Political skill camouflages Machiavellianism: Career role performance and organizational misbehavior at short and long tenure

Blickle, Gerhard; Kückelhaus, Bastian P.; Kranefeld, Iris; Schütte, Nora; Genau, Hanna A.; Gansen-Ammann, Dominic-Nicolas; Wihler, Andreas

doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2020.103401

Cited by 38 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 80 publications

(135 reference statements)

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“…Support for H2 also aligns with previous research that identified the important moderating role of political skill in predicting unethical outcomes (Baloch et al, 2017;Zhao et al, 2013). In line with research showing that political skill can camouflage Machiavellianism (Blickle et al, 2020), it seems that high maverickism has the potential to alter the expression of political skill from being neutral with respect to unethical decision-making to one facilitative of adverse results. This research makes an important contribution by providing a useful starting point for future research aimed at better understanding the potential boundary conditions of maverickism and political skill.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Beware the politically skilled maverick: political skill interacts with maverickism to predict unethical decision-making

Gardiner

Debrulle

2020

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PurposeAcross two studies, the current research investigates whether individuals high in maverickism, which incorporates tendencies of creativity, risk-taking, goal-orientation and disruption are likely to make poorer ethical decisions and whether political skill promotes or hinders good ethical judgment.Design/methodology/approachParticipants completed an online questionnaire and an ethical dilemma.FindingsResults with UK (Study 1, N = 300) and Australian workers (Study 2, N = 217) revealed that political skill significantly moderated the maverickism-unethical decision-making relationship. Unethical decision-making was highest for those high in maverickism and political skill.Research limitations/implicationsResults highlight that for individuals high in maverickism, political skill facilitates rather than reduces the breaching of ethical norms.Practical implicationsResults show that while political skill has traditionally been seen as adaptive in organizations, being politically skilled can contribute to engaging in unethical behavior.Originality/valueThis research provides a new and interesting view of how being politically skilled can negatively impact ethical behavior and identifies another individual difference variable, maverickism, which predicts unethical behavior.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Beware the politically skilled maverick: political skill interacts with maverickism to predict unethical decision-making

Gardiner

Debrulle

2020

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“…This is not only another verification of role theory in the Chinese context but also an enrichment of the antecedent variables of WFC. Moreover, previous studies have examined the positive effect of employees' PS on their promotion probability [21], career development [50] and performance rating [93]. This study extends the outcome of employee PS by proving the negative effect of PS on WFC.…”

Section: Theoretical Implicationssupporting

confidence: 55%

“…In supervisor-subordinate interaction, the leader's needs are often not publicized. Employees high on social astuteness can quickly and accurately understand the leader's intentions through keen observation [50]. Moreover, employees with strong abilities in interpersonal influence have good communication skills [51].…”

Section: Employee Political Skill and Supervisor-subordinate Guanximentioning

confidence: 99%

Employee Political Skill, Supervisor-Subordinate Guanxi, and Work-Family Conflict: The Cross-Level Moderating Role of Family-Friendly Practices

Tang

Miao

Jiang

2020

IJERPH

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Many studies have examined the negative effects of work-family conflict on society, organizations, and individuals. Nonetheless, alleviating employee work-family conflict is a topic worthy of further investigation. Few studies examine the antecedent variables of work-family conflict from personal skill and Guanxi perspectives. Studies that test the moderating role of family-friendly practices at the organization level are also rare. Accordingly, we collected data from 404 employees of 51 organizations. The research data are time-lagged and multileveled. The results of hierarchical linear model (HLM) show: (1) Employee political skill negatively affects employee perceived work-family conflict; (2) Employee political skill positively affects supervisor-subordinate Guanxi; (3) Supervisor-subordinate Guanxi partially mediates the relationship between employee political skill and employee work-family conflict (that is, employees can use their political skill to build high-quality supervisor-subordinate Guanxi, further reducing their perceived work-family conflict); (4) Organization family-friendly practices negatively moderate the relationship between supervisor-subordinate Guanxi and work-family conflict (that is, in organizations with high level family-friendly practices, the negative relationship between supervisor-subordinate Guanxi and work-family conflict becomes weak); Furthermore, by coding with Mplus software (Muthen & Muthen, Los Angeles, CA, USA), we also find: (5) Organization family-friendly practices moderate the indirect effect of employee political skill on employee work-family conflict. The results have both theoretical and empirical implications. Further research directions are addressed at the end.

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“…Our results contribute to the investigation of Machiavellianism's manifestation in work and leadership contexts. Jones (2014) speculated that Machiavellians with very high social skill penetrate organizations in a long-term process, for which Blickle et al (2020) found partial support. Thus, strong political skill may provide Machiavellian leaders with the impulse control in social situations needed to pursue a long-term goal, while maintaining ulterior motives.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Specifically, prior studies demonstrate that political skill relates to transformational leadership, which mediates leadership effectiveness (i.e., Blickle et al, 2014; Ewen et al, 2013; Wihler et al, 2016). Furthermore, leadership situations behaviorally activate political skill in dark personalities (Kholin et al, 2020), and highly politically skilled Machiavellians' career behaviors follow long-term career goals (Blickle et al, 2020).…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Machiavellian Leader Effectiveness

Genau

Blickle

Schütte

et al. 2022

Journal of Personnel Psychology

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Abstract. Research on the effectiveness of Machiavellian leaders has found contradictory results. By linking socioanalytic and trait activation theory to the Machiavellianism and leadership literature, we argue that political skill may explain these findings by moderating the relation between Machiavellianism and leadership effectiveness. Using a multisource design and moderated mediation analyses with 153 leaders, 287 subordinates, and 153 superiors, we show that leaders who are both strongly politically skilled and high on Machiavellianism successfully enact transformational leadership, mediating improved leader effectiveness. However, when leader political skill is low, high Machiavellianism is negatively associated with (subordinate-rated) transformational leadership, resulting in lower leader effectiveness ratings by superiors. We discuss these results in light of current research on Machiavellianism in leadership and work contexts.

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Political skill camouflages Machiavellianism: Career role performance and organizational misbehavior at short and long tenure

Cited by 38 publications

References 80 publications

Beware the politically skilled maverick: political skill interacts with maverickism to predict unethical decision-making

Beware the politically skilled maverick: political skill interacts with maverickism to predict unethical decision-making

Employee Political Skill, Supervisor-Subordinate Guanxi, and Work-Family Conflict: The Cross-Level Moderating Role of Family-Friendly Practices

Machiavellian Leader Effectiveness

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