An examination of the perceptions of organizational politics model: Replication and extension

This study examined the Perceptions of Politics Model (Ferris, Russ, & Fand t, 1989) in a three-phase process. In the first phase, the model was examin ed using Anderson and Gerbing's (1988) two-step approach to structural equa tions modeling. The model was tested on data collected from 786 employees o f a state government agency and 469 employees of an electric utility cooper ative. Results from this phase indicated that the model had acceptable fit and was more parsimonious than any of the competing models to which it was compared. In the second phase, understanding as a moderator of the relation ships between perceptions of organizational politics and several outcome va riables was examined. Results indicated that understanding only moderated t he outcome relationship between politics and job satisfaction, not intent t o turnover or job anxiety. Finally, in phase three, the additional outcome variables of organizational satisfaction, supervisor effectiveness, and sel f-reported individual performance were included in an effort to expand the Ferris et al. (1989) framework Additionally, the moderating effects of unde rstanding on the relationships between perceptions of politics and these ne w outcome variables were explored. Results from the final step indicated th at adding the new outcome variables increased the parsimony of the model wi thout decreasing model fit. With respect to the moderating effects, only th e politics-performance relationship was moderated by understanding. All of these results are discussed in light of their implications for future resea rch.