Measuring Political Perceptions in Organizations: Assessing Reliability and Validity of POPS across Cultures

Timothy A Brubaker

doi:10.22610/jebs.v4i10.361

Abstract

This study addresses the reliability and validity across cultures of the perceptions of organizational politics scale (POPS) developed by Kacmar and Carlson (1997). First, POPS is discussed generally by tracing the development of previous scales and how POPS fits into that stream of research. Subsequently, reliability and validity are addressed from across cultural settings. Reliability of POPS is assessed using Cronbachâ€™s alpha; validity is discussed by considering discriminate and concurrent validities. The general finding of this study is that POPS is consistently reliable across cultural settings and consistently demonstrates strong correlations with criterion variables related to POPS from within the nomological network. However, concerns about the discriminate validity of POPS in relation to perceptions of organizational support and organizational justice are shown to exist across cultural settings. In conclusion, suggestions are made for ways to build a stronger case for the reliability and validity of POPS within future research.

Highlights

Political perceptions have been described as the silent enemy within organizations (Vigoda, 2000) as well as the primary means by which employees make sense of organizational life (Parker, Dipboye, & Jackson, 1995)
This paper provides information regarding the development of perceptions of organizational politics scale (POPS) and its use in American and non-American contexts
According to the review of reliability coefficients found across studies in various cultures, there seems to be no reason to doubt the internal consistency of POPS as well as its reliability in non-American contexts

Summary

Introduction

Political perceptions have been described as the silent enemy within organizations (Vigoda, 2000) as well as the primary means by which employees make sense of organizational life (Parker, Dipboye, & Jackson, 1995). Three additional scales have been developed and utilized significantly within perceptions of organizational politics research (Ferris and Kacmar, 1992; Kacmar & Carlson, 1997; Hochwarter, Kacmar, Treadway, & Watson, 2003). The purpose of the current paper is to trace the development of the perceptions of organizational politics scale (POPS) provided by Kacmar and Carlson and discuss its reliability and validity across cultural settings. This assessment accounts for two unique and significant contributions to the POPS literature: (a) it provides a comprehensive assessment of the reliability and validity of Kacmar and Carlson’s scale; and (b) it provides a comprehensive account of the scale’s use within a global setting

Measurement of Perceptions of Organizational Politics

Challenges to POPS’ Dimensionality and Discriminate Validity

Findings

Conclusion and Discussion