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Management Thesis and Dissertations

2021-02

Effect of Organizational Politics on

Employee Commitment in Public
Organizations the Case of Gondar City Administrat

Abraraw Chale

http://ir.bdu.edu.et/handle/123456789/11902
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 BAHIR DAR UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS
DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT

EFFECT OF ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICS ON EMPLOYEE

COMMITMENT IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS

The case of Gondar City Administration

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BAHIR DAR UNIVERSITY IN

PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF
BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (MBA)

By:
Abraraw Chale

Advisor:
Anteneh Eshetu (PhD)

September, 2018
Bahir Dar

i
 EFFECT OF ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICS ON EMPLOYEE
COMMITMENT IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS
The case of Gondar City Administration

By:
Abraraw Chale

Advisor:
Anteneh Eshetu (PhD)

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BAHIR DAR UNIVERSITY IN

PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF
BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (MBA).

September, 2018
Bahir Dar
ii
 BAHIR DAR UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT

MASTERS OF BUSINESS ADMINISTERATION (MBA)

EFFECT OF ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICS ON EMPLOYEE

COMMITMENT IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS
The case of Gondar City Administration

By:
Abraraw Chale

Approval Board Committee:

_____________________________ _______________
Examiner Signature
_____________________________ _______________
Examiner Signature
_____________________________ _______________
Research Advisor Signature

iii
 DECLARATION

I, the undersigned, declare that the study entitled “The Effect of Organizational Politics on
Employees’ Commitment. The case of Gondar City Administration” is the result of my
own effort and study that all sources of materials used for the study have been
acknowledged. I have conducted the study independently with the guidance and comments
of the research advisor.
This study has not been submitted for any degree in any university. It is conducted for the
partial fulfillment of the Master of Arts Degree in Business Administration.

_________________ _______________
Abraraw Chale Date

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 LETTER OF CERTIFICATION

This is to certify that this study, “The Effect of Organizational Politics on Employees’
Commitment. The case of Gondar City Administration.”, undertaken by Abraraw Chale for the
partial fulfillment of Masters of Business Administration (MBA) at Bahir Dar University, is an
original work and not submitted earlier for any degree either at this University or any other
University.

Research Advisor: Anteneh Eshetu/PhD./

Signature ________________________________

Date____________________________________

ii
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

First and foremost, I praise the Almighty God for his support and protection in all aspects of my
life.
The accomplishment of this master thesis cannot pass without acknowledging the contributions
made by some few specials persons who devoted their time, means and intellectual abilities.
First, I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Anteneh Eshetu for his remarkable advice and
guidance in this study. It is disrespectful if I failed to thank all my friends and colleagues for
their assistance in providing necessary materials and encouragements to accomplish this research
work. My appreciation extends to Bahir Dar University and its management for awarding me a
tuition free scholarship to attend my MBA.
Finally my gratitude and love goes to my wife Emawayish Muchie and our lovely daughter
Sophia. I thank you for your care and patience.

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Contents
List of Tables and Figures............................................................................................................. vii
List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vii
Acronyms ...................................................................................................................................... vii
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ viii
Chapter One .................................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Background of the Study .................................................................................................. 1
1.2 Statement of the Problem ................................................................................................. 3
1.3 Research questions ........................................................................................................... 5
1.4 Objectives of the Research ............................................................................................... 6
1.4.1 General Objective ..................................................................................................... 6
1.4.2 Specific Objectives ................................................................................................... 6
1.5 Research Hypothesis ........................................................................................................ 6
1.6 Significance of the Study ................................................................................................. 7
1.7 Scope of the Study............................................................................................................ 7
1.8 Organization of the Research ........................................................................................... 7
1.9 Chapter Summary............................................................................................................. 8
Chapter Two.................................................................................................................................... 9
Review Of Related Literature ......................................................................................................... 9
2.1 Theoretical Review .......................................................................................................... 9
2.1.1 Definition of Organizational Politics ........................................................................ 9
2.1.2 Theories of Organizational Politics ........................................................................ 11
2.1.3 Causes of Organizational Politics ........................................................................... 13
2.1.4 Consequences of Organizational politics ................................................................ 15
2.1.5 Who are in the Organizational politics?.................................................................. 16
2.1.6 Organizational Politics in the private and Public Sector ........................................ 16
2.1.7 State-politics in Public Organizations ..................................................................... 18
2.1.8 The Ethiopian Public Sector ................................................................................... 20
2.1.9 Models of Perceived Organizational Politics .......................................................... 21
2.2 Employees Organizational Commitments ...................................................................... 25

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 2.2.1 Understanding the Concept ..................................................................................... 25
2.2.2 Theories and Models of Organizational Commitment............................................ 26
2.3 Perception of Organizational Politics and Organizational Commitment ....................... 29
2.4 Empirical Studies ........................................................................................................... 31
2.5 Operationalization: Conceptual Definition of the Research Constructs ........................ 33
2.6 Conceptual Framework .................................................................................................. 33
2.7 Chapter Summary........................................................................................................... 34
Chapter Three................................................................................................................................ 35
Methodology ................................................................................................................................. 35
3 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 35
3.1 Research Approach ........................................................................................................ 35
3.2 Research Design ............................................................................................................. 35
3.3 Source of Data ................................................................................................................ 36
3.4 Data Collection Tools..................................................................................................... 36
3.5 Population and Sampling ............................................................................................... 36
3.5.1 Population ............................................................................................................... 36
3.5.2 Sampling ................................................................................................................. 37
3.6 Measurement of Variables ............................................................................................. 38
3.6.1 Independent Variable Measures .............................................................................. 38
3.6.2 Dependent Variable Measures ................................................................................ 39
3.6.3 Research Model .......................................................................................................... 40
3.7 Data Analysis ................................................................................................................. 40
3.8 Validity and Reliability .................................................................................................. 41
3.8.1 Validity ................................................................................................................... 41
3.8.2 Reliability................................................................................................................ 41
3.9 Ethical Consideration ..................................................................................................... 42
3.10 Chapter Summary........................................................................................................... 43
Chapter Four ................................................................................................................................. 44
Data Analysis, Results And Discussions ...................................................................................... 44
4 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 44
4.1 Descriptive Statistics ...................................................................................................... 44

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 4.1.1 Response Rate............................................................................................................... 44
4.2 Demographic Characteristics of Respondents................................................................ 45
4.2.1 Sex of Respondents ...................................................................................................... 45
4.2.2 Profile as per Age of Respondents ............................................................................... 46
4.2.3 Levels of Education of Respondents ............................................................................ 46
4.2.4 Years of Experience of the Respondents ...................................................................... 46
4.2.5 Profile as Per Source of Position Obtained .................................................................. 46
4.2.6 Profile as Per Political Affiliation ................................................................................ 46
4.3 Descriptive Statistics of dependent and independent variables ..................................... 47
4.4 Relational Analysis ........................................................................................................ 48
4.5 Regression Analysis ....................................................................................................... 50
4.5.1 Assumption of Multiple Linear Regression.................................................................. 50
4.5.2 Multiple Linear Regression Analysis: The Effect of POPs on EAFC ........................ 54
4.6 Hypothesis Testing .............................................................................................................. 58
4.7 Discussion on Major Findings ....................................................................................... 61
4.8 Chapter Summary........................................................................................................... 63
Chapter Five .................................................................................................................................. 64
Summary, Conclusion And Recommendation .............................................................................. 64
5 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 64
5.1 Summary of main findings ............................................................................................. 64
5.2 Conclusion...................................................................................................................... 65
5.3 Recommendations .......................................................................................................... 68
5.4 Limitation of the Study .................................................................................................. 70
5.5 Contribution of the Study ............................................................................................... 70
References ..................................................................................................................................... 72
Appendixes ................................................................................................................................... 79
Questionnaire ............................................................................................................................ 79
Reliability Test of Each Item .................................................................................................... 81
Linearity of each variable to the dependent variable ................................................................ 82

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 List of Tables and Figures
Tables

TABLE 1: TOTAL POPULATION OF THE STUDY ............................................................................................ 34

TABLE 2: SAMPLE SIZE OF THE STUDY ....................................................................................................... 38
TABLE 3: RELIABILITY ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE ....................................................................................... 42
TABLE 4: RESPONSE RATE OF THE RESPONDENTS ....................................................................................... 44
TABLE 5: BACKGROUND PROFILE OF THE RESPONDENTS .......................................................................... 46
TABLE 6: DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS ............................................................................................................ 47
TABLE 7 CORRELATION BETWEEN VARIABLES .......................................................................................... 49
TABLE 8: MULTI-COLLINEARITY................................................................................................................ 51
TABLE 9: DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS FOR NORMALITY ................................................................................. 53
TABLE 10: ANOVA REGRESSIONS FOR DEPENDENT AND INDEPENDENT VARIABLES ................................ 56
TABLE 11: COEFFICIENTS OF THE EFFECT OF POPS ON AFC ......................................................................... 57

List of Figures
FIGURE1: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................................................................ 31
FIGURE 2: HISTOGRAM AS TEST OF NORMALITY FOR EMPLOYEES AFFECTIVE COMMITMENT .................. 52
FIGURE 3: NORMAL P-P PLOT OF REGRESSION STANDARDIZED RESIDUAL OF AFC ................................. 52
FIGURE 4: SCATTER PLOT FOR THE DEPENDENT VARIABLE ....................................................................... 55

Acronyms
CEO Chief Executive Officers

GAGA Go Along to Get Ahead

GCA Gondar City Administration

GPB General Political Behaviour

OC Organizational Commitment

OP Organizational politics

POPs Perceived Organizational Politics

PPP Pay and Promotion Policy

VIF Variance Inflation Factor

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 ABSTRACT
Organizational politics is often explained as behaviour aimed at safeguarding the self interest of
an individual at the cost of another and the organizational goals. The issue of organizational
politics is under researched in developing world particularly in the public offices. Above all the
issue of organizational politics has been separately studied from state politics; from which it
originated. This deviation by the western scholars is probably attributed for the mainstream
understanding held over separation of state and politics and the flow of resource ownership and
management from public to private sector. However, the increasing complexity of social and
economic system is pushing party politics (politician) involvement against the long held civil
bureaucracy in the developed world. Contrary to the previous argument, in most of the
developing world, public sectors are under strict control of national politics and subject to
serving politicians purpose of their time. The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of
four perceived organizational politics dimensions; General Political Behavior, Go Along to Get
Ahead, Pay and promotion, and Political Clientelism, as independent variables, on employee
commitment (dependent variable) in selected Gondar city administration public offices.
Perceived organizational politics (POPs) is measured by contextualized standard questionnaire
including additional four items under one variable; political clientelism. Employees affective
commitment was measured adopted from a three dimensional model. Data was collected from
randomly selected 215 employees and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The
result shows General Political Behaviour; Go Along to Get Ahead, and Political Clientelism
negatively associated and, are significantly disturbing employee affective commitment, Pay and
promotion policy as dimensions of organizational politics found insignificant in affecting
employees affective commitment. The study definitively tested the theories in a different context
and contribute o the knowledge of the topic while recommending for further study areas.

Keywords: Perceived Organizational Politics, General Political Behaviour, Go Along to Get Ahead, Political
Clientelism, Affective Commitment

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 CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

This chapter of the study encompasses the background of the study, statement of the problem,
objectives of the study, research questions, significance of the study together with scope and
limitations.

1.1 Background of the Study

Hardy, as in Dlogus (1993), pointed out that Niccolo Machiavelli was the first de facto
consultant in political skill quoted;
“Executives - whether in business, government, education or the church – have power
and use it. They manoeuver and manipulate in order to get a job done and, in many cases,
to strengthen their own power position. Although they would hate the thought and deny
the allegation, the fact is that they are politicians”.

Organizational politics has been a successful field of academic writing and study for more than
forty decades keeping the disagreements in measurement and its significance to the organization.
For about half a century organizational politics in both sectors, of public and private, have been
studied (Allen et al; 1979, Mayes and Allen, 1977; Hardy, 1993; Vigoda-Gadot & Drory, 2006).
Scholars portrayed the idea of politics as a ‘master-craft’ and thus are a tolerable and practical
social phenomenon (Provis in Vigoda-Gadot & Drory, 2006). Organizational politics is often
explained as the behaviour that is aimed at safeguarding the self interest of an individual at the
cost of another (Gotsis & Kortezi, 2010; Latif et al, 2011), and this behaviour often conflicts
with the organizational goals (Vigoda-Gadot, 2007). Its impact is seen beyond organization, it is,
further argued, anti social too.

