Perceived Organizational Politics and Employee Morale: Mediating Role of Social Exchange Perceptions in Pakistani Organizations

Abstract

Politics in organizations is an important aspect of organizational life which has been an interesting research area since last four decades. However, it is still deprived of practical approach due to its inconclusive studies and fragmented arguments. In politicized organizations, morale and motivation of employees depend mostly on their type of exchange relationships. The study in hand is another effort to view these exchange perceptions as intervening between the relationship of perceptions of organizational politics and morale of employees. As a part of larger study, data was collected through self administered questionnaire distributed among master of business administration students who were completing their management degree as part time along with their jobs during day time. All the Pakistani business schools were included in this study and surveys were distributed to 2000 employees during their classes and participation was voluntary ensuring anonymity and compliance with ethical considerations. Overall, 2000 questionnaires were distributed among which 1163 useable surveys were returned after screening and cleaning for unengaged response, left over pages and missing critical information. Thus response rate was 58%. Results of regression analysis indicated that social exchange perceptions was partial mediators in the relationship between perceptions of organizational politics and employee morale  and about 70% of the total effect was mediated by these perceptions which was an important indicator for understanding organizational life. Practical policy implications have also been discussed in discussion sections along with limitation of the study and guidelines for future research.