Hard, soft or ambidextrous?:which influence style promotes managers' task performance and the role of political skill

Ambidexterity at the manager level focuses on the crucial, but underexplored, role of managers’ knowledge, skills, and behaviors to address competing demands and promote organizational ambidexterity. As such, to successfully complete their assigned duties, managers need to employ the appropriate interpersonal style and calibrate their behavior to different contextual demands. This study highlights the role of the individual in the ambidexterity process by introducing the concept of influence tactic ambidexterity, to denote the frequent use of both hard and soft influence and investigating its role on task performance. Drawing on the literature on ambidexterity and HRM, we analyze data from a sample of 172 middle managers and their corresponding 68 supervisors working for multinational organizations, and provide evidence that influence tactic ambidexterity relates to higher levels and less variation in managers’ task performance compared to the sole use of either hard or soft tactics. Our findings also show that political skill positively moderates the relationship between influence tactic ambidexterity and a manager’s task performance. Therefore, this study suggests that influence tactic ambidexterity and political skill can be considered valuable HR assets for managers

Δικαιοσύνη και πολιτική στο χώρο εργασίας: ο ρόλος τους στον καθορισμό ατομικών και οργανωσιακών αποτελεσμάτων

It is well acknowledged that employees’ decision to exit an organization can be depicted as a cognitive sequential path which links job performance, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intentions. In the literature, there are two broad streams of research that focus on the driving forces of this withdrawal process. The first endeavours to understand the role of contextual variables, such as organizational justice and politics perceptions in predicting consequences relevant to the self and to the organization. The second stream leans towards the effect of personal characteristics and behaviors on these variables. This study builds on previous research concerning these two streams in an attempt to provide a framework that integrates individual political behavior, political skill, organizational justice and politics, into a sequential withdrawal process that starts with job performance and ends at turnover intentions, through the mediating effects of intrinsic job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Drawing on a sample of 545 part-time MBA students and alumni and through the use of structural equation modeling techniques, ANOVA, and moderated regression analyses we provide support to our hypothesized model. The results of the study suggest that: (a) Three influence tactics categories (i.e., hard, soft, and rational) can significantly affect task performance; (b) the selection of which influence tactic to select in order to achieve task performance is greatly determined by political skill; (c) managers’ political behavior, organizational justice and politics perceptions can predict turnover intentions trough their effect on performance and satisfaction; (d) the joint use of seemingly incompatible influence tactics can provide better and more stable results; (e) political skill moderates the relationship between the combined use of influence tactics and performance; (f) organizational justice and politics leverage the relationship between political skill and task performance.Είναι γενικά παραδεκτό πως η απόφαση ενός εργαζομένου να παραιτηθεί από έναν οργανισμό μπορεί να αποτυπωθεί ως ένα διαδοχικό γνωσιακό μονοπάτι που ενώνει την εργασιακή απόδοση, την εργασιακή ικανοποίηση, την οργανωσιακή δέσμευση και την πρόθεση για έξοδο. Στην υπάρχουσα βιβλιογραφία υπάρχουν δύο μεγάλα ερευνητικά ρεύματα που επικεντρώνονται στις κινητήριες δυνάμεις αυτής της διαδικασίας απόσυρσης. Το πρώτο ρεύμα επιδιώκει να κατανοήσει το ρόλο οργανωσιακών μεταβλητών, όπως η δικαιοσύνη και η πολιτική, στην πρόβλεψη συνεπειών που σχετίζονται με τόσο με το άτομο όσο και τον οργανισμό. Το δεύτερο επικεντρώνεται στην επίδραση ατομικών χαρακτηριστικών και συμπεριφορών σε αυτές τις μεταβλητές. Η έρευνα έρχεται να προσθέσει στην υπάρχουσα γνώση σε μία προσπάθεια να παράσχει ένα πλαίσιο που να ενσωματώνει την ατομική πολιτική συμπεριφορά, την πολιτική ικανότητα, την οργανωτική δικαιοσύνη και πολιτική, σε μία διαδοχική διαδικασία απόσυρσης, η οποία ξεκινά με την εργασιακή απόδοση και τελειώνει στην πρόθεση για έξοδο από την επιχείρηση, μέσω των διαμεσολαβητικών επιπτώσεων της εργασιακής ικανοποίησης και οργανωσιακής δέσμευσης. Με βάση ένα δείγμα 545 φοιτητών και αποφοίτων ΜΒΑ προγραμμάτων και μέσω της χρήσης τεχνικών SEM, one-way ANOVA και αναλύσεων πολλαπλής παλινδρόμησης (moderated multiple regression) παρέχουμε την απαραίτητη υποστήριξη στις υποθέσεις μας. Τα αποτελέσματα της μελέτης δείχνουν ότι: α) τρεις κατηγορίες τακτικών επιρροής μπορούν να επηρεάσουν σημαντικά την απόδοση των υφισταμένων ενός μεσαίου στελέχους, β) η επιλογή της τακτικής προκειμένου να επιτευχθεί η επίτευξη απόδοσης προσδιορίζεται σε μεγάλο βαθμό από την πολιτική δεξιότητα του στελέχους, γ) οι πολιτικές συμπεριφορές των στελεχών, η οργανωσιακή δικαιοσύνη και πολιτική μπορούν να προβλέπουν την τάση για απομάκρυνση από τον οργανισμό, μέσω των επιπτώσεων του στην απόδοση και ικανοποίηση, δ) η κοινή χρήση φαινομενικά ασυμβίβαστων τακτικών επιρροής μπορούν να παράσχουν καλύτερα και πιο σταθερά αποτελέσματα, ε) Η πολιτική δεξιότητα αποτελεί ρυθμιστής της σχέσης μεταξύ τακτικών επιρροής και επίδοσης, στ) η οργανωσιακή δικαιοσύνη και πολιτική αποτελούν μέσο επιρροής στη σχέση μεταξύ πολιτικής δεξιότητας και επίδοσης

