Abstract
Research has generally revealed only a weak link, if any at all, between victimization-related experiences and job performance. Drawing on the commonly used conservation of resources perspective, we argue that such inconsistent evidence in the organizational literature stems from an over-focus on personal resources at the expense of considering the role of social resources. Victimization is an interpersonal phenomenon with social ramifications. Its effects may be better captured when measured from the standpoint of the social environment, and analyzed relative to an employee’s capacity to effectively regulate those social resources. With the latter capacity being encapsulated by the construct of political skill, we conducted two studies to explore the moderating influence of employee political skill on the relationship between employee perceptions of a victimizing work environment and employee task performance. In Study 1, employees with low political skill exhibited reduced task performance when perceiving a victimizing environment, and this link was found to be mediated by tension in Study 2. Those with high political skill exhibit no change in performance across victimization perceptions in Study 2, yet an increase in performance in Study 1. We discuss our findings relative to the victimization and political skill literatures.
Highlights
Professionals in the workplace have recently grown interested in reducing the harmful effects of workplace victimization on employee performance (e.g., Stevens, 2002; Know Bull!, 2010; Workplace Bullying Institute, 2014)
Past research has found a direct link between political skill and performance (e.g., Ferris et al, 2005), it is possible that political behavior is less common in this particular work context, which would reduce the frequency of political skill usage
Employees in this sample work with highly formalized procedures and centralized management that are designed to maintain the consistency of product served to customer, research on perceptions of politics finds that formalized work can inhibit the formation of politics perceptions, which may reduce the likelihood of employees either being motivated to behave politically or to engage their political skill
Summary
Professionals in the workplace have recently grown interested in reducing the harmful effects of workplace victimization on employee performance (e.g., Stevens, 2002; Know Bull!, 2010; Workplace Bullying Institute, 2014). Politically skilled workers perceiving victimization in their work environment are likely to first consider the many relationships they’ve built, and identify those who may be easier to influence in present circumstances (e.g., those who already respect them, those who are similar, those who are not politically skilled, etc.); their astuteness and networking ability heightens the accuracy of their perceptions, and the number of people to which they have access They select appropriate tactics, such as ingratiation (e.g., offering favors, helping) or inspiration, to convince those appropriate targets to act in ways that align with the politically skilled worker’s preservation goals (e.g., facilitate helpful interactions, build cohesion, trust, etc.) and performance goals (e.g., contribute resources to their task completion, make decisions favoring them, provide information); their interpersonal influence and apparent sincerity enhance the likelihood that influence targets feel good about complying with the politically skilled workers. If our interaction results when testing Hypothesis 1 were statistically significant, we expected them to be in that direction, and as such used only a one-tailed test of simple slopes; this enhanced statistical power in Sample 1, which was smaller than Sample 2
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