Organizational Politics and its Impact on Performance and Deviance Through Authenticity and Emotional Exhaustion

Abstract We used a multi‐method approach (i.e. multi‐source survey and two experiments) to investigate the mediating mechanisms that link two distinct facets of organizational politics to employee performance and deviance. Study 1 surveyed 132 employees and their direct supervisors working in a call centre. We found that authenticity mediated the effect of general politics on supervisor‐rated performance and that emotional exhaustion mediated the effect of pay and promotion politics on supervisor‐rated deviance. To address causality concerns from Study 1, Study 2 adopted an experimental design to test the impact of high/low general political behaviour on authenticity and task performance. Authenticity mediated the effect of general politics on task performance. In Study 3, we used a similar experimental design to test if high/low perceptions of politics that are related to pay and promotion influence emotional exhaustion and deviance. Subjects in the condition depicting high politics in pay and promotion reported the highest levels of emotional exhaustion, and emotional exhaustion mediated the effects of pay and promotion politics on deviance. Overall, our findings suggest that distinctive types of perceived political behaviours at work influence individuals in negative ways, eventually inducing employees to lower their performance and engage in deviant practices.