Citizens' Perceptions of Politics and Ethics in Public Administration: A Five-Year National Study of Their Relationship to Satisfaction with Services, Trust in Governance, and Voice Orientations

Abstract

In recent decades organizational politics (OP) has become a growing field of interest in managerial studies. To date, the major scholarly effort has been dedicated to the exploration of intraorganizational politics based on employees' perceptions. However, one of the important aspects of this phenomenon is the way in which it is viewed by the external organizational environment-by customers, clients, and as far as governmental agencies are concerned, by the general public as well. This article examines citizens' perceptions of organizational politics and ethics in public administration systems. It focuses on the relationship between these perceptions and several key outcomes of modern bureaucracy such as satisfaction with services, trust in governmental institutions, and the resulting voice orientations and actions by the public (i.e., political efficacy, political participation). The data for the study were gathered from a half decade's worth of national surveys in Israel. The results point to meaningful direct and indirect relationships between organizational politics and ethics in the public sector, satisfaction, trust, and voice orientation. The article ends with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of the findings and suggestions for future studies.