THE RELATIONSHIP OF ORGANIZATIONAL POLITIES AND SUPPORT TO WORK BEHAVIORS, ATTITUDES, AND STRESS

The purpose of this paper is to report two studies that investigated t he consequences of organizational politics and organizational support on two separate samples of employees. Study 1 surveys 69 full-time emp loyees, while Study 2's sample includes 185 part-time workers. Four ma jor findings were observed. First, the present studies replicated prio r findings concerning the relationships of politics and support to suc h variables as withdrawal behaviors, turnover intentions, job satisfac tion and organizational commitment. In general, politics is related to negative work outcomes while support is related to positive ones. Con sistent results were obtained within both the full- and part-time samp les. Second,we elaborated upon previous work concerning the relationsh ip of politics and support to job involvement. Third, we found in both samples that politics and support did predict above and beyond each o ther, suggesting that they should be viewed as separate constructs rat her than opposite ends of a single continuum. Lastly, Study 2 extended the research on politics and support by analyzing their relationships to four work stress variables: job tension, somatic tension, general fatigue, and burnout. Each of these four variables was predicted by bo th politics and support. (C) 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.