Organizational Politics

Abstract

Another concept that we recommend including in organizational fairness is perception of organizational politics (POPS). However, before focusing on POPS, it is important to review the concept of organizational politics, of which POPS is one ingredient. Organizational politics emerged as an area of considerable interest to groups ranging from behavioral scientists to the general public. However, more academic attention has been devoted to organizational politics in recent years, with active scientific agendas being pursued by scholars from a number of different disciplines, including Psychology, Sociology, Economics, Political Science, and Management (Ferris et al., 2002). Politics in organizations is a fact of life (Ferris & Kacmar, 1992) and constitutes an elusive product of power relationships in the workplace. It represents a unique domain of interpersonal relations, characterized by direct or indirect (active or passive) engagement in tactics of influence and power struggles, with the aim of securing or maximizing personal interests or, alternatively, avoiding negative outcomes, within the organization (Ferris, Adams, Kolodinsky, Hochwarter, & Ammeter, 2002; Vigoda-Gadot & Talmud, 2010).