Impact of Political Skill on Helping Behavior and Knowledge Sharing Behavior: An Evidence from Banking Sector of Islamabad and Rawalpindi

Abstract

Political skill is the essential requirement for the individuals to survive in the political arenas of organization and is gaining much recognition in terms of managing the interactions at workplace. The main aim of the study is to investigate the role of political skill in generating helping behavior and knowledge sharing behavior in the presence of mediating mechanism of organizational based self-esteem. A quantitative approach was employed involving responses from 219 managers serving in banks of Islamabad and Rawalpindi using a questionnaire. The data was analyzed using structural equation modelling. Political skill is found to have a significant direct effect on helping behavior and knowledge sharing behavior. Political skill also revealed a significant positive relationship with organizational based self-esteem. Moreover, the results showed a partially mediated impact of organizational based self-esteem among the relationship between political skill, helping and knowledge sharing behavior. The study is the first to address the unexplored areas of research in the domain of examining the political skill impact on helping behavior and knowledge sharing. Political skill helps the managers to handle the negativities at workplace by engaging in such behaviors. Political skill training will help the individuals to groom their personality and work in an optimistic way for the betterment of organization and society at large.

Forty years of political skill and will in organizations: a review, meta-theoretical framework and directions for future research

“…Situational responses include behavioral responses which are affected by political skill (Munyon et al, 2015). Highly politically skilled employees more frequently exhibit organizational citizenship behaviors such as helping behaviors and knowledge sharing as a means to establish positive relationships with their coworkers to receive similar support in return (Khalid and Dastgeer, 2019;Li and Kong, 2015;Liu et al, 2007;Stamper and Van Dyne, 2001). Pairing with other personal attributions, such as modesty, high performance and self-efficacy, high political skill yields favorable workplace outcomes and negotiation success (Blickle et al, 2012a, b;Geyer, 2018;Melissa et al, 2019;Munyon et al, in press;Solga et al, 2015;Treadway et al, 2013a).…”

You're draining me! When politically inept employees view organization-linked emotional exhaustion and unforgiveness as reasons for diminished job performance

“…But if employees lack such skills and have a hard time exerting influences over others, they may feel uncertain about their ability to handle work demands and feel as if their work is emotionally draining (De Clercq et al, 2020;Quinn et al, 2012). Consistent with COR theory (Hobfoll et al, 2018), the work-related challenges that politically inept employees experience may compromise their self-esteem resources to such an extent that they need to find a way to avoid self-deprecating thoughts about their work functioning (Khalid and Dastgeer, 2019), so they perceive that their organization is overburdening them (Basit, 2020;Clarke and Higgs, 2020). Such perceptions of organization-induced emotional exhaustion may help employees feel better about themselves, by leaving their employer accountable for their work challenges, which are due to their own inability to influence others (Summers et al, 2020).…”

“…That is, and consistent with COR theory (Hobfoll and Shirom, 2000), an organization that condemns mistakes represents a powerful threat to employees' sense of self-worth, especially if their lack of political skill makes it difficult for them to find effective ways around the negative implications of unforgiveness (Clarke and Higgs, 2020;Summers et al, 2020). When they perceive the organizational climate as unforgiving, their inability to influence others and downplay their own shortcomings becomes especially important for their motivation to protect their self-image and blame their organization for overburdening them emotionally (Khalid and Dastgeer, 2019;Zhu et al, 2020b). The adversity that comes with an organization that reprimands individual errors reaffirms the sense of politically inept employees that their organization does not care about their professional well-being (Costa and Neves, 2017), which invigorates their organization-induced emotional exhaustion (Hobfoll et al, 2018).…”

“…An especially valuable resource for employees though, according to Hobfoll (2001; see also Bedi, 2021; Bentein et al , 2017), is their self-esteem or sense of self-worth. When employees exhibit political ineptness or lack the skill to influence others, their work-related self-esteem resources tend to become depleted, because they perceive their own inability to get others to respond positively to their efforts (Basit, 2020; Khalid and Dastgeer, 2019). In the logic of COR theory, these politically inept employees may seek to transfer responsibility and counter their tarnished sense of self-worth, such as by forming perceptions that their employing organization overburdens them (Hobfoll and Shirom, 2000; Wayne et al , 2017).…”

“…To determine why and when employees' political ineptness might halt their propensities to meet organization-set performance expectations, we turn to conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1989; Hobfoll et al , 2018). First, as a negative force that drains self-esteem resources (Basit, 2020; Khalid and Dastgeer, 2019), political ineptness may motivate employees to find a way to deal with their personal inadequacies, such as by holding another entity (e.g. their employer) responsible for overburdening them (Jawahar et al , 2007; Kimura, 2015).…”