a multi-source, multi-study investigation of job performance prediction by political skill

8/10/2019 A Multi-Source, Multi-Study Investigation of Job Performance Prediction by Political Skill

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A Multi-Source, Multi-Study Investigation of JobPerformance Prediction by Political Skill

Gerhard Blickle*

University of Bonn, Germany

Gerald R. Ferris

Florida State University, USA

Timothy P. Munyon

West Virginia University, USA

Tassilo Momm, Ingo Zettler and Paula B. Schneider

University of Bonn, Germany

M. Ronald Buckley

University of Oklahoma, USA

Political skill is a social effectiveness construct with a demonstrated capacity topredict job performance. However, because performance prediction research inthis area to date has made exclusive use of self-reports of political skill, and dueto frequent distrust of self-ratings of constructs in important personnel deci-sions, there is a need to investigate how multiple alternative sources of politicalskill and job performance measures relate, thus raising both theoretical andmethodological issues. In three studies, employing a triadic data collection

methodology, and utilising both cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, thisresearch tested the hypotheses that employee political skill, measured from theperspective of employees assessor A, will positively predict job performancerated by assessor B (i.e. Hypothesis 1a), and vice versa, that employee politicalskill measured by assessor B will predict job performance ratings measured byassessor A (i.e. Hypothesis 1b).

* Address for correspondence: Gerhard Blickle, Arbeits-, Organisations- und Wirtschaftspsy-

chologie, Institut fuer Psychologie, Universitaet Bonn, Kaiser-Karl-Ring 9, 53111 Bonn,

Germany. Email: [email protected]

h h ld lik h i i d i l h d S l f h i

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, 2011,60 (3), 449474

doi: 10.1111/j.1464-0597.2011.00443.x


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INTRODUCTION

Historically, job performance was evaluated as a function of the quantity

and quality of employee output in a manufacturing or agrarian context.

The widespread use of bureaucratic supervisory models also clarified

chains of command, simplifying the performance evaluation process.

However, the modern workplace offers significant challenges for employee

performance evaluation (e.g. Ferris, Munyon, Basik, & Buckley, 2008b).

This departure from traditional forms of bureaucracy has placed new

requirements on employees to perform in sometimes ambiguous roles, with

potentially divergent interests, and multiple audiences and assessors

(Cascio, 1995). Furthermore, Semadar, Robins, and Ferris (2006) noted

that todays competitive environment has magnified the importance of

skills that facilitate effective interpersonal exchanges and performance for

many jobs.

One such pattern of competencies is reflected in the political skill

construct, defined as: The ability to effectively understand others at work,

and to use such knowledge to influence others to act in ways that enhance

ones personal and/or organizational objectives (Ferris, Treadway, Kolo-

dinsky, Hochwarter, Kacmar, Douglas, & Frink, 2005, p. 127). Theoreti-

cally, Ferris and his colleagues (Ferris, Treadway, Perrew, Brouer,

Douglas, & Lux, 2007; Ferris et al., 2005) have argued that politically

skilled individuals possess social awareness, which is combined with an

ability to adjust and calibrate behavior to different situations in a genuine

and sincere manner. This competency inspires both the support and trust of

others, and theoretically influences their attitudinal and behavioral

responses.

Theoretically, political skill enables individuals to adapt their behavior

and influence to various situational and interpersonal demands (Ferris

et al., 2007). In modern organisations, this implies that politically skilled

individuals should be able to manage potentially divergent interests in a

manner that inspires consistent, and positive, ratings of both task and con-

textual performance from multiple assessors. However, prior dyadic and

self-report designs have not enabled a direct test of this vital theoretical

assumption.

Yet, there has been some inconsistency in the results linking political skill

and job performance (Blickle, Meurs, Zettler, Solga, Noethen, Kramer, &

Ferris, 2008; Ferris et al., 2005; Jawahar, Meurs, Ferris, & Hochwarter,

2008). Accordingly, there is a need to test the consistency of political skill and

performance assessments across assessors and time. In order to adequately

address these issues, we conducted a three-study investigation designed to

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Theoretical and Methodological Considerations

Theoretical Issues. A key tenet of political perspectives on organisations

is that reality often is enacted and socially constructed between individuals,

and that individual perceptions of performance necessarily are more influ-

ential than the objective conditions of ones behaviors and aggregate contri-

bution (e.g. Ferris et al., 2008b). This theoretical perspective has identified

individual competencies that influence ones ability to succeed in the social

environment of work, especially projecting images that influence assessments

of performance. The most useful performance predictors are those that

maximise the variance explained in performance and demonstrate cross-

situational consistency, and political skill meets these requirements.

Politically skilled individuals understand themselves and others in social

interactions, so they are able to adjust their behavior to best fit the situation,

and to do so in a sincere and genuine manner that inspires trust, and effec-

tively influences the responses of others (Ferris et al., 2007). This ability

transmits a calm sense of self-confidence that influences others perceptions

of the individuals competence and credibility (Ferris et al., 2007), which

should result in favorable evaluations by others of these politically skilled

individuals task performance (i.e. ability to execute the activities of the job)

as well as their extra-role, personal initiative, or contextual performance (e.g.

