ANSWER 2 QUESTIONS AND SUMMARIZE TWO ARTICLES
kambrea21
week_6_discussions.docx1.) ANSWER QUESTION: According to Yukl (2013), how can leaders acquire and lose power within their organization? How is position and personal power defined in your current or in a past employment environment? Is it possible to possess a high position without personal power? Why or why not?
2.) ANSWER QUESTION: Describe a political behavior you have observed. What caused the political behavior? How did it influence the organization in a positive or negative way?
3.)Summarize Article:
ABSTRACT
The strategic planning process requires development of a mission statement for the organization. The mission statement incorporates the organization's purpose and vision for the future. A 9-item mission statement evaluation scale was developed to measure the completeness and quality of an organization's mission statement. Further, the link between the completeness and quality of an organization's mission statement and the organization's financial performance was investigated. Results indicate a significant, positive relationship between the completeness and quality of the mission statement and the organization's financial performance. Strategic managers can expect that the result of improving their organization's mission statement will be improved financial performance.
INTRODUCTION
Senior capstone courses in Business Policy or Strategic Management are required in virtually every undergraduate (and graduate) business program. Strategic management texts used in these courses tout mission statements that articulate a firm's mission as critical elements of a company's overall strategic management process. They are championed as important mechanisms to provide crucial information to internal and external stakeholders about the purpose and direction of the organization. Instructions are provided in ways to properly develop, craft, and write mission statements. Distinctions are regularly made between "quality" mission statements versus those that lack "quality." However, despite this focus, little if anything is discussed concerning the impact mission statements have on performance outcomes. This study is designed to investigate whether the quality and completeness of a firm's mission statement has a positive influence on various organizational performance outcomes.
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
Strategic management texts include a process of strategic management that incorporates mission as one of the vital tasks in the strategic planning process (Thompson & Strickland, 2001; Hill & Jones, 2000; Wheelen & Hunger, 2000). In addition, mission statements are presented as important tools for communicating the mission to internal and external stakeholders.
A number of definitions of mission statements exist. Bart and Tabone ( 1998), Rigby ( 1998), and Drohan ( 1999) all provide definitions that essentially say that mission statements should reflect an organizations purpose and the means by which that purpose will be accomplished. Pearce ( 1982) states that the mission statement should include the ultimate aims of the firm thus providing unity of direction for managers, shared expectations by employees, and a projection to customers of what the firm provides and represents. Calfee (1993) says that mission statements answer the questions of what business the firm is in, what its objectives are, and how the company will win. This will ensure that all managers understand their role in executing the mission.
Research studies attempting to link mission statements to organizational performance have been conducted. Pearce and David (1987) compared mission statements of higher financial performing Fortune 500 firms to those of lower financial performing companies. Higher performing organizations "prepared written statements for public distribution giving special attention to their corporate philosophy on the firm's 1. basic beliefs, values, aspirations, and priorities, 2. desired public image, and 3. self-concept, including competitive strengths." Mission statements are often customer-focused. Germain and Cooper ( 1990) found that firms that have customer service missions are more likely to seek input from customers and are also more likely to develop and maintain customer service measures. Also, customer service activities by the company are more likely to be monitored by firms with customer service mission statements. Forehand (2000) studied firms within the healthcare industry and concluded that, within this particular industry, "solid mission statements can improve the performance of mangers, employees, and the healthcare organization."
A number of studies, however, concluded that there was no evidence to support the idea that mission statements are positively related to company performance. Bart and Baetz (1998) found no empirical evidence to support the concept that outstanding organizational performance is related to a firm's mission statement-even though they concluded that some specific characteristics of a mission statement may be selectively related to higher levels of performance. The impact of planning sophistication and implementation on firm performance was investigated by Hahn and Powers (1999). Development of a mission statement was one determinant of planning sophistication. It was determined that high levels of sophistication (of which mission statements were a part) did not have an impact on organizational performance. O'Gorman and Doran (1999) replicated Pearce and David's 1987 study using small and medium-sized Irish firms. Results do not support the findings of the earlier study. It was concluded that organizational performance was not positively correlated with mission statements.
