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This chapter aims to provide background knowledge of three major elements used to conduct this research, which are organizational politics, job satisfaction, and perceived supervisor support. This chapter reviews the general concepts and also detailed explanations of literatures that support the hypotheses that are purposed based on research findings as well as describe the relationship between organizational politics and job satisfaction, and the moderating effect of perceived supervisor support towards organizational politics and job satisfaction.

Organizational Politics

Recognizing the contextual nature of organizational politics is not a new idea because it is a natural occurrence. It is true that organizational politics is not a necessary thing in life, but somehow unavoidable. Some individuals see organizational politics as moral and powerful regarding acquiring sought assets singularly for a wander toward oneself (Hochwarter, 2012). Regardless, the dominant parts of individuals have a tendency to see this subject as an awful affecting component in the working environment as opposed to a decent one. A basic reason of organizational politics recognition lead to adverse conclusions lies in the fact that the association values that the worker’s commitment is disintegrated in situations related with political issues (Hochwarter et al., 2003).

The development of organizational politics has caught the enthusiasm of researchers for quite some time, and there have been distinctive ideas introduced as to explain what organizational politics is about (Ferris et al., 1996). Numerous definitions have been proposed, however, there is a typical pattern reflected in various clarifications of organizational politics. Many of the common pattern mentions about a self-serving action, which is not authorized by the organization (Ferrell & Peterson, 1982; Ferris, Russ, & Fandt, 1989; Gandz & Murray, 1980). Mintzberg (1983) proclaims about organizational politics as

individual or group action that is casual, apparently biased, disruptive, and illegitimate, endorsed neither by formal authority nor certified experts. Such action can deliver disagreement with people and/or groups against one another or against the formal authority of the organization.

Mintzberg (1983, 1985) further characterizes organizational politics as an action that is not formally authorized by the organization, which creates clash and disharmony in the workplace. The political issue in organization is also foreseen as a result from the action of supervisors and colleagues, and from organizational policies and practices (Ferris et al., 1989;

Ferris & Kacmar, 1992). The employees’ view towards organizational politics and its predecessors and outcomes is very important to be investigated further. In this sense, rather than solely an objective state, it is proper to conceive organizational politics as a subjective assessment (Gandz & Murray, 1980). Despite the fact that employees react to organizational politics on the premise of their biased notions of reality, not the actual reality, it has been contended that the perceptions of organizational politics are imperative to study regardless of the possibility that they are misperceptions of real events.

Organizational politics is portrayed as a reflection of hierarchical governmental issues that go beyond the parameters of acknowledged authoritative conduct (Mintzberg, 1983).

These practices are intended to advance speculation toward oneself and may even be at the cost of hierarchical objectives. An increasing level of examination has distinguished no less than five conclusions of organizational politics issues, which are the expansion of anxiety (Ferris et al., 1996), the lower work execution (Witt et a., 2000), the job pleasantness (Ferris et al., 1993), the mitigation of job obligation and the plan of turnover (Cropanzano et al., 1997).

It is contended that power and political issues in organizations are identified with vulnerability, suspiciousness, doubt, envy, and distance. An urgent variable of connections

between political practices and trust is fear of opponents. The fear of opponents from supervisors and jealousy from subordinates can bring about paranoid distortions (Allen &

Porter, 1983; Kumar & Ghadially, 1989). Employees get to be suspicious of each other and through specific judiciousness and projections of their own dreams create an image of plots and counter plots. Organizational life is especially powerless against the impacts of distrustful thinking because it invigorates correlation while it inspires foresights of included power or fear for alarm of decreased force. It is watched that control and devious activities are unfavorable for advancement of trust despite the fact that a political-based relationship and clashes in organizational life include dangers connected with loss of power and instabilities about redistribution of power. Such a circumstance regularly leads to undecided attitude and feeling of individual defenselessness or disaffection. The feeling of defenselessness is especially sharpened in occasions, which extend additions and misfortunes of influence. The contrasts of power can upset interpersonal relations and lessen organizational success (Babin & Boles, 1996; Kumar & Ghadially, 1989).

