Political behavior, trustworthiness, job satisfaction, and commitment : An empirical study

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects trustworthiness can have on the perception of organizational politics and organizational outcomes. Most studies on organizational politics examine the negative effects of organizational politics on organizational outcomes such as organizational commitment. This study focuses on moderators that can decrease these negative effects. Design/methodology/approach – The organization landscape consists of Chinese organizations, with a total of 249 employees who were surveyed in 2009. Multiple and moderated hierarchical regression were used in the analyses. Findings – The results show that trustworthiness moderates the negative effects of organizational politics on job satisfaction, affective commitment and normative commitment. These findings support the importance of combating the negative effects that are in most, if not all, organizations. Originality/value – This study uses as its sample an Asian culture that has been under-represented in organizational politics studies, as the majority of these studies are conducted in North America. Yet, organizational politics likely occurs in organizations worldwide.