Because the results of these previous studies are conflicting, it is necessary to further investigate the link between mission and performance. This study was designed for that purpose. Generally, it is proposed that the completeness and quality of an organization's mission statement has a significant, positive relationship on an organization's financial performance.
METHOD
Measurement scales were developed for the purpose of scoring the quality and completeness of an organization's mission statement and its degree of organizational performance. The mission scale includes nine criteria derived from Wheelen and Hunger's (2000) discussion of mission statements. The nine criteria include: 1) purpose, 2) services and/or products, 3) competitive advantage, 4) scope of operations, 5) philosophy, 6) vision, 7) sense of shared expectations, 8) public image and 9) emphasis on technology, creativity and innovation. The organizational performance scale includes eleven performance criteria derived from the CNNfn.COM Evaluator Summary. The eleven performance criteria include: 1) revenue, 2) net income, 3) cash flow, 4) return on equity, 5) return on assets 6) return on invested capital, 7) total debt to equity, 8) long-term debt to equity, 9) price/earnings ratio, 10) price/sales ratio and 11 ) price/earnings/growth ratio. Each of the mission related items required response to a 1 to 7 Likert scale anchored with "strongly disagree (1)" and "strongly agree (7)." Each of the performance related items required response to a 1 to 5 Likert scale anchored with "weaker (1)" and "stronger (5) than the industry average". The Mission/Performance Survey Form that incorporates the two scales is presented in Appendix A.
Business students enrolled in senior level strategic management courses were trained to review organization mission statements and organizational performance using the survey form. The students were instructed to review mission related information on the Internet sites of individual companies and to assess organizational performance using information provided at a CNNfn site. A total of 340 observations were taken. Information was analyzed for a total of 162 different companies. Fifty-three of the companies were observed multiple (two or more) times. All companies were listed on one of the major U.S. stock exchanges.
The resulting data set was factor analyzed to identify the primary components of the mission and performance scales, to determine the most efficient set of items for each component and to assess the reliability of each component scale. Correlation and regression analysis were performed to identify the type and strength of the relationships among the mission and performance components. For purposes of the correlation and regression analysis scale and subscale values were computed as means of the respectively included items.
RESULTS
Results of the factor, correlation and regression analyses are included in this section. The MISSION scale factored into two primary components each with a relatively high internal reliability. The PERFORMANCE scale factored into four primary components with high reliability exhibited by three of the four. Correlation and regression analyses indicated that the relationship between mission and performance is significant and positive. The relationship is, however, relatively weak. Factor analysis of the mission related variables identified two primary components - PURPOSE and VISION. The PURPOSE component is comprised of four items: 1) organizational purpose, 2) organizational products, services and markets, 3) organizational competitive advantage and 4) the organization's scope of operations. The VISION component is comprised of five items: 1) organizational philosophy, 2) organizational vision, 3) sense of shared expectations, 4) positive public image, and 5) emphasis on technology, creativity and innovation.
Table 1 includes results of the factor analysis on the MISSION scale. Principle component analysis with a varimax rotation was specifically used to perform the factor analysis. Internal reliability for the MISSION scale (all nine items) was assessed at .87 using Cronbach's Alpha. Alphas of .82 and .81 were computed for the PURPOSE and VISION components, respectively.
A potential problem associated with use of the new mission scale is that of rater reliability. Fifty-three of the companies in the sample were rated multiple times. Each of the multiple ratings was assessed for reliability using Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance. Kendall's W scores ranged from .101 to .905 with a weighted average of .369. These low inter-rater reliability scores indicate potential problems with interpretation of the results of this study.
Correlation analysis was performed to identify the type and strength of the relationships among the overall scales (MISSION and PERFORMANCE) and the scale components (PURPOSE, VISION, RETURN, DEBT, CASH and PRICE). The relation between the MISSION and PERFORMANCE is positive (R=. 199) and is significant at the .001 level. PURPOSE and VISION, components of the MISSION scale, were found to be positively and strongly correlated (R=..621). The PURPOSE component was found to be significantly related (positively) to RETURN and DEBT. The VISION component was significantly related (positively) to RETURN and CASH. Table 3 presents the correlation matrix for the scales and components.
