Office Warfare: Exploring the Role of Employee Political Affiliation in the Workplace

Abstract

Despite the likely outsized presence of politics in the workplace, research on how one's political ideology or affiliation shapes their time at work has been extremely limited. Collectively, the research to date showcases that how employees present their political stance to others, and how similar their political stance is to their workplace peers, is likely to shape their time at work and erode important workplace outcomes. To advance research on the role of employee political stance in the workplace, we bring together four research teams all pursuing research questions related to how employees make conscious or unconscious efforts to manage their political ideology or affiliation to others at work. These works are likely to advance scholarship on the role of political stance at work, and also test the boundaries of identity management theories in considering political stance as a potentially stigmatizing identity characteristic. Distal Consequences of Expressing a Political Identity at Work Presenter: Ashley N. Robinson; The U. of Memphis Presenter: Alex Lindsey; U. of Memphis Presenter: Kristen Price Jones; U. of Memphis Fighting an Uncivil War: Does Passion for Politics lead to Consequences for Employees? Presenter: Hayden DuBois; U. of Texas At Arlington Presenter: David F. Arena; U. of Texas At Arlington Presenter: Karen Landay; U. of Missouri - Kansas City Presenter: Shona G. Smith; U. of Texas At Arlington Job Identification, Political Ideology, and Employee Well-Being Presenter: Ryan Scott Teschner; U. of Texas at Dallas Presenter: Riki Takeuchi; U. of Texas at Dallas Presenter: Nan Guo; U. of Texas at Dallas - Jindal School of Management COVID-19 Pandemic Protocols and the Surfacing of Political Identities at Work Presenter: Hoda Vaziri; U. of North Texas Presenter: Artemis Boulamatsi; U. of North Texas Presenter: Virginie Lopez Kidwell; U. of North Texas Presenter: Danielle Cooper; U. of North Texas Presenter: Julie Irene Hancock; U. of North Texas