Organizational politics is a concept whereby of the member of a specific organization acts in

favor of their self interest without considering the interest of the organization (Mintzberg, 1983;
Witt et al., 2004). Although every behavior in the organizations is generally assumed political,
there is no commonly established description on it (Drory and Room, 1990). Organizational
politics is a subjective fact and it can change depending on past experiences, demographic

1
characteristics, organizational, environmental and social factors (Gandz and Murray, 1980; Ferris
and Kacmar, 1992; Kacmar and Baron, 1999). Organizational politics can be observed in a
number of ways as nepotism, cronyism, elitism (Pelletier and Bligh, 2008), competition for
resources, personal conflicts, struggle for power, building coalitions (Ram and Prabhakar, 2010)
etc. Few argue that all behaviors in the organizations cannot be considered as political (Mayes
and Allen, 1977), and goes further in that if organizational politics is used in a correct way, it
could serve the benefits of organizations (Daft, 1983; Vigoda, 2000).

It is believed that the obvious tendency for politicking is a human nature. And that is believed a
consequence of evolution, which in return is associated with power endeavouring, and derives
from the interaction between the distribution of tasks and rank delineation (Vredenburgh & Shea
Van-Fossen, 2010). Meriac & Villanova (in Vigoda- Gadot & Drory, 2006) argue that some
people ought to gain in some way from the political tactics, otherwise there would be no reason
for them to engage in political behaviour (2006: 17). Liu et al (in Vigoda-Gadot & Drory, 2006)
argued that individuals who benefit from political behaviour may go through thoughts of
pleasure and excitement, especially when favourable consequences are only achievable through
prohibited strategies.

According to Vigoda- Gadot et al., (2003), many researchers, overtime, have preferred to focus
their attention to the perception of organizational politics as it reflects the general political
climate of the organization and it can be measured easier than actual behavior. Ipso facto, much
research is carried out investigating the impact of organizational politics perception on different
factors such as job attitudes (Drory, 1993), organizational commitment (Ferris et al., 1989; Witt
et al., 2004), organizational support (Randall et al., 1999), organizational citizenship behavior
(Vigoda, 2000), organizational image (Vigoda-Gadot et al., 2003), ethics (Vigoda-Gadot, 2007),
Leadership Styles (Ram and Prabhakar, 2010), etc. Given the increasing interest of scholars to
study organizational politics, it was highly delimited in North America and Western Europe. It is
in recent times the research topic obtained the focus of researchers in developing world.

In a developing country like Ethiopia, the role of the public sector is indulged with the
responsibility of shaping the social progress and supervising the economic advancement through

2
effectively administering the provision of public services and regulating the overall governance
system. This is merely possible with an effective and efficient public service. However, the
public sector is exposed to different organizational flaws be it structural, cultural or political viz.
So far the topic of organizational politics was not studied in the Ethiopian Context.
According to Meyer, et al (2002), during the 1990s organizational commitment increasingly
continued to be a major attention of researchers whereas until then the focus was working on two
forms of commitment; attitudinal and calculative. There have been also considerable efforts on
theory development. And to date, it is well documented that commitment is a multidimensional
construct and that the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of commitment vary across
dimensions. Organizational commitment is studied as both effect and consequences of
organizational politics
.
The focus of this paper is examining one of the impacts of organizational politics that is
organizational commitment in Gondar City Administration, the fifth populated urban area in
Ethiopia (As per the CSA estimation for 2009E.C.).

1.2 Statement of the Problem

It is believed that, due to a number of factors organizational politics existed in all organizations.
Though scholars agreed on existence of the positive and negative sides of organizational politics
(Cacciattolo, 2015; Gotsis & Kortezi, 2010; Othman, 2008), most of the researches so far
conducted in the field emphasized on the later one (Vigoda- Gadot et al., 2003; Raiz, 2013, and
Brubaker, 2012). A study conducted by Enyinna, et al (2014) found out that good political
behavior affects positively employees’ performance, productivity and position of
superior/subordinate in the organization. They also found out that bad political behavior
negatively affects employees’ performance, organizational productivity and position of
superior/subordinate in the bank while remain insignificant for Alcon Plc. (Enyinna et al, 2014).

Vigoda and Dryzin (2006) stated that the perception of organizational politics reflects feelings of
fairness and justice in resource allocation. Accordingly, the stronger the perception of
organizational politics, the more the organization is performing in accordance with the favours of
its power holders rather than advancing the organization’s goals (Ferris et al., 1989; Ferris and

3
Kacmar, 1992; Vigoda, 2003). This in turn adversely affects employees’ commitment,
involvement, job performance etc in the respective organization (Vigoda, 2003).

Previous researches supported and validated the strong opposite relationship between perception
of politics and organizational commitment. For example Miller et al., (2008) concluded strong
negative relationship between perception of politics and organizational commitment. The same
result was also reported by Vigoda (2000) which implied that when employees perceived high
politics in their organization then it negatively affected their emotional attachment with the
organization; that is OC. Vigoda and Cohen (2002) made a different attempt to determine the
impact of organizational commitment towards perception of politics and found stronger
predicting qualities of organizational commitment over organizational politics..

However, Rong and Cao (2015) argued those researches, studying the perception of
organizational politics, has become matured gradually in Western countries. Most of the
researchers studied perceptions of organizational politics based on western cultural background.
A discussion was found worthwhile whether these research results, which based themselves in
the western background, are still available in other cultural background (ibid, 2015). The same is
true for African1 context in general and Ethiopian in particular. Apart from the national and party
politics the organization politics can be associated with different adversarial behaviors and work
outcomes in public organizations that hold the public sector inefficient in pursuing its purpose
empowered by the law. Given the limited budget, particularly in developing countries, stronger
organizational politics is expected.

Vigoda (2000) studied the association of public sector employees’ and perception of politics and
concluded as it had significant impact on various job and work outcomes. The study conducted
in Pakistan by Bodla and Danish, (2008) confirmed the significant influence of perception of
politics on organizational commitment. Another research conducted in the Pakistani`s public

1
Ng’enoh B. (2015) has studied organizational politics in Emerging East African Breweries in Kenya and
Enyinna, Michael, Lazarus and Ukpai (2014) in one of the leading African private Bank, Zenith Bank,
and Alcon Plc. both researches were conducted on Emerging private business that makes difficult to trace
relation of POPs with state politics and national culture.
4
sector by Raiz (2013) furthered the study and came up with results of strong and significantly
negative affective commitment as an outcome behavior of POPs.

However, previously studied researches didn’t mention the role of the state politics as a
measurement of organizational politics in the public sector. This may be due to the conventional
understanding held by the westerns for separation of party politics from civil governments unless
allowed by law otherwise. Despite its ability to attract researchers in the western world, the topic
of organizational politics is under researched in Ethiopia and in developing world in general.
Besides, this research argues the necessity of considering party politics in the study of
organizational politics as immensely pertinent for a distinctive environment where intermingled
operation of party politics and civil government persists; the Ethiopian public sector is a typical
example for this reason. Furthermore, Chang (2012) anticipated the likely of politics to be more
prevalent in relationship-based societies than others. The Ethiopian Society is known for this
relationship-based society, which may contribute to the prevalence of stronger organizational
politics.

Hence, in addition to testing the previously conducted researches in a different culture and
scenario, this study attempted to include the state politics (political clientelism) as part of
measuring variable for POPs in influencing employee organizational commitment within
organizational politics in Gondar City Administration.

1.3 Research questions

The central question the research was expected to answer is, “How far perceived organizational
politics influence employees’ organizational commitment?” Within that the following specific
questions were addressed.

 Does employees’ perceived organizational politics as measured by general political

behaviour affect organizational commitment?
 Does the “going along to get ahead” perceived organizational politics affect
organizational commitment?
 Does employees’ perceived organizational politics as measured by pay and promotion
policy affect organizational commitment?

5
  Does political clientelism as part of organizational politics played a significant role in
affecting employees’ commitment in Gondar City Administration?

1.4 Objectives of the Research

1.4.1 General Objective

The general objective of the study is to examine the effect of perceived organizational politics on
employees’ commitment in public sector organizations found Gondar city administration.

1.4.2 Specific Objectives

 To investigate the level of impact that the general political behaviour has on employee
affective commitment in Gondar city Administration.
 To examine the level of impact that the going along to get ahead has on employee affective
commitment in Gondar city Administration.
 To investigate the level of impact that pay and promotion policy has on employee affective
commitment in Gondar city Administration.
 To test the impact of organizational politics as measured by political clientelism on
employees’ commitment in Gondar city administration.
 To examine the perceived level of organizational affective commitment of employees in the
said city.
 To examine the relative importance of organizational politics in the public sector.
 Identify the dominant perceived organizational politics in Gondar city administration.

1.5 Research Hypothesis

Based on the review of theoretical and empirical literature (see chapter 2), the following
hypothesis are developed to guide the empirical work of the research:-

H1: Organizational politics, as measured by general political behaviour, has a significant

negative influence on employees’ commitment in Gondar City Administration.
H2: Organizational politics, as measured by “going along to get ahead”, has a significant
negative influence on employees’ affective commitment in Gondar City Administration.

6
 H3: Organizational politics, as measured by pay and promotion policy, has a significant
negative influence on employees’ commitment in Gondar City Administration.
H4: Organizational politics, as measured by political clientelism, has a significant
negative influence on employees’ commitment in Gondar city administration.

1.6 Significance of the Study

According to Colquitt et al. (2014), leaders need to know the nature of organizational politics in
their work environment to influence others and be effective thereon. Some global companies
even started to train their future managers on how to use organizational politics in their favour
(ibid, 2014). Organization members involved in organizational politics may not, however, be
aware of its adversarial impact on employee performance mediated by organizational
commitment (Voyer, 1994). Yilmaz, et al (2014) studied organizational politics along with
commitment in the public sector and found out the positive relationship with managers
propensity to create budgetary slack. Considering this in resource deprived developing nations
like Ethiopia, studying anything influencing the public sector effectiveness like organizational
politics has a paramount importance for effective and efficient provision of public services. This
study is on a vantage point of this relevance for Ethiopian public sector in general, to the policy
and decision makers, and it can be used as an addition to the specific research topic.

1.7 Scope of the Study

The scope of the study delimited in both geographical and conceptual scopes. Geographically the
study is limited to Gondar city administration. Conceptually, the study limited to the effect of
organizational politics as an independent variable with the dimensions of “General political
behaviour”, “Going along to get ahead”, “Pay and promotion policy”, and “Party politics” on
organizational commitment emphasizing on affective commitments of employees.

1.8 Organization of the Research

This study is organized into five chapters. Chapter one incorporates introduction, back ground of
the study, statement of the problem, research question, objectives of the study, hypothesis of the
study, scope of the study, significance of the study and definition of terms. Chapter two provides
an overview of the state of the art analysis of the existing literature which includes definitions of
terms, theoretical and empirical related literature reviews and conceptual frame work of the

7
research. Under chapter three, the methodology used in this thesis which includes the research
approach as well as describes the data collecting and analysis methods used are presented. Chapter
four analyses and presents the research findings obtained through the thesis methodology by
showing how each of the research questions would answer and how these findings together
contribute to the main purpose of the study. Chapter five finalize the thesis with summary,
conclusions and a set of recommendations derived from the research findings and the conclusions
of this work. The contribution and limitation of the study is also included in this chapter. At the
end of the document, references and a set of appendices are included that contain the
questionnaires of the survey forms used to collect primary data for the study and other
supplementary documents of the study.

1.9 Chapter Summary

In this chapter, attempts are made to present the background of the research, the statement of the
problem, objectives of the study, research questions and hypothesis, significance of the study,
scope and content of the study. The next chapter presents review of related literature.

8
 CHAPTER TWO

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

In this chapter the overall notion of organizational politics and commitment will be presented.
Different theories, models and typologies on both organizational behavior factions will be
discussed. Empirical studies related to POPs and OC will be presented so as to use for later
analysis.

2.1 Theoretical Review

Omisore and Nweke (2014) reminded the background of the term politics as derived from the
Greek word “politics”. Accordingly, it was originally used by Aristotle (384-322) to mean the
affairs of Greek city or state. In his view, man is a political animal who by interacting with
another or more persons produces a relationship called political (ibid, 2014). Lasswell (1951)
associated politics as a means of wielding power for domination over others. He writes that
“politics is essentially the struggle for positions of power and influence by which those who
succeed in monopolizing such positions in society are able to make decisions that affect the lives
of every citizen within the country”. With this sense, politics can be practiced by all persons in
both organizations with the objective of maintaining power, influence, conflict, bargaining,
reconciliation, resolution and consensus (Omisore and Nweke, 2014). Thus, there are two types
of politics; state politics and organizational politics. This research concentrates mainly on
organizational politics.