To further assess the relationships among the MISSION and PERFORMANCE scales and scale components, regression analyses were performed. In all cases, the MISSION scale or scale components (PURPOSE and VISION) served as independent variables and the PERFORMANCE scale and components (RETURN, DEBT, CASH and PRICE) as dependent variables. Initially, the impact of MISSION on PERFORMANCE was analyzed. A statistically significant relationship was found (R=.199, R^sup 2^ =.040, ANOVA significance level = .000). PURPOSE and VISION were then regressed against each of the PERFORMANCE components. Each time one of the independent variables was found not to be significant to the model. Statistically significant equations were ultimately identified for RETURN and PURPOSE, DEBT and PURPOSE, and CASH and VISION. Regressions with the PRICE variable did not produce statistically significant results. Table 4 displays results of the regression analyses.
Regressions including the variables MISSION, PERFORMANCE, PURPOSE, VISION, RETURN, DEBT and CASH indicate the expected positive relationship and the relationships were found to be statistically significant. Equations including the variable PRICE were not found to be statistically significant. It should be noted that the PRICE component exhibited relatively low internal reliability (Cronbach's Alpha = .33). While the coefficients for the independent variables in all but the PRICE equation were significantly different from zero, it should also be noted that the relationships between the independent and dependent variables were not particularly strong.
The correlation and regression analyses reveal the expected positive relationships among the mission and performance related variables. Only the performance related variable PRICE was not found to be significantly related to the mission variables. It should be noted that while the internal reliability of the mission statement scales was assessed as relatively low the inter-rater reliability was assessed at a relatively low level.
CONCLUSIONS
The strategic planning process calls for careful development of an organizational mission statement, the setting of related objectives, thorough planning, capable implementation and follow-up to determine whether or not the objectives were accomplished according to plan and whether or not the mission was realized. Construction of the mission statement is described as critical to the overall success of the organization since all other activities flow from it.
This study aimed to investigate this hypothesized positive link between the mission statement and organizational performance. The MISSION scale was factored into two internally reliable and theoretically founded components PURPOSE and VISION. The PERFORMANCE scale was factored into four components RETURN, DEBT, CASH and PRICE. Only the RETURN, DEBT and CASH components exhibited internal reliability. The mission related variables were found to be positively related to the performance related variables. While the relationships were discovered to be statistically significant, they were not relatively strong. Generally, it is concluded that the completeness of an organization's mission statement does positively impact the organization's performance.
The relative weakness of the relationship, however, indicates that other independent variables should be considered. A planned extension of this study will include measures of the other major components of the strategic planning process: 1) objective setting, 2) planning, 3) implementation and 4) follow-up capabilities. An additional weakness is indicated by the relatively low inter-rater reliability score for the mission statement scale. Further assessment of the scale's reliability is required.
4.)Summarize Article:
Abstract
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 identify situational factors that may explain additional variance beyond what has been reported by simple bivariate relationships. The authors hypothesized that perceptions of organizational politics would moderate the relationship between conscientiousness and job performance. Data collected from 234 male and 579 female workers in 4 organizations indicated that conscientiousness was related to job performance among workers perceiving average to high levels of organizational politics but unrelated to performance among workers 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.
Recent literature reviews (e.g., House, Shane, & Herold, 1996) illustrate the advances in research made by examining dispositional predictors of job attitudes and outcomes across a variety of organizational domains. Much of this progress can be attributed to the emergence of the five-factor model (FFM) of personality (Costa & McCrae, 1988). Researchers (e.g., Digman, 1990) have confirmed that the five factors represented in the model—extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience—embody a concise taxonomy for examining personality traits. Meta-analyses (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Hough, Dunnette, Eaton, Kamp, & McCloy, 1990; Salgado, 1997; Tett, Jackson, & Rothstein, 1991; Vinchur, Schippmann, Switzer, & Roth, 1998) indicate that the FFM constructs are valid predictors of performance for some, but not all, occupations. Of the five, conscientiousness has been the most generalizable predictor (Barrick, Mount, & Strauss, 1993).