Butcher and Clarke (2002) define organizational politics as the constructive reconciliation of competing causes and is central to managing. In the other words, the organization serves as a big workspace that contains groups of challenging and competing employees who share common interests. And politics is the contradicted opinions or ideas of employees about the organization. It has been a drastically shifting of the political pattern in the organization in the past 20 years. The most obvious change appears in the new levels of power distribution in the business planning both domestically and internationally. Many decision-making processes do not rely on the high level managers anymore. Alternatively, the lower level managers in the management structure are the ones who make significant decisions such as strategic planning and on-site development plan.

Others describe organizational politics as self-serving and manipulate behavior of individuals and groups to promote their self-interest at the expense of others. It also manifests itself through struggle for resources, personal conflicts, competition for power and leadership and tactical influence in order to control access to information and build a coalition (Deconinck, 2010; Drory & Vigoda-Gadot, 2010). In political situation, not all employees can get the level of associated help they are yearning for regardless of the fact that the psychosocial support of help that frequently accompany in the collaborations with supervisors (Hochwarter et al., 2003). The time that workers are permitted to interact with supervisors is turning into a limited asset and one that is conceivably defenseless to political control.

Ferris et al. (1996) perceive organizational politics as a stress-related behavior in the workplace that stimulates any features that cause an employee to experience discomfort. It is a reaction of the organism to stressful events, which may be psychological, physiological, or behavioral, that respond to work-related environmental stress (Vigoda, 2002). As for stress, it relates to an uncertainty in an individual's environment and is stimulated by an inability to foresee coming situations. Employees in the organization are facing a high level of stress due to the inability and unwillingness to play politics as directed by others. Some of them eventually choose to respond as quitting the job. Similar assumption is also found in the study of Weiss and Cropanzano (1996) that events that happen in the workplace influence the emotional perception of employees, which is shown through the physical reactions towards the events. An intense stress organizational politics is likewise considered as a trigger event of aggressive and harmful behavior of employees in the workplace. However, the intense organizational politics cannot be explained without considering about other event factors such as characteristics of employees and office environment (Douglas et al., 2008).

Job Satisfaction

Levels of job satisfaction in each employee fluctuate over the time, climbing and falling like a roller coaster (Farkas & Tetrick, 1989; Rusbult & Farrell, 1983). This change may appear bizarre, given that individuals' pay, supervisors, coworkers, and work assignments do not transform starting with one hour then onto the next (Dormann & Zapf, 2001; Griffin, Patterson, & West, 2001). The key lies in recalling that job satisfaction reflects what one thinks and feels about an employment. Part of it is considered as rational, based on a careful evaluation of the employment and the things it supplies (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993;

Fisher, 2000). At the same time, it is also emotional, based on what one feels while he is at work or contemplating about work (Huang & Van de Vliert, 2003). The most extreme negative disposition is described by feeling unfriendly, anxious, and irritated.

Job satisfaction is a generally research and complex incident. Therefore, there are various meanings regarding of the definition. With the goal of this study, job satisfaction can be characterized as an individual’s aggregate feelings about their occupation and the disposition they have towards different viewpoints or aspects of their employments (Vigoda, 2000). An individual with high job satisfaction seems to hold for the most part uplifting attitudes than one who is disappointed to hold negative disposition towards their employment (Vigoda, 2002). To comprehend these features, researchers have to understand the perplexing and interrelated features of job satisfaction. This aspect of job satisfaction can be depicted as any part of a job that creates emotions of fulfillment or disappointment. This viewpoint can be valuable to organizations that wish to distinguish worker maintenance territories in which change is conceivable (Rothman & Coetzer, 2002).

Job satisfaction is a consequence of an individual's perception and assessment of their employment affected by their own particular needs, values, and desires, which they see as being vital to them (Witt et al., 2000). Research has demonstrated that job satisfaction does

not occur all alone as it is subject to authoritative components such as structure, size, pay, working conditions and authority, which vary to the hierarchical atmosphere (Rothman &

Coetzer, 2002; Witt et al., 2000). Job satisfaction can be perceived as a response to a job, emerging from what an individual looks for in a job in comparison with what job gives to the single person.

Job satisfaction among workers is a pointer of organizational viability and it is affected by organizational and individual elements (Rothman & Coetzer, 2002). Most supervisors understand that the work quality of their subordinates depends on the level of job satisfaction. Hence, it is required that people at all levels in the organization underlines the essentialness of job satisfaction as it affects a job execution of an employee's maximum capacity.