Mind the First Step: The Intrapersonal Effects of Affect on the Decision to Initiate Negotiations under Bargaining Power Asymmetry

We undertook two vignette studies to examine the role of affect (trait and state) and bargaining power on initiating negotiations, an often overlooked stage of the negotiation process. Using a job negotiation opportunity, we examine three distinct phases of the initiation process—engaging a counterpart, making a request, and optimizing a request. Study 1 examines the effects of two affect dispositions (happiness and sadness), under power asymmetry (low vs. high bargaining power), on the three initiation behaviors. We found that power is pivotal to the decision to engage, request, and optimize. Also, sadness reduces the likelihood of initiation when power is high but is immaterial when power is low. In contrast, individuals who tend to be happy can reverse the adverse effect of powerlessness on requesting, but not on engaging and optimizing. However, happiness does not carry over a positive effect on negotiation initiation, over and above that of power. Study 2 investigated the role of trait affect when individuals are in power asymmetry and when they are induced with sadness or happiness. We found that those with a happy disposition initiate more (engage, request, and optimize) when power is high and experience incidental sadness. Overall, these findings qualify previous research on negotiation initiation and highlight the importance of trait affect and its interaction with state affect as additional driving forces and of power as a boundary condition.“for the error occurs at the beginning, and the beginning as the proverb says is half of the whole, so that even a small mistake at the beginning stands in the same ratio to mistakes at the other stages.”(trans.Aristotle, 1944, 1303b

Creativity and propitiousness in strategic decision making

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between positive perceptions of politics (i.e. positive politics) and decision creativity and propitiousness (i.e. reaching unforeseen advantages while limiting unexpected problems). In addition, drawing from threat-rigidity effect theory the authors argue that such relationships will be resilient to external environmental threats and specifically macro-economic uncertainty. Design/methodology/approach: The database for the analyses consisted of 200 strategic decisions gathered from firms located in Dubai. Findings: Positive politics significantly influence decision creativity and propitiousness. Also, macro-economic uncertainty moderates this relationship. Research limitations/implications: Although this research has tried to adopt a more neutral perspective on political behavior, much more work is required to better understand the role and implications of neutral politics in decision-making. Practical implications: If decision makers ensure that the concern for the organization’s welfare remains a priority over the self-serving motives of the actors, then politics can enhance decision success. Social implications: This paper challenges the long held conventional wisdom that politics in organizations are an important underlying cause of unethical practices, poor decisions and organizational ineffectiveness. Originality/value: The findings serve to further the understanding of complexities involved in the relationships between political behavior and its consequences