Given the empirical support for the predictive ability of the conscientiousness dimension for job performance, the next plausible avenue of research is to examine moderating variables that explain variance beyond that attributed to main effects. Barrick and Mount (1993) suggested that “an issue that has yet to be adequately addressed is whether the validities of personality constructs are influenced by the presence of moderator variables” (p. 111). This is an issue of practical as well as theoretical significance. For example, managers want to hire the right employees and put in place an environment that permits them to perform their best. The purpose of the present study is to pursue this line of inquiry by assessing the moderating effect of perceptions of organizational politics on the relationship between conscientiousness and job performance.
Conscientiousness and Job Performance
Conscientiousness refers to behavior that is “responsible, dependable, persistent, and achievement-oriented” (Barrick & Mount, 1993, p. 111). Gellatly (1996) noted that the traits that differentiate high-conscientious individuals (i.e., ambitious, exacting, methodical, and disciplined) from low-conscientious individuals (i.e., lazy, imprecise, impetuous, and disorganized) lead those in the former group to expect and strive for greater success on the job. It is not surprising, then, that individuals high in conscientiousness are described as having “ideal employee” traits (Mount & Barrick, 1995a) and tend to be higher performers. Indeed, Barrick and Mount (1991) demonstrated that conscientiousness predicts the core task proficiencies of virtually all jobs. To replicate previous findings, we proposed the following:
Hypothesis 1: Conscientiousness scores are positively related to supervisor ratings of performance.
Although corrected validity coefficients average around .30, meta-analytical studies suggest that the observed relationships between conscientiousness and job performance are often in the low teens (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Hough et al., 1990 ; Salgado, 1997 ; Tett et al., 1991 ; Vinchur et al., 1998 ). In single studies, validity coefficients have ranged from near zero (Crant, 1995) to the high .20s or low .30s (Barrick & Mount, 1993). Barrick and Mount (1991) concluded that the presence of moderator variables may partially account for the modest size of observed personality–job performance validity coefficients. This is important for at least two reasons. First, identifying moderators of the conscientiousness–job performance relationship would help managers target appropriate supervisory practices for subordinates at different points along the conscientiousness continuum. Second, it would facilitate the use of conscientiousness as a selection criterion in situations in which it matters most.
Gellatly (1996) noted that it is “shortsighted to make a selection on the basis of conscientiousness and then place new hires in work environments that potentially inhibit the natural expression” (p. 480) of conscientious behavior. He advocated the use of managerial practices that bring out the best in conscientious workers. Barrick and Mount (1993) demonstrated that providing autonomy is one such managerial practice. They found that increased levels of autonomy were associated with greater levels of performance among highly conscientious managers. However, autonomy was unrelated to the performance of managers who were of average or below-average levels of conscientiousness. Another strategy to increase worker performance may be to address aspects of the work environment that bring out the worst in workers with average to low levels of conscientiousness. An environment that potentially has deleterious effects on employees (thus bringing out their worst) is one fraught with perceived organizational politics.
Following Mintzberg (1983), we define organizational politics as behaviors intended to promote self-interest, often without regard to or even at the expense of organizational goals. Examples of organizational politics include providing resources to coworkers who support one's agenda and withholding them from those who do not, assigning higher raises to subordinates who are yes men rather than to those who sometimes question decisions, and sabotaging the work efforts of coworkers who are not advocates of one's positions. Although some theoretical work has considered organizational politics in neutral terms (e.g., Ferris & Judge, 1991), most definitions of organizational politics imply involvement in self-serving actions not sanctioned by the organization (e.g., Parker, Dipboye, & Jackson, 1995).