2.1.1 Definition of Organizational Politics

After reviewing previously written literatures, Kacmar and Carlson (1997), found disagreement
among scholars on the definition of organizational politics. They summarized the theme of
politics that were common in all studies are among others; “political activities are a means of
exercising social influence, political behaviors are designed to promote or protect one’s own self-
interests, and the notion that at least two parties must be included and that these two parties have
the potential to possess divergent interests is either explicit or implicit in many definitions”.
Combining these common notions made organizational politics to be grasped Cropanzano et al.,

9
(1995) as “social influence attempts directed at those who can provide rewards that will help
promote or protect the self-interests of the actor”.

Organizational politics can be seen as actions by individuals that are directed toward the goal of
furthering their own self-interests (Colquitt et al., 2014). Fairholm (2009) started his discourse on
organizational politics by stating “management is political in nature”. After reviewing literatures
he summarized the definition of organizational politics as it typically include several factors such
as (a) actions taken by individuals throughout the organization (b) any influence of one actor
toward another (c) effort by one party to promote self-interest over that of another and, therefore,
threaten that person’s self-interest (d) actions typically not sanctioned by the host organization,
or results sought which it does not sanction, and (e) organizational politics that involve some
kind of exchange process with a zero-sum outcome. Organizational politics, therefore, includes
actions taken to gain and use power to control organizational resources to achieve our preferred
results instead of the others`. Porter, Allen, and Angle, (1981) see organizational politics in self-
interest terms (negatively connoted).

Organizational politics is a commonplace activity in organizations. Madison, Allen, Porter,

Renwich and Maye (1980) support the idea that organizational politics is fully a part of
organizational life. Most managers see organizational politics as a part of work life in the middle
(Fairholm, M. R., 2002) and upper management levels and less so at the lower levels. Madison et
al. (1980) also reported that 95 percent of respondents, participated in their research, agreed that
office politics is necessary in achieving individual goals. They also were unanimous in saying
that it could harm them. For Madison et al (1980), engaging in organizational politics is a
“crucial path” to success.

The role played by organizational politics in organizational theory has varied a great deal since
the turn of the century. It varies a great deal even now. On one extreme, the "classical ideal",
organizational politics are an anathema to the organization. It is an aberrant condition that
emerges periodically due to selfish personal interests and poor management. Given proper
organizational design and managerial action, Cobb argues, this political aberration can and
should be done away with (Cobb, as in Dgulos et al, 1993).

10
Cobb leveled organizational politics as “a fact of organizational life” as a "mid-range view” and
saw organizational politics as a kind of emergent "substratum" of organizations that broadly
influences organizational function. Distinct from "legitimate" organizational phenomena,
organizational politics emerge most often to cause conflict because of the competition of actors
pursuing their own narrow self serving ends without regard to others or the organization as a
whole (Cobb, as in Dgulos et al,1993).

At the other extreme, the organization is viewed as a political entity in and of itself. This entity
has been variously described as either a well ordered system or a kind of "teeming" marketplace
of political exchange (ibid, 1993).

2.1.2 Theories of Organizational Politics

There are 4 theories related with organizational politics found relevant for our study. This section
is devoted to highlight these theories in order to consume them for later analysis.

a) Conservation of Resource Theory

Hobfoll (1989) put forward Conservation of Resources Theory to describe the process of
resource interaction between individual and social environment. The core of the theory was that
individuals with more resources were not vulnerable to the loss of resources, and they had more
ability to obtain resources and vice versa (ibid, 1989). According to the Conservation of
Resources theory, if people perceive organizational politics, they need to spend time and energy
to deal with their anxiety and nerves, which lead to the loss of their psychological resources. In
that case, organizational commitment can be regarded as one of these psychological resources.

Blau (1964) thought that people would forecast their returns from the other people by their
payment for the other people. Obviously, as the degree of resource benefits increases for an
individual rises to the top, organizational politics will be used as a means to maintain the
benefits; so do the investment of energy and resources for this purpose. This study used
conservation of resource theory to explain the political scenarios in the public sector.

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 b) Social Exchange Theory
American sociologist Homans proposed the theory of social exchange in 1958, and then Blau
expanded the theory in 1964. Social exchange theory believed that social exchange behavior
includes the barter of material aspects (remuneration, information, etc.) as well as including non-
material aspects (praise, sense of accomplishment, etc.) exchanges (Sun and Xia, 2018). Homans
(1974) put forward Social Exchange theory and pointed out that the real meaning of the
relationship among people was social exchange, including exchange of material and immaterial.
With the reduction of organizational commitment, we could infer that employees’ work
engagements would also decrease. For example, according to social exchange theory,

“When a staff comes up with a new sharp idea, he is going to share his idea with
his boss and coworkers. But if the atmosphere is filled with bureaucracies and
suppression, he is not likely to share his good idea. Worse still, he might lose his faith in
the organization and fail to concentrate on work because he must be constantly alert to
the unwritten rules” (Kang, et al 2015).
Hee, et al. (2015) found that a higher level of organizational commitment brought a lower level
of turnover intention.

According to, Sun and Xia (2018), theory of social exchange, there are uncertainties and risks in
the process of establishing the exchange relationship. Individuals will evaluate the uncertainty
and risk in the exchange process. The results of the risk assessment will directly affect people’s
attitudes and behaviors towards the exchange relationship. Organizational political behaviors
existing in the organization are perceived by the employees will result in the employees’ passive
sabotage and even counterproductive behavior (ibid, 2018). This theory is used as a base for this
research believing that employees in the public sector, with their meager incentives, involve in
an exchange condition for pursuing their interest or react in the other way.

c) Individual-Organization Fit Theory

The concept of individual-organization fit was first proposed by Chatman in 1989. He believes
that individuals and organizations can influence each other’s relationship (Sun and Xia, 2018).
Although there are many other factors that can manipulate the relationship between individuals

12
and organizations, the most basic and longest-lasting is the value. Therefore, he defines the
individual-organization fit as the uniformity of values between individuals and organizations.
O’Reilly’s (1992) study of individual-organization fit also vividly defines the fit between
individuals and organizations in terms of values. For this reason, the value persisted and held by
employees’ perception over time toward their organization also determines their involvement in
organizational politics, hence, worth mentioning this theory in this research.

d) Hirschman’s Exit, Voice, Loyalty and Neglect (EVLN) Theory

Hirschman’s EVLN Theory, was proposed to highlight the reactions of customers’

dissatisfaction with a product, and has been used in various environments to know the individual
behavior in response to unfavorable and frustrating situations; so do to study organizational
politics with different job outcomes (Vigoda, 2000; 2006).

Raiz(2013) summarized how the consequences of organizational politics are supported by the
Hirschman’s EVLN (exit, voice, loyalty and neglect) theory of organizational decline (1970)
which proposes that in response to unsatisfactory situation in a society, organization or country,
one can show four types of reactions. The first response can be in the form of leaving the
situation without putting an effort to fix the problem (exit). The second response can be in the
form of speaking up to highlight the issues (voice). The third one is loyalty wherein a person
stands persistently and waits for the better time (loyalty). The last one is (neglect) wherein
individuals ignore the problem or may show some deviances. From this theory “Neglect” is
borrowed to study reverse relationship between organizational politics and organizational
commitment.

2.1.3 Causes of Organizational Politics

The main driver of organizational politics is divergence of interest. Miles (1980) found that
political behavior occur in the presence of ambiguous goals, scarce resources, changes in
technology or environment, non-programmed decisions, or organizational change. Political
actions aim to developing and using power and other resources to obtain the preferred outcomes
(Romi, et al 2008). Different reasons that caused OP are summarized below.

13
Some researcher associated the political behavior with human evolution borrowing the
Darwinian theory of natural selection of evolutionary theory. Hence, concluded that politicking
is innate trait of human being (Vredenburgh & Shea-VanFossen, 2010). Cacciattolo (2014)
presented the counter arguments from scholars in the field for the above thesis that even though
there could be predisposition traits in nature they are affected and be observable due to work
place environment. In this case, whenever an employee perceives as being manipulated by the
organizational system he/she will react in some sort that can be considered politicking.

Other research works has identified several areas in which employees take on in political
behaviour directly or indirectly to power over decisions. Among others, pressures for economy,
management and subordinates relationships, structural power struggles between configured
groups such as unions and employers, conflicts between the workforce and management for
construing agreements, uncertainty about standards and strategies of promotion, difficulty in
linking reward with productivity, and policies and procedures (Gotsis & Kortezi, 2010; Latif et
al, 2011).

Gotsis & Kortezi, (2010) added uncertainty involved in decision-making and performance
measures, and when competition is present among individuals and groups for limited resources,
employees are likely to participate in organizational politics. Moreover, Vigoda-Gadot (2007)
stated that lack of supposed integrity and equality in these systems is a main root of higher
perceptions of organisational politics. Hence in an organization where there exists inclusive and
procedural decision making organizational politics is seldom observed.

Colquitt et al. (2014) developed a figure of organizational politics depicting its causes and
consequences. Causes are classified as •personal and organizational characters in which need for
power and Machiavellianism are personal characteristics that drives organizational politics, lack
of participation in decision making, limited or changing resources, ambiguity in roles, high
performance pressure and unclear performance evaluations are among organizational traits that
trigger organizational politics.

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2.1.4 Consequences of Organizational politics
Though Colquitt et al. (2014) argued a leader needs to be able to push his or her own ideas and
influence others through the use of organizational politics hence; effective leaders must have a
certain degree of political skill, a number of studies emphasized on the negative effect of
organizational politics (Atinc, Darrat, Fuller, and Parker, 2010).

Madison, Allen, Porter, Renwich, and Maye (1980) and Fairholm (2009) explored the positive or
negative impacts of the use of organizational politics. It is illustrated that organizational politics
can be useful in helping the organization reach its goals and cope with survival and
organizational health concerns. Some scholars in the field even attempted to advice the effective
use of organizational politics. Omisore and Nweke (2014) summarized some suggested political
tactics proposed to achieve a competitive advantage having origin in practical experience from
the work of Buskirk (1976) and Memurry (1973) like the one stated below, among others;

“If a proposal developed by an adversary is unattractive but cannot be thwarted

immediately, attempt to refer it to a committee to delay it and widen the bargaining area.”
This confirms that organizational politics is helpful in coordinating staff and units, developing
esprit de corps, and decision making. It is useful in these and all other organizational goal
achievement actions.

It, however, can result in improper use of scarce resources, cause divisiveness, create tension,
allow less qualified people to advance, and reduce communication flow. And, finally, it can
damage the image of the organization and sully its reputation. Engaging in organizational politics
can aid significantly in career advancement, getting recognition and status in the organization,
and increasing our power position. It also helps in accomplishing personal goals and in allowing
getting organizational job done. Engaging in organizational politics may help the participant feel
positive about his achievement and ability to be in control of his/her work life (Fairholm, 2009).

In either of the positive and negative results, older group members of employees use it more than
those newly inducted into the organization. It is beyond doubt that OP can serve as an instrument
for securing organizational rewards. Engaging in political activity may result in falling perceived
or actual power in the group. It can result in removal from the organization or can bring out

15
negative feelings about some by others. And political activity can result in a loss of promotion or
increased feelings of guilt and interference with job performance (ibid, 2009).

Colquitt et al. (2014) aggregated the negative impact of organizational politics on employee
reaction viz., • decreased job satisfaction, decreased organizational, commitment, decreased task
performance, and increased strain.

2.1.5 Who are in the Organizational politics?

All members of the organization participate in power use. Senior executives, middle managers,
informal leaders, and the rank and file employee all use power (Fairholm, 2009). Madison et al
(1980) showed that politics is more on the superior’s mind and actions than in lower-level
employees. Although this may be true, it, Fairholm (2009) argued, does not lessen the fact that
all employees have some power. No one is powerless, even if it is only the power to withhold
talent or energy. Workers use power to secure their desired results in the same ways that higher-
level participants use their capacities (ibid, 2009).

Allen, et al (1979) assessed personal skills and traits common to politically dynamic people in
organizations. They conclude that effective political actors, (be they CEOs, middle-level
managers, or workers), all share some common characteristics. They are “articulate, sensitive,
and socially adept”. They are competent, popular, extroverted, and self-confident. They exhibit
aggressive tendencies, are ambitious, can be devious, and are clearly “women and men of the
organization” (Fairholm, 2009). They are also, Fairholm added, highly intelligent and logical
people. The politically adept individual in the organization is outgoing, competent, and effective
in interacting with others. They are energetic advocates of their desired results. They are willing
to engage others in competition for available resources and for the dominance of their ideas and
ideologies (ibid, 2009).

