of terms.

Chapter Two consist of introduction, theoretical review and conceptual framework.

Chapter Three consist of research methodology that is the introduction, research design, target population, sampling procedure, methods of data collection, validity and reliability, operational definition of variables, methods of data analysis and summary.

Chapter Four consist of data analysis and discussion of findings.

Finally, Chapter Five consist of summary of findings, conclusion and recommendations.