THE ROLE OF ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICS IN RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERCEIVED LEADERSHIP STYLES AND BEHAVIORAL OUTCOMES AMONG UNIVERSITY TEACHERS

Abstract

The current study was an empirical attempt to examine the role of perceived organizational politics (POP) in relationship of leadership styles i.e. transformational (TRF) and transactional (TRS) with organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), affective commitment (AC), and job involvement (JI). A convenient sample of teachers (N = 494) of different public sector universities of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces of Pakistan was included in this study. In order to compare the perceive leadership styles of teachers and self-reported styles of departmental heads, a second sample of departmental heads (N = 57) was selected to measure the leadership styles. Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ-5X; Bass & Avolio, 1997), Organizational Politics Scale (Kacmar & Carlson, 1997), Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale (Lee & Allen, 2002), Organizational Commitment Scale (Allen & Meyer, 1990), and Job Involvement Scale (Kanungo, 1982) were used to operationalize the constructs. Cross-sectional survey research design was executed for the present study and was comprised of three phases. Phase one was established to ask for experts’ opinion on instruments selected for current study followed by committee approach to adapt the MLQ-5X. Phase two comprised of pilot study, which helped determine the psychometric soundness of scales, whereas phase three constituted the main study to test hypotheses. Pearson correlation was computed to have an insight into the relationship pattern among variables. t-test revealed significant differences on leadership styles between perceived leadership styles of teachers and selfreported leadership styles of heads of institutes, where heads were found to be higher on both TRF and TRS. Multiple regression analysis revealed that perceived transformational and transactional leadership styles of teachers were significant positive predictors of OCB, AC, and JI. Idealized influence (attributes), idealized influence (behaviors), inspirational motivation, and intellectual stimulation dimensions of TRF and contingent reward factor of TRS were also found to be significant positive predictors of OCB, AC, and JI. Among facets of leadership and management-by-exception-active yield nonsignificant results for OCB and AC; individualized consideration did not predict OCB and JI. Multiple regression analysis further demonstrated POP and its factors i.e. general political behavior (GPB), go-along-to-get-ahead (GATGA), and pay-and- promotionspolicies (PPP) as significant negative predictors of OCB, AC, and JI. Hierarchical regression accounted for moderation analyses and results revealed that POP, GPB, and PPP significantly moderated between perceived leadership styles and OCB such that the 19 interaction of these variables and both leadership styles strengthened the positive effect of these leadership styles on OCB. GATGA turned out to be non significant moderator between leadership styles and OCB. Current findings further disclosed that POP, GPB, and PPP significantly moderated between perceived leadership styles and AC such that the interaction of these political behaviors and both leadership styles (transformational and transactional) strengthened the positive association of these leadership styles and AC whereas GPB appeared to be non significant moderator between TRF and AC. The study finally examined the moderating role of POP in leadership and JI relationship to test the proposed model. Current findings entailed that POP, GPB, and PPP served as significant moderators between perceived leadership styles and JI such that the interactive effect of these political behaviors and both leadership styles (TRF and TRS) fortified the positive association of these leadership styles and JI, while GPB found to be non significant moderator between TRF and JI. In addition to hypotheses testing, current study has also explored impact of certain demographics of university teachers in relation to variables operationalized for present study. Significant findings of multivariate analyses of variance were followed by univariate analyses to assess the influence of demographics on variables of the present study. Implications of this study and suggestions for future empirical exploration of the constructs have been also discussed. Keywords: Transformational leadership, transactional leadership, perceived organizational politics, OCB, affective commitment, job involvement.