2.1.6 Organizational Politics in the private and Public Sector

According to Rainey et al., (1976), organizations can be classified as either public or private
based on four approaches. The first approach mainly deals with the perception of common

16
people who can easily categorize them as any. The second approach relies greatly at standard
operating procedure. The third approach categorizes them on the basis of key activities
associated with public and private organizations. Following this approach precisely, one can
believe that public organizations are commonly involved for public activities and the benefit of
common people while private sector works for the concerns of the owners (Raiz, 2013). The
fourth approach is called analytical approach where organizational processes and structure helps
to distinguish these two. More importantly, organizational goals and products clarify the
difference (Rainey et al. 1976).

Wal and Huberts (2008), as in Raiz, 2013) stated the ideal core values of public organizations are
conceived as transparency, impartiality, dedication, efficiency, lawfulness, obedience,
incorruptibility, responsiveness, serviceability and social justice. On the other hand, private
sector organizations assume sustainability, effectiveness, innovativeness, profitability,
collegiality and self-fulfillment.

Given those differences in the sectors as discussed above, there is plenty of scope to consider
similarities and differences of their organizational politics. Explicit attempt has done to
demonstrate the similarities between the politics of corporate organizations and the politics of
nation-states (Provis, 2006). Political anthropologists have examined the political processes in
tribes, villages and other small communities, which show similarities in their political processes
both to modern western organizations and to traditional monarchies or feudal empires (Provis as
in Vigoda-Dagot and Drory, 2006). For Provis, the current study of organizational politics in the
public sectors is similar to the study of the politics of nation-states in Machiavelli’s time. He
argued that, there are differences amongst political processes in different contexts. For example,
background culture and belief can play an important part in people’s behaviour, and in their
political activities (ibid, 2006). Miller (1962) stressed the existence of different political contexts
as organizations changes. He quoted as “There is politics in the board room, in the inter-
departmental conference, in the school staff meeting, and in the annual conference of the dog-
lovers’ association”. From this we can infer that organizational politics is expected in both
sectors. Hence, it is possible and has been studied the organizational politics of the public sector
operating under different conditions.

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2.1.7 State-politics in Public Organizations
Scott and Falcone (1988) differentiated the public sector from private by documenting three
approaches; the first approach was termed as the generic approach. The proponents of generic
approach perceived little differences between public and private organizations. The comparison
criteria were based on organizational processes, management functions and managerial values.
Particularly techniques and orientation for decision making were considered to be the same. In
private organizations, decisions were made to enhance economic efficiency and monetary
benefits whereas in public organizations, decision making was based by compromises,
uncertainty, bargaining and political interest (Murray, 1975).

The second approach was called core approach which was largely based on the ideas presented
through public choice theory and property right theory. The proponents of core approach
recommended that the difference between these two sectors was with respect to ownership
transferability, market structure and externalities. For example, property right theory posited that
private sector managers had vested interest to capitalize market opportunities by efficient use of
resources which further enhanced their personal gains (Raiz, 2013). In public sector, managers
lacked such incentives and worked under red tape which caused inefficiency. Likewise, public
choice theory stated that public managers did not have efficient market feedback system to set
the optimal production level for goods. Under such constraint they had to produce maximum to
avoid shortages causing inefficient production (ibid, 2013).

Finally, the dimensional approach differentiated both the sectors on the basis of political and
economic authority influences. These dimensions incorporated resource allocation, acquisition,
composition of output, diversity of mission and environmental transactions. In addition,
organizations influenced by some political and economic authority normally reflected same
behavior irrespective of sectoral nature. Considering the example of public sector, organizations
were heavily influenced by political and economic authority as compared to private
organizations which were less influenced by red-tapism (Scott and Falcone, 1988).

The increased autonomy of administrations under the leadership of public managers has been
countered by new attempts and strategies of political leaders to interfere in bureaucratic

18
appointments and day-to-day public policymaking more broadly, triggering renewed concern
about politicization, even (Neuhold et al 2013).

There are different categories of politicization (Peters, 2013; as cited Neuhold et al, 2013) given
the disparities across countries. Direct politicization: This relates to the direct attempts to have
political loyalists take up positions. Professional politicization: This concerns public officials
who are political loyalists but at the same time are also professionals and are the products of a
professional career system. Redundant politicization: This refers to unnecessary structures
created by a government to monitor the actions of the career employees (Neuhold et al, 2013). A
typical example for the Ethiopian local government is the position of party comrades (leaders)
paid by the public sector and served as member of the executive in their respective
administration.

Anticipatory politicization: This refers to a situation whereby civil servants on their own
initiative choose to leave their positions when there is a change of government. Dual
politicization: This refers to a situation where besides the political executive the President or
parliament also attempts to control the bureaucracy by placing their own nominees in positions
of power with the aim to exercise control over policy. Social politicization: This alludes to the
(indirect) influence of social actors (such as industry and trade unions) over the career path of
civil servants (ibid, 2013).

The most significant feature of public organizations, as Raiz (2013) argued, rest with the strong
influence and pressure exerted by the political and governmental groups. They had to follow
stringent governmental systems for personnel administration, purchasing and procurement
(Rainey and Chun, 2007). Mihaiu et al., (2010) claimed that public organizations were
influenced directly or indirectly by politicians and this influence could be in the form of
bargaining, public opinion, interest group reactions (Rainey et al., 1976). Bodla and Danish
(2008) also observed this notion and argued that public organizations in Pakistan were
considerably associated with political system which stimulated more influential tactics among
employees. External political influence posed a threat to the role of leadership in public sector

19
organizations. The same challenge goes to Africa in which much of organisational decisions are
made within the view of political interest rather than organisational interest.

According to Tesfaye (2010), there are also scholars who believe that politics in Africa is seen as
a means of livelihood and politicians use these public organizations as a means of achieving their
political and economic end rather than as a means of accruing benefits to their nationals. In most
cases organisational systems, whether they are the existing or new ones are under the influence
of authorized individuals to be changed easily without considering the impact of the change on
the whole system and on the environment (Tesfaye, 2010). This will pave the way for public
employees, both political and merit based, to engage pursuing organizational political behaviour.
This narration is subject to and supported by the previous theories we used to explain
organizational politics. Considering the recommendations of scholars to the study of
organizational politics, in different cultures and scenarios, the party politics is included as
additional factor/dimensions of organizational politics for the purpose of Ethiopian public sector
context.

2.1.8 The Ethiopian Public Sector

Civil service in Ethiopia started in the first decades of the 20th century by the will of Emperor
Menelik ᴨ (Teklay, 2016). Established late from modern civilized nations, like 120 years after,
but earliest than its African counterpart, the Ethiopian civil service has undergone through
different reforms and served to the purpose of the ruling regimes of its time; from the feudal, to
military then to the current republic (Tesfaye, 2010).

Currently, there are a total of 20 federal ministries (several agencies, commissions, and other
institutions under them) according to Proclamation No. 691/2010. There are also several
agencies and institutions which have their own independent existence, and directly reporting to
the Prime Minister’s office (Teklay, 2016). Keeping the level decentralization debate aside,
those ministries have branches down to lower level echelons across the country.
Tesfaye (2010) conclude that result based approach is a panacea for all ills of the civil service, it
is essential to consider the organizational factors that affect the management of public
organizations. He further showed the debate in this regard as

20
 “There were different views reflected on why public organizations
underperformed. Some blamed the bureaucracy in the civil service for inefficient
performance. Others blame the interference of the politicians in the affair of the civil
service” (ibid, 2010).

Paulos Chanie in his work entitled “Clientelism and Ethiopia's Post-1991 Decentralization”
(2007), presented the argument over the marriage of the public sector and party politics quoted,
“………there is a mismatch between the liberal-democratic political- pluralist elements
of the constitution and the political praxis of the dominant party; it is wedded to the
modus operandi of democratic centralism, inhibiting effective decentralization and
democratization”.

This paves the way for employees in the civil service to engage politicking to meet personal
interests by manipulating the favourable condition facilitated by the dominant party. Hence, it is
possible to assume that natural organizational politics could be supported by external factors like
environments where dominant party`s involvement in the public sector prevails.

2.1.9 Models of Perceived Organizational Politics

Ferris et al (1989) Antecedent Model

Until 1989 no any model was developed to study perceptions of organizational politics. Ferris et
al (1989) developed a model for the first time. According to the model, perception of
organizational politics is “influenced by organizational, environmental and personal factors and
in turn influence organizational outcomes such as job involvement, job anxiety, job satisfaction
and withdrawal from the organization.”

a. Organizational Influence: According to Ferris et al (1989) this dimension consists of a

number of other factors including centralization, span of control, formalization and
hierarchical level. Accordingly, as the work environment is doubtful with vague procedures
there likely to facilitate the stronger presence of organizational politics. To the opposite if the
organization operated formally and decisions are rule based lower level of organizational
politics expected. Organizations with higher level of hierarchy believed to perceive stronger

21
 organizational politics; given the Kacmar and Ferris (1992) concluded that organizational
politics is highly perceived by lower level employees than top managers due to the lower
level are incapable of controlling the process. Limited distribution of power in the
organization (centralization) aggravates the level of perceived organizational politics
therefore are positively related. This, too, is prevalent at the lower level employees of the
organization (Kacmar and Ferris, 1992). And finally, as span of control increases a
supervisor may fail to address all his subordinates and leads to a more perception of
organizational politics.

b. Job/Work Environment: Four of the five factors under this category were presented as
negatively related to organizational politics. These are job autonomy, job variety, feedback,
and advancement opportunity (Ferris et al 1989). Interaction with others, coworkers and
supervisors, however, understood as positively related to perceived organizational politics
especially if supervisors and/or employees viewed opportunistically (Kacmar and Ferris,
1992).

c. Personal Influence: This factor is personally driven by the perceiver of the politics. It was
studied taking demographic characteristics such as with age and sex and personality
characteristics including Machiavellianism and self monitoring. Ferris et al (1989) stated that
where women in lower positions experience more politics, older employee repeatedly
maneuvered politically before perceive their environment more political.

In this model, Ferris et al, (1989) presented what follows those influencing factors of the
organizational politics and forwarded three possibilities; to withdraw from the organization,
remain in the organization but leave the politics aside and focus on job, and thirdly to remain in
the organization and immerse in the politics. The latter two has reverse relation on job
satisfaction and job anxiety (ibid, 1989).

This model was revised in the 2002 Ferris and colleagues work to support future research and
found new antecedent variables which are more of related with job environment factor; i.e.,
participation in decision-making, met expectations, development opportunities, positive affect,
and negative affect. The demographic related variable was, however, reduced from the

22
antecedent model. Ferris et al`s (2002) work was also supported by Atinc et al (2010). In
addition, Atinc et al (2010) added and removed variables which were included in the Ferris et al
(2002). While hierarchical behaviour got removed Job attitude and variety were included back
from their exclusion in the Ferris and colleagues revision. Trust in coworkers and span of control
was included too, beyond mentioning in the lately mention work.

Kacmar and Ferris Revised Model (1992)

Kacmar and Ferris (1991) conceptualized organizational politics as a three-dimensional
construct. The researcher reexamined the variables and modified it to the new model; and this
model has become popular and commonly used (Atinc et al, 2010) for measuring the level of
perceived organizational politics in organizations. The three dimensions of the model are general
political behavior, getting along to get ahead, and pay and promotion which are summarized
below.

General Political Behavior: General political behavior related with the organizational politics in
such that it involves the development of coalitions within a system that compete for scarce
resources. The competition underscores the use of power to gain and maintain control of the
political system. Power is expressed by who is allowed to take part in decision-making (Pfeffer,
1992).

“Getting Along to Get Ahead”: This dimension relates to the existence of group loyalties.
Compliance with group norms is valued, while nonconforming opinions are not only
discouraged, but met with sanctions. Group cohesiveness, conformity, can lead policy-making
bodies toward normative behaviors; critical thinking and objections to the majority view (Romi
et al., 2008).

Pay and Promotion: This dimension is associated to the concept that people who are a good fit
for the organization are liable to be promoted. While the need to discover individuals who will
be a good fit for the organization should not be overlooked, the ability for individuals to use
political means to cultivate promotion creates an environment where politically active
individuals are promoted at the expense of others in the organization (Witt, 1995).

23
However, Kayan et al (2016) used this model by adding two dimensions, Coworkers and Self
Serving Behaviour, to this model which are defined as follows;

Coworkers: This dimension attempts to explain the political behaviors of both superiors and
colleagues. Some personnel who are on the receiving end of negative behaviors may not talented
to respond effectively, and therefore may be the victim of these kinds of political behaviour
(Gandz and Murray, 1980).

