Crafting Personal territory in a political world: A human agency approach to organizational politics

Abstract To examine human agency in organizational politics, this study investigates how employees take action to craft their working environments in response to their perception of organizational politics (POP). In Study 1, we manipulated POP using video materials in an experiment. Results from 209 participants show that POP triggered the intention to engage in both relational crafting and task crafting behaviours. In Study 2, we collected survey data from 176 supervisor–subordinate dyads. Our results replicate the findings of Study 1. Furthermore, we found significant indirect relationships between POP and two outcome variables (i.e., task performance and opportunistic behaviour) through relational crafting. The two indirect relationships were stronger for employees with lower emotional intelligence. Meanwhile, significant indirect relationships existed between POP and two outcome variables (i.e., opportunistic behaviour and turnover intention) through task crafting and these indirect relationships were stronger for employees with higher emotional intelligence. Both theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.