The rising enthusiasm on job satisfaction in organizations is genuinely because of how it identifies with the cost efficiency for organizations. As said prior, the level of employment satisfaction or disappointment individuals involve in their work position is because of a few elements including their needs, work conditions and necessities. The increment in the personal satisfaction and the improvements with worldwide economy has brought changes in the prerequisites of people in their apparent needs and desires, and their work necessities (Tutuncu & Kozak, 2007).

Job satisfaction is a critical concern for people and associations, as well as for society overall. The significance of job satisfaction is sorted into two levels; an individual level and organizational level. The individual level refers to an individual's mental well being and life fulfillment rely on upon one’s capacity to acclimate to work settings adequately and an execution of one’s maximum capacity and appreciate the work experience (Perdue et al., 2007; Pescosolido, 2002). The organizational level refers to a significant part to the achievement and profit of any organization regardless of how large or small. It is extent to

which its employees can discover and keep up pleasing work conditions in a working environment and additionally fortify their capacity to contend comprehensively through viable work (Perdue et al., 2007; Vigoda-Gadot & Meisler, 2010). In addition, specifically in a service delivery industry, job satisfaction serves as a guarantee that employees will treat customers with most extreme admiration and eagerness and because of that the aviation business, particularly the service delivery part, obliges a larger amount of communication between the employee, employees in different departments, and customers (Arnett, Laverie,

& McLane, 2002). At the point, when employees are fulfilled by their employment, they can surpass customer's desire and quality service providing work and this could eventually interpret into organizational productivity.

Additionally, Tutuncu and Kozak (2007) purpose that job satisfaction has been identified with employees’ work execution, which is measured by employee productiveness.

It has been corresponded with other work related variables, for example, more elevated amount of job execution, organizational citizenship, job advancement, individual inspiration, and anxiety resistance. Job dissatisfaction, then again, has a negative monetary impact on a slant to job departure aim and high turnover rate, lower productivity, and friction in the working environment (Arnett et al., 2002; Tutuncu & Kozak, 2007). Outside of the workplace, the level of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction has been corresponded with levels of enthusiastic fatigue, family stress, mental wellbeing, physical wellbeing issues, education accomplishment, work execution, and general life fulfillment all in all (Perdue et al., 2007).

Organizational politics and Job Satisfaction

A study of Cohen and Vigoda (1999) purposes that political behavior of employees will affect their behaviors and attitudes to work according to the fact that workplace political environment influences continuity of goals and policy in the organization. Not only employees will be satisfied when they perceive that their job offers the pay, promotions,

supervision, coworkers, and work tasks that they value, but it also reflects employees’

feelings about their actual work tasks, including whether those tasks are challenging, interesting, respected, and make use of key skills rather than being dull, repetitive, and uncomfortable. The authors use the spillover effect theory explaining that participation in the workplace makes people feel more self-confident, more interested in larger affairs, and more skilled in political exchanges (Sieber, 1974).

There are four factors that are considered as a positive aspect of the spillover effect theory. The first factor is the role privileges. It refers to when employees have privilege rights that are institutionalized within each role along with certain duties. An employee who is a former political member enjoys special privileges and a higher status when he joins the organization at the top management level. The second factor is a status security. Believing in the meaningfulness of work reflects the degree to which work tasks are viewed as something that counts in the employee’s system of philosophies and beliefs. Participation in a new task role alters the relationship of moral support and renewal of effort in the original task role, which makes the employees feel more confident with their new abilities and skills, therefore, they will believe that their job title is still stable and secure (Cohen & Vigoda, 1999; Sieber, 1974).

The third factor is the resources for status enhancement and role performance. The satisfaction of task role among employees creates a feeling like they are aiding the organization in some meaningful way is. It derives from an external partnership build up with an outside network or a community service activity, and certain information available only through experiences can be valuable resources for successful work functioning. The last factor is about personality enrichment and development. It refers to the degree of which the job provides freedom, independence, and discretion to the individual performing the work (Cohen & Vigoda, 1999; Sieber, 1974).

When the job provides a sense of autonomy, employees will have an opportunity to develop their abilities and shine in the workplace (Ashkanasy & Daus, 2002; Fisher, 2002). It also seeks for a role appreciation from the peers as well as a positive view for the outcomes, which capture the degree of a feeling that employees are key drivers of the quality of the unit’s work rather than the result of careful instructions from your boss or a well-written manual of procedures. By gaining certain skills and level of confidence also lead to another relationship area that associates to a social life.