Self-serving Behaviours: This is one of the dimensions that can damage organizational
efficiency. Self-serving is when individuals put their own interests above those of their
colleagues and the organization as a whole (Gandz and Murray, 1980)

The Chinese Model

Considering the late study of the organizational politics in the Chinese context with different
culture from the west, Chinese scholar Ma Chao, as mentioned in Sun and Xia (2018), classifies
organizational political perception into three dimensions through exploratory analysis when
preparing POPs scales appropriate to the Chinese context: 1) self-serving behavior; 2) co-worker
relationship; 3) remuneration and promotion.

By combining domestic and foreign research; Sun and Xia (2018), developed the model of
organization of political perception divided into three dimensions: 1) general political awareness;
2) colleagues; 3) salary promotion. Accordingly, the general political awareness refers to the
individual’s perception of the political behavior of the members of the organization to obtain
valuable output in the organization in the way of serving themselves. This is among the ways to
get the organization’s valuable scarce resources for them. Co-worker relationship refers to the
political perception of the exchange of benefits between colleagues in the organization for the
best benefit among colleagues. Remuneration and promotion refers to the individual’s political
perception of the organization’s actual operational and institutional inconsistency in
remuneration and promotion (ibid, 2018).

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2.2 Employees Organizational Commitments
2.2.1 Understanding the Concept
Commitment is a very multidimensional concept and therefore somewhat hard to define.
Commitment has been studied much, and it still “remains one of the most challenging and
researched in the fields of management, organizational behavior and HRM” (Cohen, 2007).
There has been numerous ways to define commitment in the past years and researchers from
different fields liked to emphasize on different aspects of it. Often commitment is seen as a force
that binds individual to a course of action that is relevant to one or more targets (Cohen, 2003).
Those targets can be directed to people, for example family or friends as well as to various
institutions, like sports, community groups or work organization (Heery & Noon, 2001).

Commitment in the workplace can further be divided into different aspects. Example, Employee
may be committed to career, occupation, goals, teams, leaders or organization (Meyer and
Herscovitch 2001; Fleishmann and Cleveland, 2003). Meyer and Herscovitch (2001, 299)
conducted a review of the previous studies and conceptualizations on workplace commitment.
They argue that it is well recognized that employees develop more than one work-relevant
commitment. Even though all of these are to be seen in the workplace and affect employees total
workplace commitment, they all have their own characteristics.

One thing to notice is that these a variety of commitments will exist at the same time and
employees always have many commitments to different institutions and people, for example,
family, friends, sports and community groups. Therefore, it is unrealistic to expect total
commitment to the organization. (Heery and Noon 200)

According to Cropanzano et al (1997), organizational commitment is an attachment to an

organization. Organizational commitment is thus a function of such variables as the
characteristics of the job performed by the workers, the characteristics of the organizations in
which the tasks are performed, and the characteristics of the workers who perform the tasks
(Allen and Meyer, 1990).

25
Commitment in the workplace has been quite widely studied since 1950’s (Cohen 2003). Despite
the vast amount of studies and interest towards commitment, there is still disagreement about
what it is, how it develops and affects behavior (Meyer and Herscovitch, 2001).

2.2.2 Theories and Models of Organizational Commitment

There are different models developed to study employees’ organizational commitment. Theories
worth mentioning for the general understanding and grasp in the way that can serve for later
analysis m as summarized below.

O’Reilly and Chatman’s Model

O’Reilly and Chatman (1986) stated employees’ organizational commitment as a psychological

attachment to an organization. According to Ruokolainen (2011), employees organizational
commitment is “the degree to which employee internalizes or adopts the characteristics or
perspectives of the organization”. According to O’Reilly and Chatman (1986), employees
organizational Commitment can be formed by three independent mechanisms: compliance,
identification and internalization. Compliance is shallowest of them all and is connected to
rewards. Person adopts certain attitudes and behaviors in order to gain specific awards.
Identification is step further into deeper commitment. Employee feels proud to be part of that
specific organization and thus accepts and respects its’ values and accomplishments. He or she
wants to establish or maintain good relationship with that specific group. However, what
separates that from the internalization is that he or she does not adapt those values as his or her
own. Therefore, internalization occurs finally when there is value congruence between the person
and the organization.

This model, however, is criticized for its view of existence of compliance commitment as longer
one`s tenure is. In this case, it is often thought that organizational commitment reduces the
likelihood of turnover, there has been questioning whether compliance can be thought as a form
of organizational commitment at all (Meyer and Herscovitch 2001).

Another point that has received critique in this model is that internalization and identification
come very close to each other as concepts, and even include some of the same elements (Meyer

26
and Herscovitch 2001). In the studies conducted later, it has actually been proved that
internalization and identification can be merged together forming one dimension. The measures
correlate very highly with one another and other variables show quite similar patterns of
correlations with these two dimensions (Caldwell, Chatman & O’Reilly, 1990). For these
reasons, this model never has been that largely used and Allen and Mayer’s model became
dominantly used in the studies of commitment (Weibo, Kaur and Jun, 2010).

Three -Component Model of Commitment

According to Allen & Meyer (1990), employees’ organizational commitment has three separable
forms: affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment. Affective
commitment is employees’ emotional attachment to organization, identification with
organization and involvement in organization. Employees, who have strong affective
commitment, stay in the organization because they want to. Therefore, this form of commitment
is based on desire. However, there has not been a uniform conclusion on what are the
mechanisms involved creating it. But Meyer and Herscovitch (2001) propose that any variable
that will increase the probability of the following three matters will help individual to become
affectively committed. First, an individual becomes involved. Second, an individual recognizes
the value or relevance of the entity or the course of action to him or herself. Last, association
with the entity or a course of action will shape an individual’s identity. Out of the three forms,
this dimension has been studied the most (Meyer et al, 2002; Bergman, 2006).

Continuance commitment is commitment based on the costs that would occur if the person left
the organization. Therefore, people having high continuance commitment stay in the
organization because they need to. In other words, it would cost too much to leave. This would
be the case, for example, if employee has used a lot of time and resources to learn something that
can only be used in that particular company or at the time there are no similar or better
employment opportunities available than the current position (Allen & Meyer 1990, Meyer &
Herscovitch 2001, Garcia-Gabrera & Garcia-Soto 2012).

Normative commitment refers to person’s feelings of obligation to stay with the organization. In
other words, employees remain in the organization because they ought to do so. It is proposed

27
that normative commitment is influenced by person’s experiences both before and after entering
the organization. This means that not only organizational socialization but also socialization that
occurs in the families and society at large also affects how employee’s normative commitment
develops (Allen & Meyer 1990, Markovits, Boer & van Dick 2013).

Bergman (2006) reviewed theoretical and empirical literature to found out whether these two
dimensions can truly be separated. She states that theoretically these two are different in
describing the ways in which individual can bond with an organization. However, there is no
strong empirical evidence that differentiate affective commitment from normative commitment.
Meyer et al. (2002) found out that there is much bigger correlation between these concepts in the
studies conducted outside of North America than within. On one hand, this might reflect that
there are cultural differences on how individuals see these concepts or on the other hand, there
could have been difficulties in the translation process leaving the constructs unclear.

Cohen’s Four Component Commitment Model

Regardless of similarities in the name with previously introduced Allen and Meyer’s model, this
one sees commitment in a different way. One of the biggest differences is that this model
includes timeframe. Therefore, according to Cohen (2007) before entering to the organization,
person develops the following types of commitment – instrumental commitment propensity and
normative commitment propensity. The first is derived from person’s general expectations about
the quality of the exchange with the organization about the expected benefits and rewards person
might receive from it in return of the contribution given. The second is defined by general moral
obligations toward the organization. Accordingly,
“After entering the organization employee develops instrumental commitment and
affective commitment. Instrumental commitment is a reflection of the instrumental
commitment propensity, and therefore person reflects how well one’s expectations about
the benefits and rewards are met. While affective commitment is a psychological
attachment to the organization, which can be seen as identification with it, emotional
involvement and a sense of belonging” (Cohen, 2007).
This is basically the very same as the one on Allen and Meyer’s model.

28
Another difference between this and ‘three-component model’ (Allen and Meyer`s 1990) is the
way in which focus is shifted from the costs associated with leaving the company, previously
called continuance commitment, to benefits of staying, which is called instrumental commitment
(Cohen, 2007). In other words, these two concepts are measuring the same matter but viewing it
from the opposite sides.

Based on previous studies the model also made propositions about what factors affect different
parts of commitment. Organizational socialization means how employees learn the values,
beliefs, behaviors and skills needed to perform well in their new job and new organization
(Cohen 2007). In other words, organizational socialization is the process of on boarding. Lower
order exchange factors refer to lower order needs that will affect person’s commitment. The idea
behind the division between higher and lower order factors is partially based on Hertzberg
motivation theory (Hertzberg, 1987). Main thought behind his theory of motivation is that first
one has to satisfy the hygiene factors, which are extrinsic and only after those are good one can
start to develop intrinsic motivation factors. Thus hygiene factors serve as a base and
precondition that have to be met first.

The same idea is for lower and higher order exchange factors, but one can start to develop those
simultaneously (Cohen, 2007). Higher order exchange factors refer to transformational
leadership, perceptions of justice and organizational support (Cohen, 2007). According to Cohen
(2007), after entering the organization, instrumental commitment starts to develop faster than
affective commitment, which will take more time and information to develop. Instrumental
commitment is seen as somewhat shallow commitment, because it is based on very tangible
exchange.

2.3 Perception of Organizational Politics and Organizational Commitment

Becker (1960) stated in organizational commitment theory, the organization commitment was
based on the economic benefit on both sides. This, apparently, is among the factors that led
individuals to inter in organizational politics. Working in a same organization, Becker (1960)
argued, longer and longer and considering the contribution they made to the organization, people
usually were not willing to leave their organization. They were scared of losing what they get
29
from the organization now, which made them had to stay on (ibid, 1960). In either of the fear to
lose what they are getting now or expecting reciprocity for their did to the organization,
employees inter into politicking both in group and at individual level. Meyer and Allen defined
organizational commitment as an emotional connection, which contained employees’
dependence on the organization and responsibility to organization (1991). Miller, B. K. et al.
(2008) discovered the strong negative relationship between perception of organizational politics
and job satisfaction and between perception of organizational politics and organizational
commitment by Meta-analysis(ibid,2008).

There is strong theory linking organizational politics and organizational commitment (Vigoda,
2000). In an environment employees perceived organizational politics, their dependence on the
organization and responsibility to organization were likely to be destroyed by the organizational
politics they perceived. Thus, perception of organizational politics may harm employees’
organizational commitment (Rong and Cao, 2015).

Rong and Cao (2015) did the analysis from the three dimensions of perception of organizational
politics. Firstly, if employees perceive general political behavior, it reflects that they realized
some threatening behaviors are implemented in their organization, suppressing and bullying, for
instance. So their emotional association with the organization will be damaged. Secondly, if
employees perceive going along to get ahead, they are aware that the organization is hierarchical
and seniority-based. In that case, they believe in the unwritten rules that a person of high position
is liable to be attacked. As a result, they have to choose to stay low-key to avoid making
mistakes. And the psychological burden jeopardizes their dependence on the organization and
responsibility to organization.

In other words, perception of organizational politics would produce in the reduction of

organizational commitment. Thirdly, they are aware of unfairness among the compensation
system and promotion system, which, in their opinion, fail to reflect their contribution to
organization truly. Undoubtedly, they feel dissatisfied and lose faith in organization and finally
they became less committed to the organizations to which they belonged (ibid, 2015).

30
Randall, et al, (1999) studied commitment using two categories. One type of commitment is
`affective’. This is the extent to which the individual feels an emotional bond to the organization.
It was anticipated that individuals would form such ties with firms that are nonpolitical, because
in the long run such organizations are most likely to meet their needs. Another type of
commitment is `continuance' or `calculative'. Continuance commitment refers to one's decision
to remain in an organization due to the potential economic losses that might result from
departing. For example, it might be difficult to find a new job with comparable pay. Relative to
its affective counterpart, continuance commitment is based less on the prevailing social climate
at work and more upon the value of available alternatives. In addition, continuance commitment
tends to emphasize narrow economic goals e.g. pay) rather than broader socio-emotional goals
(e.g. status, dignity, and a sense of worth). Given that continuance commitment is heavily
influenced by economic alternatives, we did not expect that it would be related to politics.

