Psychological need strength and work motivation as sequential mediators in the perceived organizational politics-job performance relationship

Aqsa Ejaz, Delphine Lacaze, Liam P. Maher, Gerald R. Ferris

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Although the perceptions of politics (POPs) - job performance relationship has drawn considerable interest, and has been investigated in past research, there has been little focus on the intermediate linkages or mechanisms that reflect the explanatory power of this relationship. Therefore, in the present study, we investigated the underlying psychological and motivational linkages of the POPs - job performance relationship, proposing and testing a serial mediation model. It is hypothesized that psychological need satisfaction and work motivation are the sequential mediating pathways in the relationship between POPs and job performance. Specifically, we argue that perceived politics thwarts employees' psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, which depletes their intrinsic, identified, or introjected motivation at work, which in turn reduces employees' motivation to perform their job duties. To test the serial mediation model, we employed the bootstrapping approach using the SPSS PROCESS macro, and our results revealed that need satisfaction mediated the POPs - work motivation relationship. Furthermore, we found that only identification and introjected motivation mediated the respective indirect influence of POPs on job performance. Theoretical and practical interpretations and implications, as well as directions for future research, are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationEmerging Trends in Global Organizational Science Phenomena
Subtitle of host publicationCritical Roles of Politics, Leadership, Stress, and Context
Pages211-229
Number of pages19
ISBN (Electronic)9781536195507
StatePublished - 11 Jun 2021

Keywords

  • Autonomy
  • Competence and relatedness
  • Competition
  • Economic stress
  • Empathetic and trustworthy supervisors and coworkers
  • Identified and introjected motivation
  • Internalization
  • Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
  • Job performance
  • Needs frustration
  • Parsimony
  • Perceptions of politics (POPs)
  • Psychological gratification
  • Psychological needs satisfaction
  • Self determination
  • Serial mediation model
  • Turbulent times

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