Perceptions of organizational politics as a moderator of the relationship between conscientiousness and job performance

Meta-analytic studies of the relationships between the five-factor model of personality constructs and job performance indicate that conscientiousness has been the most consistent predictor. Recent research has sought to iden tify situational factors that may explain additional variance beyond what h as been reported by simple bivariate relationships. The authors hypothesize d that perceptions of organizational politics would moderate the relationsh ip between conscientiousness and job performance. Data collected from 234 m ale and 579 female workers in 4 organizations indicated that conscientiousn ess was related to job performance among workers perceiving average to high levels of organizational politics but unrelated to performance among worke rs perceiving low Levels of organizational politics. Moreover, perceptions of organizational politics were negatively related to job performance only among workers of average to low levels of conscientiousness.