According to Randall`s et al (1999) marketplace model, politics is a broader construct. It

includes many transactions that would not be characterized as economic, such as the allocation
of power and respect within a group. Even more importantly, politics is a rating of one's current
work setting, not of the available options. There is a no priori theoretical reason to expect that
politics will be related to one's alternatives vis-a-vis other companies. Available work suggests
that politics is negatively associated with organizational commitment in general (Cropanzano et
al., 1997; Drory, 1990; Ferris and Kacmar, 1992; Nye and Witt, 1993), but the relationship of
politics to the different types of commitment has not been investigated previously (Randall, et al,
1999).

2.4 Empirical Studies

Madison et al. (1980), examining attitudes about organizational politics in general, reported that
their respondents thought politics would lead to negative feelings and poor organizational
climate. Madison et al. (1980) also found that organizational politics was thought to result in
misuse of resources and distraction from organizational goals. This is an indication to the breach
of the “psychological contract” 2 between employee and employer; lose of organizational
commitment. The results of the study by Voyer (1994) showed that the existence of coercive

2
Psychological contract is an agreement between an employee and organization that cannot be covered by the overt
and legal agreement entered.

31
politics in an organization is interpreted by its members as leading to lower morale. Voyer
(1994) did also concluded that the members in the sample company interpreted coercive
organizational politics as being used to adversely affect the context of strategy formation
(management, product definition, schedules). Commitment was found to be negatively related to
perceived political behavior in the study conducted by Randall et al. (as in Cropanzano et al,
1997). Cropanzano et al (1997), for example, found significant associations between
organizational politics and antagonistic work behaviors; intention to turnover, job satisfaction,
and organisational commitment. Randall, Cropanzano, Bormann and Birjulin, (1999) also found
a strong negative association between politics and commitment.

Andrews, Witt, and Kacmar, 2003) surveyed on the sample of 310 employees of a distribution
service industry for studying POPs taking the GAGA dimension and its effect manager-rated
employee retention and found a negative correlation. Atta et al (2012) studied effect
organizational politics on organizational commitment and found out a significant negative direct
effect for organizational politics on organizational commitment. Utami A., Bangun Y., and Lantu
D., (2014) conducted a study on 103 sample employees of industries found in Jakarta operating
on similar dependent and independent variables and found the same significant negative
relationship between POPs and OC. Using a theoretical method of research Rong and Cao (2015)
indicated that the perception of organizational politics will harm employees’ work engagements
by decreasing their organizational commitment.

In the Ethiopian context, though the effect of perceived organizational politics on organizational
commitment is not well studied, Merga (2016) pointed out the HRM practice as the major
determinant of organizational commitment but not in the direct way. He noted that the effect is
through employee job satisfaction. Though he used job satisfaction as a mediating role between
the HRM practice and organizational commitments, the HRM practice is measured on the
observable actions in which the latent causes, that employees consider most, are missed out.
Among others perceived organizational politics is pertinent for flawed HRM practices.

32
2.5 Operationalization: Conceptual Definition of the Research Constructs
General Political Behavior: Means the behavior of individuals in the organizational politics
where members strive to make coalition so as to control the overall decision making process in
their respective organizations. In creating a coalition the members run after scarce resources.
This variable is measured by two items.

“Getting Along to Get Ahead”: in this behavior, employees keep staying low in fear of attack
from their supervisors or colleagues so as to achieve what they wanted. For behaving inactive
politically they still considered as member of a political activity and benefactor.7 item are used
to measure this construct.

Pay and Promotion: This dimension is related to the concept pay and promotion goes to those
who are political active. Because of this rules and regulations managing HRM promotes
individual political behaviour. For this employee may adjust themselves to align with in the
future. 6 items measured this construct.

Political clientelism: This dimension is included to measure individuals’ behaviour in the public
sector that maneuvers party affiliation for their personal gain. However, be it intentional or
accidental the party throughout its hierarchy provides protection for their misconducts. 5 items
assumed to measure this variable utilized.

2.6 Conceptual Framework

The following conceptual framework is developed to guide this research. As can be seen from
the figure 1 below, the level organizational commitment is the function of general political
behaviour, go along to get ahead, payment and promotion, and political clientelism. This model
is developed contextualizing previous models for developing nation culture and different
political economic system.

33
 Independent Variables Dependent Variable

General Political
Behaviour

Organizational Commitment
Go Along to Get
Ahead

Pay and
Promotion Policy

Political
Clientelism

Source: Adopted from Ferris and Kacmar (1991)

Figure 1: Conceptual Framework

2.7 Chapter Summary

This chapter has presented the overall research theories of this study that contains the research
empirical literature, theoretical literature, the dominant theories in the field, models, construct
development and measurement, and finally developed model for operationalized the our theories
in Gondar city administration.

34
 CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

3 Introduction
This chapter presents in detail the research approach, research design, data type and sources of
data, Population and sample frame, sample size, sampling technique, data collection tools,
measurements of variables, data analysis techniques, validity, reliability and ethical considerations.

3.1 Research Approach

The research was adapted quantitative approach strategy as the researcher examines the effect of
perceived organizational politics on employees’ commitment using statistical, mathematical and
computational techniques. And it is so far an approach, though not exclusively the best, used by
many scholars to test the existing theory that organizational politics influence on employees’
commitment. In addition, according to Creswell (2003), if the problem is identifying factors that
influence an outcome, the utility of an intervention or understanding the best predictors in
outcomes, also to sue or test a theory or explanation, then a quantitative approach is best. Here,
all the data processed using quantitative analytical techniques so as to remain objective. This
study follows pragmatism research philosophy because it accepts concepts to be relevant only if
they support action.

3.2 Research Design

The researcher used cross-sectional data to measure independent and dependent variables at the
same point in time using close- ended and structured questionnaires. Even though it suffers
respondent bias, the survey method has an advantage for their external validity (generalization)
since data is collected in the organizational setting. It has also an advantage to capture and
control for a large number of variables and their ability to study a problem from multiple
perspectives or using multiple theories. This study also follows deductive researches approach
as the goal of the researcher is to test concepts and patterns known from theory using new
empirical data. The research is based on Ferris and Kacmar (1991) model of measuring
organizational politics modified to suit the Ethiopian context.

35
3.3 Source of Data
This research used primary data collected from employees of Gondar city administration.
Therefore, the researcher used primary data to undertake the study. The major advantage of
primary data collection is that it can be collected with the research’s purpose in mind. The
information resulting from primary data is more consistent with the research questions and
purpose. As a primary source of data collection the researcher use those FTE (Fixed Tenure
Employee) i.e. Officials (political and non-politically assigned), team supervisors, professionals,
and clerks.

3.4 Data Collection Tools

The primary data will be collected through structured self-administered questionnaire. Even
though it suffers respondent bias, the survey method has an advantage for their external
validity/generalization since data is collected in the organizational setting. The questionnaire
measures the organizational politics in Gondar city administration and affective commitment of
its employees respectively.

Thus, perceived organizational politics (POPs) is measured using items adapted from the Kacmar
and Carlson (1997) and a newly introduced 5 items to contextualize the model to the Ethiopian
culture. A 5 point Likert scale was used on which label given for respondent to express their
level of agreement for each item among the scales and then the average score on each trait was
used during data analysis and interpretation. Employees’ commitment was measured by using
(Allen & Mayer, 1990) three component model specifically selecting affective commitment for
this research purpose.

3.5 Population and Sampling

3.5.1 Population
The total populations of this research are employees who are currently working in Gondar city
administration in randomly selected public offices. In those offices, there are 529 employees in
aggregate. Therefore the total populations of this study used 529 government employees as
presented in table 1 bellow;

36
Table 1: Total Population of the Study
Source; Survey data (2018)

No. Lists of Sectors / Bureaus/ in Gondar city Total no. of employees in

each public sectors of
Gondar city
Male Female Total
1 FDRE Private Organizations' Employees Social security Agency 14 16 30
2 Revenues Authority Gondar branch 22 32 54
3 ANRS of Gondar city Administration and Development Construction 19 26 45
Department
4 ANRS of Gondar city Administration Trade Bureau 11 8 19
5 Education Bureau 33 20 53
6 Health Bureau 45 32 77
7 Finance & Economic Bureau 16 9 25
8 Bureau of Labor and Social Affairs 18 17 35
9 Bureau of Road & Transport 53 41 94
10 Bureau of Justice 22 12 34
11 Culture & Tourism 18 19 37
12 Bureau of Women, Children and Youth Affairs (BOWCYA) 8 18 26
Subtotal 279 250 529

3.5.2 Sampling
To determine the sample size and representative of the target population, the study used
statistical instrument formula. The mathematical formula that is adopted is Yamane (1997)
cited in Israel, G. D. (2003).
𝑵
𝒏= 2
𝟏 + 𝑵(𝒆)

n=Sample size required

N=the study population
e=Level of precision/allowable error /sampling error (0.05) at 0.95(95%) confidence level (t) of
0.5(5%) unit variance (p).

37
 529
𝒏 = 1+529(0.05) 2 n=215

Using the above statistical formula, the sample size of study is determined as follows.
Table 2: Sample size of the study
No. Lists of Sectors / Bureaus/ in Gondar city Total no. of Proportion of Sample
employees in each samples Size
public sectors of
Gondar city
1 FDRE Private Organizations' Employees Social security Agency 30 (30/529)*215 12

2 Revenues Authority Gondar branch 54 (54/529)*215 22

3 ANRS of Gondar city Administration and Development Construction 45 45/529*215 18

Department
4 ANRS of Gondar city Administration Trade Bureau 19 19/529*215 8

5 Education Bureau 53 53/529*215 22

6 Health Bureau 77 77/529*215 31

7 Finance & Economic Bureau 25 25/529*215 10

8 Bureau of Labor and Social Affairs 35 35/529*215 14

9 Bureau of Road & Transport 94 94/529*215 38

10 Bureau of Justice 34 34/529*215 14

11 Culture & Tourism 37 37/529*215 15

12 Bureau of Women, Children and Youth Affairs (BOWCYA) 26 26/529*215 11

Subtotal 529 529/529*215 215

Source; Survey data (2018)

3.6 Measurement of Variables

3.6.1 Independent Variable Measures
According to Atta, et al (2012), focusing on the perceptions of organizational politics refines the
notion of organizational politics making it an individual, perceptual and subjective construct with
proximal cognitive access to the development of individual attitudes, such as organizational
commitment. In this study the independent variable is perceived organizational politics of
Gondar city administration employees with four dimensions. These are general political

38
behaviour; Go along to get ahead, payment and promotion (Kacmar and Ferris, 1991) but later
modified by Kacmar and Carlson (1997), and political clientelism.
o General political behavior is employees’ pursuit for self-interest according to their own
needs when the organization lacked clear rules of conduct.
o Going along to get ahead means that avoiding being involved in organizational politics
so as to acquire results beneficial to employees themselves.
o Pay and promotion policies reflect how organizational policies led to organizational
politics.
o Political clientelism shows how employees behave to manipulate party politics as a
means to influence others.

Perceptions of organizational politics will be measured with a shorter version of POPS which
was developed by Kacmar and Ferris (1991) and lately modified by Kacmar and Carlson (1997)
and often utilized in researches Vigoda and Cohen (2002). The original scale developed by
Kacmar and Ferris’s (1991) included 40 items, while Kacmar and Carlson (1997) revised the
model and developed a 15 item scale. All items were measured on five point Likert scale from 1
(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Reliability of the scale in this study was reported high
as 0.87, as compared to previous studies e.g., 0.74 in Ferris and Kacmar, 1992; 0.77 in Vigoda
and Cohen (2002). While Raiz (2013) estimation of reliability for POPs also found 0.86.

3.6.2 Dependent Variable Measures

In this study the dependent variable is employee’s commitment of Gondar city administration
measured by affective commitment. According to Meyer and Allen (1997), affective
commitment is ‘the most desirable form of commitment and the one that organizations are most
likely to want to instill in their employees’. Affective commitment has been found to
significantly correlate with a wider range of desirable outcomes than both continuance and
normative commitment. This, according to Meyer and Herscovitch (2001), is mainly because
when commitment is accompanied by a mind-set of desire, the behavioral consequences of
commitment are perceived to be wider by individuals than when commitment is accompanied by
a mind-set of perceived cost or obligation. A four item scale is used to measure employees’
affective commitment.

39
3.6.3 Research Model
Model specification:

EAFC=β0 + β1GPB +β2GAGA + β3PPp+ β4PC+ e (organizational politics)

Where:
EAFC = Employee affective commitment
β0 = Constant Term
β1, β2, β3, β4 = Beta coefficients
GPB =General Political Behaviour
GAGA= Go along to Get Ahead
PPP = Pay and Promotion Policy
PC = Political Clientelism
e= error term (residual term that includes the net effect of other factors not in the model and
measurement errors in the dependent and independent variables).

