The influence of political skill on career success in an Ecuadorian family firm

Abstract

Human capital attributes, such as political skill, motivate employees and relate to their success. While political skill is associated with greater objective (i.e. salary) and subjective (i.e. career satisfaction) career success, the strength of these relationships has been inconsistent. Grounded in social identity theory, therefore, we propose and test the hypothesis that in certain types of contexts, political skill may be more strongly associated with subjective career success than objective career success. The sample (N = 856) was taken from a large family-controlled financial services firm in Ecuador. Using Smart Partial Least Squares (PLS) structural equation modeling, our results showed that, in the unique Ecuadorian context, political skill is more strongly related to career satisfaction than to performance evaluations or salary. In addition, the relationship between political skill and career satisfaction is partially mediated by affective commitment. Theoretical explanations of how political skill operates in non-Western contexts have not been addressed in the extant literature. As such, our single-culture context provides an elaboration-type advancement in political skill theory by testing the boundaries of the theory in very specific contexts. This work contributes to cross-cultural management research by providing a reason for why specific employee skill sets may be developed in different ways depending on cultural specifics. As such, excelling at certain work skills may be much more socially complex when cultural dynamics are taken into consideration.