Theorists (Ferris, Russ, & Fandt, 1989; Gandz & Murray, 1980) have suggested that politics is appropriately viewed as a subjective phenomenon. Porter (1976) argued that organizational politics is an important area of inquiry even if it may sometimes represent misconceptions of actual events. Consistent with the theme that situations should be assessed in terms of how they are perceived (e.g., Lewin, 1936), most contemporary studies have treated perceptions of politics, not objective indices, as the most critical predictor of attitudes and behaviors (e.g., Cropanzano, Howes, Grandey, & Toth, 1997; Maslyn & Fedor, 1998). Although some work has indicated that political behaviors lead to beneficial outcomes (e.g., Madison, Allen, Porter, Renwick, & Mayes, 1980), the preponderance of literature consists of reported links between perceptions of organizational politics and detrimental individual-level outcomes, including higher levels of stress, anxiety, and job dissatisfaction and lower levels of organizational commitment and job performance (for a recent literature review, see Kacmar & Baron, 1999).
Political behaviors are likely to occur when individuals do not see the environment providing normative guidelines for behaviors ( Ferris et al., 1989 ). For example, when organizational priorities or values are unclear and there is uncertainty about organizational criteria for raises and promotions, some workers may avoid risk and take measures to ensure that they receive their fair share of the available rewards. One such step might be to create the image of a team player who does not rock the boat by questioning management prerogatives. To achieve such an image, workers may go along with plans that they know to be flawed but that are favored by key managers. Workers less motivated by self-interest may put forth effort toward goals that they genuinely believe to be important to the organization but that in fact are viewed as unimportant by most others (Mayes & Allen, 1977). In either scenario, others in the organization may view these workers as acting either in self-interest or against the interests of the organization and thus consider the behaviors to be political (Zhou & Ferris, 1995). In other words, in the absence of widely accepted norms that define priorities and protocol for decisions and criteria for personnel actions, workers are left to their own devices to get the work done and further their career aspirations (Pfeffer, 1981). Similarly, observers are left to their own devices to determine whether others are acting in self-interest or on behalf of the organization. When others believe an individual is acting in self-interest, they may feel the need to engage in their own defensive tactics ( Mayes & Allen, 1977 ).
When they see obstacles, workers who are high in conscientiousness seek out and attain higher levels of performance than low-conscientious workers because they are by predisposition more persevering and disciplined (Colquitt & Simmering, 1998), more confident in their abilities (Barrick and Mount, 1991), and more proactive and effective in goal setting (Barrick et al., 1993; Gellatly, 1996 ). Therefore, they are likely to be effective in identifying key priorities and finding ways of getting things done even when perceiving high levels of politics in the workplace. In contrast, lazy and disorganized low-conscientious workers may be handicapped when seeing themselves in such situations. Low-conscientious workers lack the patience, tenacity, diligence, and sense of urgency (Digman, 1990) to seek out actual organizational priorities and to find ways to get things done in an environment they see as political. Thus, perceptions of high levels of organizational politics may be particularly detrimental to individuals with low levels of conscientiousness.
The notion that perceived high levels of politics may promote an opportunity for individual differences in conscientiousness to affect job performance is consistent with previous work by personality theorists. For example, Mischel (1977) suggested that individual differences in personality determine behavior when individuals “have no clear expectations about the behaviors most likely to be appropriate (normative, reinforced) in that situation” (p. 347). As noted earlier, the perception of high levels of organizational politics is likely to reflect such a condition ( Ferris et al. 1989 ). In contrast, when individuals understand what is expected (a condition likely reflecting the perception of low levels of politics), they tend to conform to the norm, and personality is less important (Mischel & Peake, 1982). Therefore, we suggest that when individuals perceive low levels of politics (i.e., when they see others openly sharing critical work-relevant information, established objectives, and normative guidelines for decision making), conscientiousness may not be a distinguishing factor in performance.
Hypothesis 2: Perceptions of organizational politics moderate the conscientiousness–performance relationship. The relationship is stronger among workers perceiving high levels of organizational politics than among those perceiving low levels of politics. Moreover, perceptions of organizational politics are negatively related to job performance primarily among workers low in conscientiousness.