3.7 Data Analysis

Given data analysis usually involves reducing accumulated data to a manageable size,
developing summaries, looking for patterns, and applying statistical techniques. This section
explains how the data is to be captured and analyzed, and would also define the statistical terms
of Frequency, Means, Standard Deviation, to analyze the data.

After the data is collected the researcher used in-house editing before coding, data entry and
analysis has made. The purpose of editing is to check and adjust the data for omission, legibility
and consistency. After editing, the data coded, entered and analyzed using statistical techniques
based on the information. Therefore, the data entered on IBM SPSS (2015) program package is
used in order to draw the simple tabulations; these were used to describe the socio demographic
characteristics of the research participant. In this study, Multiple regression analysis was used to
examine the effect of organizational politics (general political behaviour, going along to get
ahead, payment and promotion and political clientelism) on employees affective commitment.
Structured questionnaire with a 5 point Likert scale were distributed in order to obtain research
participants preference of agreement on the given statements. The participants indicated one of
the choices given in order to tell their level of agreement.

40
3.8 Validity and Reliability
3.8.1 Validity
Validity is the extent to which a measure adequately represents the underlying construct that it is
supposed to measure, (Bhattacherjee, 2011). Research validity had two groups: internal and
external. Internal validity refers to how the research findings match reality, while external
validity refers to the extent to which the research findings can be replicated to other
environments, Pelissier (2008). To ensure the validity of this study the researcher employed the
following mechanisms. The organizational politics questioner was prepared by adopting Kacmar
and Carlson (1997) POPs model with reliability alpha 0f 0.87. Employees’ commitment
questioner was prepared by adopting Allen and Mayer (1990) three component employees’
commitment model of which affective commitment was taken. The data collected from the
reliable sources of respondents who are working in GCA.

3.8.2 Reliability

Reliability is the degree to which the measure of a construct is consistent or dependable. In other
words, if we use this scale to measure the same construct multiple times, do we get pretty much
the same result every time, assuming the underlying phenomenon is not changing
(Bhattacherjee, 2011). To check the reliability of the instruments Cronbach alpha reliability
coefficient was estimated. Cronbach alpha co-efficient of all the items were examined to
determine the reliability. Usually, an item with cronbach alpha value, greater than 0.7, is
considered reliable, even greater than 0.6 is also considered acceptable (Sekaran, 2008 as in
Raiz, 2013). Accordingly the following results for items were estimated using SPSS 23 (IBM,
2015). Based on the data obtained all items well measured the variables constructed in their
respective. Therefore, no item was deleted.

41
Table 3: Reliability Analysis of Variance
Variables Cronbach’s Alpha
Coefficient Number of Items
General Political Behavior .727 2
Going Along to Get Ahead .842 7
Pay and Promotion Policy .784 6
Political Clientelism .844 5
Affective commitment .903 4
Source; Survey data (2018)

3.9 Ethical Consideration

This study consider the following ethical obligations because, science has often been
manipulated in unethical ways by people and organizations to advance their private agenda and
engaging in activities that are contrary to the norms of scientific conduct so this study free from
this type of issues. According to Bhattacherjee (2011) scientific researches need to fulfill the
following principles to be ethical and this research paper conducted by considering the following
principles:

 Voluntary Participation and Harmlessness. Subjects in a research project must be aware

that their participation in the study is voluntary, that they have the freedom to withdraw from
the study at any time without any unfavorable consequences, and they are not harmed as a
result of their participation or non-participation in the project.

 Anonymity and Confidentiality: To protect subjects’ interests and future well-being, their
identity must be protected in a scientific study. This is done using the dual principles of
anonymity and confidentiality. Anonymity implies that the researcher or readers of the final
research report or paper cannot identify a given response with a specific respondent.
Confidentiality is said kept when the researcher can identify a person’s responses, but
promises not to divulge that person’s identify in any report, paper, or public forum.

42
 Disclosure: Usually, researchers have an obligation to provide some information about their
study to potential subjects before data collection to help them decide whether or not they
wish to participate in the study.

 Analysis and Reporting: Researchers also have ethical obligations to the scientific
community on how data is analyzed and reported in their study. Unexpected or negative
findings should be fully disclosed, even if they cast some doubt on the research design or the
findings.

3.10 Chapter Summary

This chapter has presented the overall research methodology of this study that contains the
research approach, research design, the population of the study, source of data, data collection
methods, and sample size, sampling technique, measurement variables and methods of data
collection and data analysis. The next chapter presents data presentation and analysis.

43
 CHAPTER FOUR

DATA ANALYSIS, RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

4 Introduction
This chapter presents both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics analysis. It has three
sections. The first section is the descriptive statistics which summarizes the main features of the
study variable such as mean, frequency and percentage. The second section is the correlation
analysis which shows the degree of association between the study variables. The last sections of
the chapter reports regression output of the models used.

4.1 Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive analysis refers to statistically describing, aggregating, and presenting the constructs
of interest or associations between these constructs.

4.1.1 Response Rate

To conduct the research 215 questionnaires were distributed to the respondents and the response
rate indicated in the table 4.1 below.

Table 4: Response rate of the respondents

Items Response rate

No. Percent
Sample size 215 100%
Collected 188 87.44%
Remain uncollected 27 12.56%

Source; Survey data (2018)

As the result in table 4 indicate that, out of 215 distributed questionnaires 188(87.44%) were
collected while 27 (12.56%) of the questionnaire remained uncollected. Of the collected
questionnaires only 1 found invalid and rejected before data entry. Hence, 187 questionnaires
were legible for data encoding and analysis.

44
4.2 Demographic Characteristics of Respondents
For this study, demographic characteristics of the respondents such as sex, level of education,
and year of experience of the respondents presented and discussed.
Table 5: Background profile of the Respondents
Items Options Frequency Valid Cumulative
Percent Percent
Sex Male 113 60.4 60.4

Female 74 39.6 100.0

Total 187 100.0

Age of Respondents
30 and Below 107 57.2 57.2
Between 30 and 40 66 35.3 92.5
Above 40 14 7.5 100.0
Total 187 100.0
Maximum Level Of
Diploma 39 20.9 20.7
Education
Degree 133 71.1 92.0
Masters Degree 10 5.3 97.3
Others 5 2.7 100.0
100.0
Total 187
Year of experience
Below One Year 6 3.2 3.2
Between 1-5 years 61 32.6 35.8
Between 6 to 10 years 68 36.4 72.2
Above 10 Years 52 27.8 100.0
Total 187 100.0
Political Affiliation
Affiliated to the Ruling Party 81 43.3 43.3
Affiliated with Opposition Party 5 2.7 46.0
Neutral 101 54.0 100.0
Total 187 100.0
Source of Current
Politically Appointed 26 13.9 13.9
Position
Professional Employee 161 86.1 100.0
Total 187 100.0
Source; Survey data (2018)

4.2.1 Sex of Respondents

As is shown in Error! Reference source not found. above, the data provides sex profile of
espondents by frequency and percent. The results revealed that out of 187 respondents,

45
113(60.4%) of the respondents were males and 74(39.6%) were female respondents. It vividly
shows among respondents male employees exceed in number.

4.2.2 Profile as per Age of Respondents

As can be seen from the table above age is divided in to three categories resulted with
107(57.2%), 66(35.3) and 14(7.5%) frequencies respectively for below 30, between 30 & 40 and
above 40 years old age categories. Majority of employees are relatively younger followed by
adults.

4.2.3 Levels of Education of Respondents

The level of education of respondents in the above Error! Reference source not found.
ndicated that from 187 respondents 39 (20.9%) of the respondents were employees with diploma
certificate, Whereas 133 (71.1%) were employees attended degree program while and 10 (5.3%)
was Masters holders. The result indicates that most of the employees were degree holders.

4.2.4 Years of Experience of the Respondents

Table 5 above shows that, 61 (32.6%) respondents have experience in the age range of 1 to5
years, 68 (36.4%) of the respondents have from 6 to10 years of experience, 52 (27.8%) of the
respondents fall under the range of above 10 years of experience and while only 6(3.2%) of the
respondents served below a year. The result indicates that majority of the employees are
relatively older within the range of 6 and above years of experience

4.2.5 Profile as Per Source of Position Obtained

Among the available respondents very few were found to be politically appointed while majority
of them 161(86.1%) were found to be recruited based on their qualification.

4.2.6 Profile as Per Political Affiliation

As is in the Table 5 above 81(43.3%) of respondents are affiliated with the ruling party while
101(54.0%) of them found to be politically neutral. Relatively very few 5(2.7) are found to be
member of the oppositions (competing) party.

46
4.3 Descriptive Statistics of dependent and independent variables

Descriptive statistics in the form of arithmetic means and standard deviations for the respondents
were computed for all dimensions assessed by the Perceived Organizational Politics Survey. The
means and standard deviations of the dimensions adopted from Kacmar and Ferris (1992) POPs
model instrument (i.e. General Political Behaviour, “Going Along to Get Ahead”, Pay and
Promotion Policy) with an inclusion of newly developed dimension Political Clientelism) are
presented together with Allen and Mayer employees’ affective commitment as in Table 6.below.

Based on the Table 6 below, “Political Clientelism” has the highest mean score of 3.3187, which
is the highest among all organizational politics dimensions. Employees in Gondar city
administration view their organization as dominated with political patrimonial. The second
organizational politics trait which is perceived by respondents is “Go Along to Get Ahead”
which has a mean score of 3.2412. This result also indicates that most of the respondents
perceived their organization with people fearful and less confident not to loss what they want.
The third organizational politics trait which is perceived by respondents is Pay and Promotion
policy which has a mean score of 3.1567.

Table 6: Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive Statistics
N Minimum Maximum Mean Std.
Deviation

Affective Commitment 186 1.00 5.00 2.8454 1.23161

General Political 187 1.00 5.00 3.0775 1.18600
Behaviour
Go Along to Get Ahead 183 1.57 4.57 3.2412 .97934
Pay and Promotion 184 1.17 4.50 3.1567 .91539
Political Clientelism 187 1.20 5.00 3.3187 1.11250

Valid N (listwise) 179

Lastly, compare to other organizational political behaviour the least popular organizational
politics perceived by the respondents is “General Political Behaviour” which has the mean score
of 3.0775 and employees’ affective commitment in Gondar City Administration public Sectors
has a mean score of 2.8454, which is slightly above an average.

47
From the data collected, then, the most respondents working for Gondar City Administration
Public Offices perceived their organization as “politically clientelistic” along with servility
behaviour (Going Along to Get Ahead).While all mean scores of independent variables are well
above average mean score, the dependent variable is slightly increased from average.

4.4 Relational Analysis

The researcher used Pearson correlation analysis to find out whether dependent variable that is
employees affective commitment is correlated with each independent variable which are
General Political Behavior, Going Along to Get Ahead, Pay and Promotion Policy, and Party
Clientelism or not. Correlation (r) is a parametric technique which gives a measure of the
strength of association between any two variables. Cohen (1988) has suggested the following
guidelines: r =0.10 to 0.29 is weak relationship; r = 0.30 to 0.49 is medium correlation and r =
0.50 to 1.0 is strong relationship among variables. If there is too much correlation, value greater
than 0.9, it means absolute correlation with significant value less than 0.05 and above 0.05
values is insignificant. “Pearson’s correlation is the ratio of the variance shared by two variables”
(Cramer, 1998). Thus, the correlation analysis conducted to know the relationship between
Perceived organizational politics and employees’ affective commitment in selected GCA public
sectors is shown in the Table 7 below and discussed in the paragraphs followed. The correlation
analysis undertaken here helps us to know the relationship between organizational politics and
employees’ affective commitment.

Based on the data obtained, it is possible to say that there is substantial relationship between
employees affective commitment and general political behaviour of employees in the
organizations assessed (r= -.582, p<0.01). This indicates that employee’s affective commitment
score of GCA public offices correlated with General political behaviour score at -.582. This can
be interpreted as employees’ affective commitment score is strongly correlated with general
political behaviour in the negative direction (Table 7).

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Table 7: Correlation between Variables

Correlations
AFC GPB PPP GAGA PC

AFC Pearson
Sig. (2-tailed) 1
N 186

G PB Pearson -.582** 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .000

GAGA Pearson -.580** .707** 1

Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
N 182 183 183
** **
P PP Pearson -.499 .641 .728** 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000
N 183 184 180 184
** ** **
PC Pearson -.584 .573 .608 .511** 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000
N 186 187 183 184 187

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

As we can observe in the above table 7, it is possibility to say that there exists substantial
relationship between employees affective commitment and Employees Going Along to Get
Ahead political Behaviour (r= -0.580, p<0.01). This indicates that employee’s affective
commitment score of GCA Public sector offices strongly correlated with Going Along to Get
Ahead Behaviour score at -0.580. That is, employees’ affective commitment score correlated
with organizations “Going Along to Get Ahead” behaviour has negative relation. This can be
interpreted as employees’ affective commitment score correlated with “Go Along to Get Ahead”
behaviour significantly to the negative direction.

