An Examination of the Perceptions of Organizational Politics Model: Replication and Extension

Abstract

This study examined the Perceptions of Politics Model (Ferris, Russ, & Fandt, 1989) in a three-phase process. In the first phase, the model was examined using Anderson and Gerbing's (1988) two-step approach to structural equations modeling. The model was tested on data collected from 786 employees of a state government agency and 469 employees of an electric utility cooperative. Results from this phase indicated that the model had acceptable fit and was more parsimonious than any of the competing models to which it was compared. In the second phase, understanding as a moderator of the relationships between perceptions of organizational politics and several outcome variables was examined. Results indicated that understanding only moderated the outcome relationship between politics and job satisfaction, not intent to turnover or job anxiety. Finally, in phase three, the additional outcome variables of organizational satisfaction, supervisor effectiveness, and self-reported individual performance were included in an effort to expand the Ferris et al. (1989) framework. Additionally, the moderating effects of understanding on the relationships between perceptions of politics and these new outcome variables were explored. Results from the final step indicated that adding the new outcome variables increased the parsimony of the model without decreasing model fit. With respect to the moderating effects, only the politics-performance relationship was moderated by understanding. All of these results are discussed in light of their implications for future research.