Chapter 11: The Consequences of Organizational Politics Perceptions as a Workplace Stressor

Perceptions of organizational politics have been conceptualized as a source of stress in the work environment with the potential to promote dysfunctional consequences and strain reactions. Research has demonstrated that a variety of individual difference variables, such as personal commitment and affective disposition, either intensify or neutralize these effects. An additional variable that holds considerable promise for altering politics perceptions-strain associations is political skill. Political skill is characterized by social perceptiveness and the ability to adjust one’s behavior to different situational needs in ways that enhance personal or organizational goals. As such, high political skill is argued to be a coping mechanism used to ameliorate the politics perceptions-strain reaction relationship. This chapter begins with a brief overview of the politics perceptions literature followed by a discussion of politics perceptions as a workplace stressor. Next, we outline recent political skill literature and continue by outlining political skill’s potential to serve as a coping mechanism. We conclude with directions for future research and implications for practice.