Interactive Effect of Perceived Organizational Politics and Hierarchical Status on Workplace Victimization

Abstract

Drawing upon deviant place theory, we examined the role of organizational politics in workplace victimization considering the moderating effect of employees hierarchical status in the context of higher educational institutions in Pakistan. Data was collected from 313 employees holding various positions in the teaching faculty of selected universities in Lahore. The survey instrument consisted of existing validated scales to measure the proposed variable; the same were also found consistently reliable in this study. We performed correlation, simple regression, and multiple regression analyses to test hypotheses. Organizational politics indicated to be a strongly positive associate of workplace victimization. The moderated model explained significant variance in workplace victimization indicating that victimization initiated by organizational politics varied with the positional status that the victim holds in the hierarchy. We suggest that a political climate should be discouraged to prevent negative outcomes of victimization at work.