Method
Participants and Procedure
We collected complete data on 813 individuals from four organizations as part of a larger program of research conducted for both research and applied purposes. We asked that employees report to a training room in small groups at their respective sites. We informed them about the study, provided them with a chance to ask questions, and gave them opportunities to excuse themselves from involvement in the project. At approximately the same time, we asked supervisors to complete performance ratings on their subordinates. A total of 234 (29%) of the participants were men, 579 (71%) were women, and 331 (41%) were ethnic minorities.
Sample 1
We asked that all 310 nonsupervisory workers in a distribution services organization participate in the study; 254 (82%) volunteered. We collected complete data on 154 (49%) employees, of whom 32 (21%) were men, 122 (79%) were women, and 93 (60%) were ethnic minorities. To determine the representativeness of the sample, we collected population statistics. The population of 310 consisted of 24% men, 76% women, and 64% ethnic minorities.
Sample 2
We asked that all 487 employees of a production organization participate in the study; 390 (81%) volunteered. We collected complete data on 355 (73%) employees, of whom 73 (21%) were men, 282 (79%) were women, and 115 (32%) were ethnic minorities. The population consisted of 16% men, 84% women, and 35% ethnic minorities.
Sample 3
We asked that all 410 nonsupervisory sales agents in three different call centers of a telemarketing organization participate in the study; nearly 90% (378) volunteered. In this organization, we were able to collect data from each participant at two different times, roughly 3–4 months apart. This helped reduce the likelihood of problems associated with common method variance. We collected complete data on 207 (50%) participants, of whom 75 (36%) were men, 132 (64%) were women, and 107 (52%) were ethnic minorities. The population consisted of 27% men, 73% women, and 51% ethnic minorities.
Sample 4
We sent memoranda to managers of 356 nonsupervisory software engineers in a systems development organization, requesting that they ask their subordinates to participate in our study. We were unable to ascertain how many employees received notification of the opportunity to participate. A total of 126 workers attended one of six small-group meetings in which they completed questionnaires. We collected complete data on 97 (77%) workers, of whom 67 (69%) were men, 30 (31%) were women, and 16 (17%) were ethnic minorities. The population consisted of 42% men, 58% women, and 12% ethnic minorities.
Measures
Perceptions of organizational politics
We measured perceptions of organizational politics by the Going Along to Get Ahead subscale of the Perceptions of Organizational Politics Scale (Kacmar & Ferris, 1991). Items such as “There is no place for yes-men around here; good ideas are desired even if it means disagreeing with superiors” (reverse-scored), “Employees are encouraged to speak out frankly even when they are critical of well-established ideas” (reverse-scored), “It is safer to agree with management than to say what you think is right,” and “Rewards come only to those who work hard in this organization” measured the degree to which respondents perceived workers in the organization to be strategically withholding dissenting ideas or information to receive valued rewards. Previous studies (e.g., Cropanzano et al., 1997 ) have reported average reliabilities for the full scale in the high 80s. Kacmar and Carlson (1997) reported additional validity evidence for the full scale and for each subscale. Higher scores indicate perceptions of higher organizational politics.
Conscientiousness
We assessed conscientiousness using the 30-item conscientiousness scale of the Mount and Barrick (1995b) Personal Characteristics Inventory (PCI). For replication, we also administered the 10-item detail-conscious scale (α = .70) from Saville, Holdsworth, Nyfield, Cramp, and Mabey's (1984) Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ) to Sample 3. Higher scores indicate greater levels of conscientiousness.
Job performance
We developed criterion items based on job analysis results from each sample. In Sample 1, the supervisors rated employee performance using eight items (e.g., “[employee name] does not knowingly repeat mistakes”). The supervisors in Sample 2 rated five items (e.g., “[employee name] takes responsibility for errors”). In Sample 3, we measured sales performance using a three-item scale (e.g., “[employee name] uses cross-selling as an opportunity to benefit customers”) completed by the supervisors. As part of their everyday functions, supervisors in this organization frequently monitored calls of their direct reports and thus were capable of making these assessments. Supervisors in Sample 4 rated employee performance using a four-item scale (e.g., “[employee name] complies with standards for documenting projects”). In each sample, supervisors provided responses to the items on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (weak or bottom 10%) to 5 (best or top 10%).