Jawahar et al., 2008).

Individuals high in political skill are effective at enhancing their perfor-

mance reputations because they demonstrate behaviors that transmit signals

resulting in the development of favorable images to others through their

proactive network-building activities and use of situationally appropriate

influence tactics (Ferris et al., 2007). Accordingly, we would expect a signifi-

cant level of inter-rater reliability in assessments of employee political skill as

evidence of this adaptation that such individuals demonstrate. Second, sin-

gular assessments of performance may be inadequate to describe the full

extent of an employees job performance, particularly since employees often

engage interdependently with one another. Thus, political skill would need to

predict employee job performance across multiple assessors to demonstrate

this consistent effect.

This research suggests a positive link between political skill and job

performance (see Ferris et al., 2007, for a review). However, empirical

research on this relationship remains equivocal for a number of reasons.

First, performance assessment necessarily is complex, reflecting multiple rela-

tional and social components between assessors and assessees (Ferris et al.,

2008b). Accordingly, assessments of performance may not necessarily reflect

the objective performance of the employee, but also may include the

POLITICAL SKILL AND PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT 451


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Next, structural distance (i.e. opportunities for interaction) theoretically

influences the quality and quantity of information regarding performance

between assessors and assessees (Napier & Ferris, 1993), which occurs for at

least two reasons. First, low levels of distance enable assessors to gather

greater amounts of information on assessee behavior, contributing toward

accuracy in performance assessments. Second, low levels of distance enable

assessees to better understand and manage impressions of assessors, and

adapt their behavior to the unique needs of the work context. Therefore,

greater accuracy would be anticipated for political skill and performance

assessments when assessors and assessees engage with one another in close

(i.e. low distance) proximity, holding other factors constant. Thus, it is

important to include these variables to understand their specific influence on

the direct political skilljob performance relationship.

Methodological Issues. Methodological considerations also drive the

motivation behind this study. First, self-assessments of constructs like politi-

cal skill have been questioned from a construct validity perspective because

demand characteristics may operate, and individuals may respond in a

socially desirable fashion (Ferris et al., 2005). Furthermore, although the

correlations between self- and other-assessments of political skill have been

found to be statistically significant, they are only modest in magnitude (e.g.

rs average around .32; Semadar, 2004; Liu, 2006). Therefore, we suggest that

there is a need to investigate the potency of political skill as a predictor of job

performance when both the political skill and job performance constructs are

measured using information gathered from different assessment sources (i.e.

other-assessments).

This is not to suggest that self-assessments of constructs have no value, nor

do we believe that they necessarily result in questionable construct validity.

Instead, we propose that because most of the research to date has measured

political skill solely using self-assessments in the prediction of job perfor-

mance, and that job performance typically is measured from a single

supervisor/assessor perspective, we need to verify that similar results would

be obtained if we used alternative source measurement of the constructs.

Although this appears, on the surface, to be a purely methodological issue, it

has quite serious theoretical implications as well regarding the very nature of

the constructs, as theory and method are inextricably intertwined in organi-

sational research. Furthermore, because assessment source can pose a poten-

tial boundary condition on the political skilljob performance relationship,

examination of this responds to an appeal by Ferris, Hochwarter, Douglas,

Blass, Kolodinsky, and Treadway (2002) for such effects on that relationship.

In particular, the true measure of the robustness of the construct of politi-

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concerning gender, age, weekly working hours, and occupational status.

Also, targets were asked to select two assessors (i.e. supervisors, peers, or

subordinates) who knew the target well enough to assess their work behavior

and job performance. Targets and assessors received return envelopes.

In 190 cases (31.2%), two assessors returned ratings of targets political

skill and job performance. Of these targets, 38.2 per cent were female and

61.8 per cent were male. Target mean age was 42.3 years ( SD =11.56), and

they reported an average of 43.6 (SD = 12.7) working hours per week. Of

the targets, 2 per cent (n = 4) were unskilled and manual labor employees,

8.9 per cent (n = 17) were clerical workers or owners of small businesses,

27.4 per cent (n = 52) belonged to the administrative personnel, were minor

professionals, or owners of medium-sized businesses, 52.1 per cent (n = 99)

were business managers or professionals, 4.7 per cent (n = 9) were higher-

level executives, and nine targets provided no occupational information at

all. Assessors were made up of 65 supervisors, 139 peers, and 176 subordi-

nates. All targets and assessors were debriefed and received feedback about

the results of the study.

Procedure

Targets were asked to select two assessors (i.e. supervisors, peers, or sub-

ordinates) who knew the target well enough to assess work behavior and

job performance. The resulting triads consisted of a target and a dyad of

equal or unequal ranking assessors (i.e. two peers, or a supervisor and a

peer, two supervisors, or a supervisor and a subordinate, two subordinates,

or a subordinate and a peer). Assessors in the triads received assessment

sheets in an envelope from the targets. The assessment sheets of the iden-

tical target had the same code number. Targets and assessors were asked to

fill out the assessment sheet and send it immediately back in return enve-

lopes. So, in each triad, the target and each of the two assessors indepen-

dently rated the political skill and the job performance of the single target

person.