Employees who have a lower trust in the organizational fairness tend to be less involved in the workplace political process and are less happy with their tasks comparing to employees who have a faith in the organizational structure (Vigoda, 2000; Vigoda-Gadot & Meisler, 2010). The political participation is a leaned social role when an educative function consists of practice in democratic skills that are, the more individuals participate, the better able they become to do so.

Table 2.1.

The Reactions of Job Satisfaction in Previous Studies Towards Organizational Politics

Study Reactions to organizational politics*

1. Ferris and Kacmar (1992) Job satisfaction (-)

“The results indicate that perceptions of politics enter the equation and demonstrate a significant inverse relationship with job satisfaction.” (p.103)

2. Ferris et al. (1996) Job satisfaction (-)

“These results support prior research and our predictions that perceptions of

organizational politics demonstrate…a

significant inverse relationship with general job satisfaction…” (p.251)

3. Cropanzano et al. (1997) Job satisfaction (-)

“Organizational politics was…while negatively related to job satisfaction and organizational commitment.” (p.172) 4. Randall et al. (1999) Job satisfaction (-)

“As predicted by hypothesis 1, political perceptions were negatively related to affective commitment, job satisfaction, and both varieties of OCB.” (p.165)

5. Kacmar et al. (1999) Job satisfaction (-)

“Each of these variables produced the same relationship…negative for job

satisfaction…the overall results for the moderating effect of understanding were disappointing” (p.408)

6. Valle and Perrewe (2000) Job satisfaction (-)

“…it is logical that the increased use of such behaviors under highly political conditions would be associated with decreased

satisfaction, increased stress, and greater intentions to turnover.” (p.379)

7. Witt et al. (2000) Job satisfaction (-)

“…politics score were significantly and Table 2.1. (continued)

negatively related to job satisfaction scores…our finding of an inverse relationship between politics and job satisfaction is consistent with previous research” (p.351,352)

*Direction of relationship in parentheses: - = negative relationship

Note: Adapted from “Stress-related aftermaths to workplace politics: The relationships among politics, job distress, and aggressive behavior in organizations.” By Vigoda, E.

(2002), Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23(5), 571-591.

Harrell-Cook, Ferris, and Dulebohn (1999) addresses that politics perceptions such as anxiety and stress, job dissatisfaction, job involvement, and job turnover influences the work outcome. Whether the organizational politics is a threat or not depends on individuals. This mostly occurs with employees who have low level of knowledge and understanding of how and why things happen the way they do because they do not have skills to manipulate the outcomes for their favor. It also leads to a decline of employee performance as well as self-motivation. On the other hand, employees, at a general level, are satisfied with their jobs if they see the politics as non-threaten. If employees see that the workplace politics is a positive factor, they tend to have a higher rate of job performance, job satisfaction, and job environment (Grandey, 2003).

Employees will be more satisfied when the organization allows them to do what they think it is valuable. Values, in the case, means the things that people consciously or subconsciously want to seek or attain: What do you want to attain from your job, that is, what things do you want your job to give you (Harrell-Cook et al., 1999; Tutuncu & Kozak, 2007).

It can be a friendly working atmosphere, a good compensation or a sense of career achievement. Many of the values directly deal with things that organization can give you Table 2.1. (continued)

such as a raise of payment and a chance of frequent promotion. Some values are categorized as something subjective: whether you have a supporting boss or good coworkers. And still, some of the values are about the work content itself like whether your job allows you to use your creativity and work with freedom.

Hypothesis 1. Organizational politics has a negative effect on job satisfaction.

Perceived Supervisor Support (PSS)

Perceived supervisor support (PSS) is characterized as employees' general opinions concerning the degree to which supervisors esteem their commitments and empathize about their prosperity (Kottke & Sharafinski, 1988). PSS is a powerful factor developed from the commitment with the organization (Cole, Bruch, & Vogel, 2006; Gregersen, 1993). It concentrates primarily on how employees' dedication is influenced by their sense of duty

Perceived supervisor support (PSS) is characterized as employees' general opinions concerning the degree to which supervisors esteem their commitments and empathize about their prosperity (Kottke & Sharafinski, 1988). PSS is a powerful factor developed from the commitment with the organization (Cole, Bruch, & Vogel, 2006; Gregersen, 1993). It concentrates primarily on how employees' dedication is influenced by their sense of duty

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