Control variables
Because demographic variables, education, and general mental ability (GMA) have been shown to explain variance in performance (Barrick et al., 1993; Hofmann, Jacobs, & Gerras, 1992; Howard, 1986), we included them as control variables in the analyses. We gathered Equal Employment Opportunity Commission-defined ethnic status (converted into ethnic nonminority = 1 and ethnic minority = 2 categories), sex (men = 1, women = 2), age, and organizational tenure from the archives of the respective organizations. We gathered self-reported education levels on the identification page of the PCI. Because of differences in the nature of the jobs, we used two different, timed GMA measures. We used the Wonderlic Personnel Test (Wonderlic Personnel Test, Inc., 1992) in Samples 1, 2, and 4 and the Watson–Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (Watson & Glaser, 1994) in Sample 3. Higher scores reflect higher GMA.
Results
We analyzed the data from each sample separately and found very similar results. To simplify reporting, we standardized the GMA and performance scores, combined the data across samples, and present results of the analyses conducted on the combined data set. The descriptive statistics, reliability estimates, and intercorrelation matrix are presented in Table 1 . Hypothesis 1 was confirmed; workers scoring high in PCI-measured conscientiousness were rated higher in job performance than those scoring low in conscientiousness (r = .16, p < .01). This is slightly higher than the mean observed validity coefficients reported in meta-analytic studies (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Salgado, 1997 ; Tett et al., 1991 ; Vinchur et al., 1998 ).
Intercorrelation Matrix and Descriptive Statistics
Hierarchical moderated multiple regression analysis (Cohen & Cohen, 1983) was used to test Hypothesis 2. We first entered the control variables into the equation as one block. We then entered conscientiousness and perceptions-of-politics scores at the second and third steps, respectively. We entered the cross-product term (Conscientiousness × Organizational-Politics Perceptions) at the final step. As shown in Table 2 , the cross-product term of PCI-measured conscientiousness and organizational politics explained a significant incremental portion of variance (ΔR2 = .01, p < .01) in job performance over and above the main effects of the demographic control variables, GMA, education, conscientiousness, and politics. We repeated the analyses on Sample 3 data using the OPQ measure of conscientiousness. OPQ-measured conscientiousness was unrelated to performance in Sample 3 (r = .01, ns). However, the change in R2 of the cross-product term of OPQ-measured conscientiousness and organizational politics from Sample 3 was statistically significant, adjusted R2 = .05, ΔR2 = .02, F(9, 193) = 5.00, p < .03. These effects sizes (ΔR2 ) are within the typical range (i.e., ΔR2 = .01–.03) for moderator effects in nonexperimental studies (Champoux & Peters, 1987; Chaplin, 1991) and indicate that perceptions of politics had an effect on job performance across the entire range of conscientiousness scores.
Regression Results for Job Performance
We plotted the prediction-of-performance scores at the mean as well as at high and low levels of politics (1.0 and −1.0 standard deviations from the mean; Stone & Hollenbeck, 1989). Figure 1 reveals the interactive effects. Perceptions of high levels of organizational politics may have been particularly detrimental to low-conscientious workers, as they had lower performance scores than high-conscientious workers. Considering Cohen's (1988) categories of effect sizes (.20 = small, .50 = medium, and .80 = large), politics perceptions had at least a small effect on job performance among workers with conscientiousness scores at or below 2.64 (z = −.26). The impact of conscientiousness scores on job-performance scores was dependent on the level of politics perceptions: Conscientiousness was related to job performance among workers perceiving organizational politics to be at or above average levels. In contrast, individual differences in conscientiousness had little, if any, relationship to performance among workers seeing low levels of organizational politics. The graph of the interaction using the OPQ measure of conscientiousness collected in Sample 3 (not shown) was similar in form.