Thus, the study used the following design. For each triad (i.e. one target

and two assessors), target job and target personal features were identical (i.e.

held constant). Each assessor was asked to report the time of collaboration

with the target, the contact frequency with the target, the interrelatedness of

his or her work with the target, and his or her personal relationship with the

target so that these variables could serve as controls in subsequent analyses.

The design allows for the prediction of assessor As ratings of targets job

performance from assessor Bs rating of targets political skill after control-

ling for the self-ratings of political skill, and vice versa (i.e. assessor Bs

POLITICAL SKILL AND PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT 455


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Measures

Political Skill. The 18-item Political Skill Inventory (PSI) was used in

this study to assess target political skill (Ferris et al., 2005). The PSIuses a7-point Likert-type scale, and sample items include: I always seem to

instinctively know the right things to say and do to influence others, and I

am particularly good at sensing the motivations and hidden agendas of

others. All items were converted into the third person perspective referring

to the target (e.g. This person always seems to instinctively know the right

things to say and do to influence others).

Job Performance Ratings. Job performance was assessed with the fol-

lowing items based on Schmitt, Cortina, Ingerick, and Wiechmann (2003):1. How fast does this person usually complete his/her tasks? 2. How is the

quality of this persons performance altogether? 3. How successful is this

person in dealing with unforeseen and/or unexpected events (disturbances,

interruptions, losses/deficiencies, crises, stagnations) in her job activity gen-

erally? 4. How well does this person adjust him/herself to changes and inno-

vations? 5. How sociable does this person act in co-operation with others? 6.

How reliably does this person meet work-related commitments and agree-

ments? These items were measured on a 15 Likert-type scale, and anchors

ranged from a great deal better than other persons in a comparable posi-tion to much worse than other persons in a comparable position, with

better than, as good as, and worse than as intermediate anchors. For

each item, raters also had the opportunity to choose the option, cant say.

Control Variables

Demographic Variables. Previous research has demonstrated that

gender (Bowen, Swim, & Jacobs, 2000) and age (Waldman & Avolio, 1986)

influence job performance ratings. Therefore, gender and age served as

control variables in the data analyses.

Relationship Variables. Job performance ratings are made within a

social context that may influence assessor evaluations of work performance

behaviors (e.g. Ferris et al., 2008b). It is these contextual factors that led us

to control for aspects of the interpersonal relationship between the assessors

and the target employees. It has been suggested that the quality of judgmen-

tal validation criteria varies depending on the opportunity for the assessor to

observe targets job performance (e.g. Harris & Schaubroeck, 1988). We

operationalised the opportunity for the assessors to observe targets job

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TABLE1

DescriptiveStatistics,

ReliabilityEstimates,andIntercorrelationsofAllVa

riables(Study1)

s

M

SD

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

der

1.6

2

0.4

9

()

42.5

6

11.5

6

.16*

()

elofEducation

6.0

1

1.9

7

.16*

.16*

()

eofCollaboration

Assesso

rA

5.7

9

6.0

5

.08

.55**

-.0

6

()

eofCollaboration

Assesso

rB

6.2

6

6.2

3

.08

.55**

.02

.52**

()

tactFrequencywith

essorA

5.2

6

1.1

4

.03

.06

-.1

4

-.0

2

-.0

6

()

tactFrequencywith

essorB

5.1

3

1.1

1

.01

.04

-.0

3

.14

.05

.34**

()

rrelatednessofWork

Assesso

rA

3.5

9

1.0

2

-.0

2

.14

-.0

2

-.0

1

.11

.27**

-.0

1

()

rrelatednessofWork

Assesso

rB

3.7

5

1.0

7

-.0

6

.11

.10

.19**

.16*

.01

.21**

.21**

()

onalRelationswith

essorA

3.5

0

0.6

7

.04

-.1

5*

-.0

2

.00

-.0

8

.03

.01

-.0

5

.03

()

onalRelationswith

essorB

3.5

0

0.6

2

.01

-.0

4

-.0

6

-.0

3

.04

.01

.14

.04

.04

.12

()

Perform

ance

essorA

0.2

7

0.2

6

.05

.11

.08

.10

-.0

2

-.05

-.1

4

.05

.02

.18*

.05

(.81)

Perform

ance

essorB

0.2

6

0.2

7

-.0

9

-.0

6

-.0

6

.08

.04

-.08

-.0

4

.07

.12

.07

.26**

.41**

(.78)

ticalSkillAssessorA

5.1

5

0.7

2

.01

.22**

.14

.06

.01

-.10

-.2

2**

.10

-.0

3

.14

.05

.47**

.16*

(.89)

ticalSkillAssessorB

5.1

7

0.7

7

-.0

7

.15*

.01

.15*

.10

-.08

.13

.13

.18*

.04

.27**

.28**

.54**

.35**(.8

9)

ticalSkillSelf-Rating

5.0

4

0.6

5

-.0

7

.07

-.0

8

.04

-.0

7

-.04

-.1

1

.11

.10

.01

.06

.16*

.05

.25**

.29**

(.87)

=

190an

d380assessors;*p

a multi-source, multi-study investigation of job performance prediction by political skill

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