Supervisor-rated job-performance scores regressed on Personal Characteristics Inventory-measured conscientiousness: low, average, and high politics scores. y = (−1.57 + .75f)x + (−2.12f + 4.08). Only scores ± one standard deviation from the mean of conscientiousness scores are plotted
Discussion
Our test of Hypothesis 1 yielded mixed results. When measured by the PCI, conscientiousness was significantly related to performance. When measured by the OPQ, it was not. Perhaps different operationalizations of conscientiousness have contributed to the inconsistency of previous findings.
However, our results confirmed Hypothesis 2 regardless of the conscientiousness measure used. Specifically, conscientiousness explained variance in supervisor-rated job performance for workers perceiving moderate to high levels of organizational politics. When perceiving moderate to high levels of politics, workers may have relied on idiosyncratic preferences for getting the work done and promoting their careers. In such cases, conscientious workers may have been more successful than those low in conscientiousness. However, among workers perceiving low levels of organizational politics, conscientiousness explained little, if any, variance in performance. These workers may have received sufficient guidelines and support for getting the work done such that the paths to achieving expectations were clear and needed few individually mapped detours ( Ferris et al., 1989 ).
Our operationalization of job performance is a potential weakness of this study for at least three reasons. First, the measurement of sales performance (Sample 3) was a supervisor rating rather than a hard number. As supervisors were aware of the actual performance of their subordinates because they closely monitored their work, we have some confidence in the validity of the ratings. Moreover, additional evidence of acceptability for this approach was provided by Barrick et al. (1993) , who found that supervisor ratings of performance were significantly correlated with sales volume. Second, and more important, the assessment by supervisors may have confounded the findings because supervisors sometimes use performance appraisal ratings for political reasons (Longenecker, Sims, and Gioia, 1987). We suggest that future research efforts along these lines collect multiple measures of performance that include supervisory ratings, objective data, and self-report scores. Another weakness of this study is that the interaction effects accounted for very little variance, as is typical of moderator effects in field studies (Champoux & Peters, 1987; Chaplin, 1991 ).
Our key finding enhances the current body of literature in two ways. First, building on work indicating that perceived aspects of the situation may affect bivariate relationships between personality and performance (e.g., Barrick and Mount, 1993 ), these results extend the FFM literature by demonstrating that the relationship between conscientiousness and job performance may be moderated by perceptions of organizational politics. Second, our findings extend the organizational politics literature by showing that politics perceptions may act as a moderator of relationships between personality and job-related outcomes.
Future research efforts investigating the causal mechanism underlying the relationships between politics perceptions, conscientiousness, and job performance may be useful. The negative correlation between conscientiousness and perceptions of politics suggests that individuals high in conscientiousness are likely to report low levels of politics. Figure 1 indicates no effect of perceived politics on performance among high-conscientious workers. Additional qualitative studies may explain whether this is due to high-conscientious workers focusing on the task environment and low-conscientious workers focusing on the social environment, to conscientious workers having greater political skills, to bosses shielding their conscientious workers from political activities, or to some other reason. Data derived from longitudinal designs might determine whether the moderating effect of perceived politics actually reflects a reciprocal influence in which workers' levels of conscientious behaviors affect the political behaviors they experience and perceive in others.
A second path for future researchers to consider as a way to extend our findings is to explore the other facets of organizational politics. In the present study, we focused on how individuals act in a politically oriented way by going along to get ahead. However, studies indicate that organizational politics is multidimensional and that people can perceive either groups (e.g., cliques or coworkers) or policies and procedures as political in nature, as well as individuals (Kacmar & Carlson, 1997; Kacmar & Ferris, 1991 ). Maslyn and Fedor (1998) recently illustrated that individuals can and do distinguish between the levels at which political behavior is enacted and that these differences influence their reactions to political behaviors. Hence, one important future step will be to see if our findings generalize to political behavior at the group and organizational levels.