Table 7 above asserted that, it is possible to say that there is substantial relationship between
employees affective commitment and Pay and Promotion Policy (r= -0.499, p<0.01). This
indicates that employee’s affective commitment score of GCA public offices correlated with Pay
and Promotion Policy score at -0.499. That is, employees’ affective commitment score correlated
with Pay and Promotion Policy negatively though it is substantial. This can be interpreted as
employees’ affective commitment score negatively associated with organizations Pay and
Promotion Policy.

49
As we can observe in the above table, it is possible to say that there is substantial relationship
between employees affective commitment and Political Clientelism in the organizational (r= -
0.584, p>0.01). This indicates that employee’s affective commitment score of GCA correlated
with organizational Political Clientelism score at -0.584. That is, employees’ affective
commitment score correlated with Political Clientelism behaviour having negative but
substantially. This can be interpreted as employees’ affective commitment score is well
correlated with Political Clientelism in GCA public employees well towards to the negative
direction.

To sum up, among the four organizational politics components all are found negatively
associated with employees’ affective commitment with relatively strong relationship. From these
results we can see that employees’ affective commitment had strongly related with General
Political Behaviour, “Going Along to Get A head”, Pay and Promotion Policy, and state politics.
Therefore we can conclude that, there is sufficient evidence to accept the fact that employee’s
affective commitment is determined by the organizational politics in GCA public sectors keeping
other things constant.

4.5 Regression Analysis

4.5.1 Assumption of Multiple Linear Regression

4.5.1.1 Multi-Co linearity

According to Hawking (1983), Multi -co linearity refers to the existence of a perfect or exact
linear relationship among some or all explanatory variables of a regression model. Checking co-
linearity problem with the assumption of tolerance and VIF statistics is important before
regressing. Andy (2006) suggested that a tolerance value less than 0.1 almost certainly indicates
a serious co-linearity problem. Liu (2010) also suggested that a VIF value greater than 10 there is
also serious co-linearity problem. Therefore, the tolerance values of the independent variables of
this research are 0.441, 0.343, 0.437 and 0.587 for General Political Behaviour, Go Along to Get
Ahead, Pay and Promotion and Political Clientelism of the organization respectively. Likewise,
the variance inflation factors (VIF) are 2.265, 2.916, 2.290and 1.704 for General Political
Behaviour, Go Along to Get Ahead, Pay and Promotion and Political Clientelism respectively.
Based on the result, there was no co-linearity problem in factors affecting employees’ affective
commitment.

50
Table 8: multi-collinearity
Model 2 Collinearity Statistics
Tolerance VIF

General Political Behaviour .441 2.265

Go Along to Get Ahead .343 2.916
Pay and Promotion .437 2.290
Political Clientelism .587 1.704
a. Dependent Variable: affective commitment
Source; Survey data (2018)

4.5.1.2 Normality Test

The other important assumption in regression analysis is also that the dependent variable should
be tested for normal distribution. Normality is used to describe a symmetrical, bell-shaped curve,
which has the greatest frequency of scores around in the middle combined with smaller
frequencies towards the extremes (Collis and Hussey, 2009; Pallant, 2005). At the same, time it
provides indication about insights gap in the data and outliers while it gives idea about skewness
or symmetry.

The dependent variable in this case is employees’ affective commitment. If the dependent
variable is not normally distributed, there is little point in performing regression analysis because
a major assumption of the model is violated. Therefore, normality test computed for the
dependent variable, in this case, depicted in the histogram (figure 7) below asserted for normal
distribution. Figure 3 histogram shows a normal distribution is recorded.

51
Source: Survey data (2018)

Figure 2: Histogram as Test of Normality for Employees affective commitment

Source; Survey data (2018)

Figure 3: Normal P-P Plot of Regression Standardized Residual of AFC

52
The other checking mechanism to test the normal distribution of scores on the dependent variable
i.e. affective commitment, in our case, is the kurtosis and skewness value which is computed by
using SPSS. The normal acceptable distribution of symmetric has a zero skewness value.
However, the standard error greater than 2 indicates a normality problem. Kurtosis on the other
hand is a measure of the extent to which observation cluster around a central point. For a normal
distribution the value of the kurtosis is zero. The information in table below shows that the
coefficient of skewness (0.178, 0.179, and 0.180) and kurtosis (0.354, 0.355, 0.356 and 0.357) is
not much far from zero. Thus for this research, the histogram and the ratio of skewness to
kurtosis were checked and the result indicates that data used in the study is normally distributed
(Table 9).

Table 9: Descriptive statistics for normality

Descriptive Statistics
N Mean Std. Deviation Skewness Kurtosis
Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Std. Error Statistic Std. Error
Affective Commitment 186 2.8454 1.23161 .113 .178 -1.416 .355
General Political Behaviour 187 3.0775 1.18600 -.033 .178 -1.154 .354
Go Along to Get Ahead 183 3.2412 .97934 -.188 .180 -1.235 .357
Pay and Promotion 184 3.1567 .91539 -.247 .179 -1.083 .356
Political Clientelism 187 3.3187 1.11250 -.291 .178 -1.200 .354
Valid N (listwise) 179
Source; Survey data (2018)

4.5.1.3 Linearity test

Linearity assumption of multiple regressions was tested using scatter plot test and it was found
that there is linear relationship between independent and dependent variables (Figure 9). The
linearity result depicted the distribution of residuals near to the mean zero. The scatter plot of the
dependent variable falls almost in a rectangular except few outliers (Figure 10).

53
 Source: Survey data (2018)

Figure 4: Scatter plot for the Dependent Variable

4.5.2 Multiple Linear Regression Analysis: The Effect of POPs on EAFC

One of the objectives of this paper was to examine the predictive power of general organizational
behaviour, go along to get ahead, pay and promotion policy, and political Clientelism to
employees’ affective commitment in selected public service organizations in Gondar city
administration.

Multiple regression analysis is used to measure the statistical effect of each individual
independent variable (i.e. general organizational behaviour, go along to get ahead, pay and
promotion policy, and political Clientelism) on the dependent variable (affective commitment).

This measurement is made by referring the value of adjusted R2 to explain the magnitude of the
effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable. Thus, the model presents how much
of the variance in employees affective commitment is explained by the selected organizational
political factors: general organizational behaviour, go along to get ahead, pay and promotion
policy, and political Clientelism.

54
The equation of multiple regressions on this study is generally built on the set of variable,
employee affective commitment as dependent variable and general organizational behaviour, go
along to get ahead, pay and promotion policy, and political Clientelism as an independent
variables of organizational politics.

A hierarchically regressed variable result for the model summery indicates an overall effect of
independent variables on dependent variables to each model. While 38.8% variation in
employees affective commitment is explained by organizational politics factors (general
organizational behaviour, go along to get ahead, and pay and promotion policy under Model 1
where R square is 0.398. However, an inclusion of the fourth variable has improved model 1
with an adjusted R square result of 0.441 and R square of is .453. This means 44.1% of our
dependent variable (AFC) is better explained by our independent variables (GPB, GAGA, PPP,
and PC) by the second model developed in Gondar city administration public servants. The
inclusion of additional variable, i.e., Political Clientelism, accounted for additional 5.5% of
variance in explaining Employees’ affective Commitment. This result is also found statistically
significant (Sig. F Change< 0.1)

Table 10: Multiple Regression results

Model Summary

Change Statistics

Mode Adjusted R Std. Error of R Square Sig. F

l R R Square Square the Estimate Change F Change df1 df2 Change

1 .631a .398 .388 .96375 .398 38.775 3 176 .000

2 .673b .453 .441 .92123 .055 17.625 1 175 .000

a. Predictors: (Constant), Pay and Promotion , General Political Behaviour, Go Along to Get Ahead
b. Predictors: (Constant), Pay and Promotion , General Political Behaviour, Go Along to Get Ahead, Political Clientelism
d. Dependent Variable: Affective Commitment
Source; Survey data (2018)

55
Table 11: ANOVA regressions for dependent and independent variables

ANOVAa
Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

1 Regression 108.045 3 36.015 38.775 .000b

Residual 163.472 176 .929

Total 271.517 179

2 Regression 123.003 4 30.751 36.235 .000c

Residual 148.515 175 .849

Total 271.517 179

a. Dependent Variable: Affective Commitment

b. Predictors: (Constant), Pay and Promotion , General Political Behaviour, Go Along to Get Ahead
c. Predictors: (Constant), Pay and Promotion , General Political Behaviour, Go Along to Get Ahead,
Political Clientelism
Source; Survey data (2018)

The table 11 above presented the overall significant relationship between employees’ affective
commitment with dependent variables under its respective model. From the statistics in the
model, if the value of F > 1 and p< 0.05, the model is fit to predict the effect of independent
variables on dependent variable. The result of the study shown that the prediction power of the
model is fit at F- value of 38.775 and 36.831 respectively for Model 1 and Model 2 while , P=
.000 (p<0.01, F>1). Though the ANOVA result depicts the predictive utility of both Models, we
took the second model for its additional explanatory contribution in aggregate and statistically
significant.

Therefore, the multiple linear regression mode 2 is appropriate to this research to predict the
effects of organizations Pay and Promotion , General Political Behaviour, Go Along to Get
Ahead, Political Clientelism on employees affective commitment under their respective models.

56
Table 12: Regression coefficients of Effect of POPs on EAFC

Coefficientsa

Model Unstandardized Standardized t Sig. 95.0% Confidence

Coefficients Coefficients Interval for B
B Std. Error Beta Lower Bound Upper Bound

1 (Constant) 5.409 .272 19.891 .000 4.872 5.945

GPB -.337 .089 -.325 -3.795 .000 -.513 -.162
GAGA -.370 .121 -.294 -3.070 .002 -.608 -.132
PPP -.103 .119 -.076 -.866 .388 -.337 .132

2 (Constant) 5.720 .270 21.163 .000 5.187 6.254

GPB -.253 .087 -.243 -2.890 .004 -.425 -.080
GAGA -.229 .120 -.182 -1.906 .058 -.466 .008
PPP -.073 .114 -.054 -.640 .523 -.297 .152
PC -.339 .081 -.306 -4.198 .000 -.499 -.180
a: Affective commitment is the dependent variable

Source; Survey data (2018)

This study aimed to identify the effect level of independent variables in the prediction of the
dependent variable. Thus, the strength of each predictor variable influence on the criterion
variable can be investigated via unstandardized Beta coefficient. Hence, the regression
coefficient explain the average amount of change in dependent variable that caused by a unit of
change in the independent variable. It revealed the relative predictive power of each variable
independently after the considerations of all other variables in the model were controlled.

In order to determine which of the factors contributed to prediction of employees’ affective

commitment, the unstandardized regression coefficients or beta weights (ß) were examined in
(Table 12). Political client behaviour is the most contributing organizational factor in the
prediction of employee affective commitment with beta value -0.306. The results suggest that
political clientelism contributes almost 30.6 % to employee affective commitment in Gondar city
administration selected public organizations. The second highest beta value is General political
behaviour with -0.243 beta value contributing 24.3% to employees’ affective commitment. The
third beta value of organizational politics is “Going Along to Get Ahead” with -0.182 which

57
contribute 18.2% to employees’ affective commitment. The last beta value of organizational
politics is Pay and Promotion Policy with -0.054which contribute 5.4% to employees’ affective
commitment.
Given the models’ fitness with significance at level of less than 0.05 (p=0.000), we can predict
employee affective commitment from the dimensions of organizational politics significant model
(Table10). Based on Table 11 using individual variables` the regression analysis Equation will
be;

EAFC=5.720-0.243 GPB-0.182GAGA-0.054PPP-0.306PC

Where:
EAC = Employee affective commitment
GPB =General Political Behaviour
GAGA= Go along to Get Ahead
PPP = Pay and Promotion Policy
PC = Political Clientelism

4.6 Hypothesis Testing

Based on the un-standardized coefficient of beta and p-value, the hypotheses of the study were
tested and the results of the study are presented below.

H1: Organizational politics, as measured by general political behaviour, has a significant

negative influence on employees’ commitment in Gondar City Administration.

The result shows there is relationship between general political Behaviour and employees’
affective commitment (β = -0.253, P=0.004) and P<0.05, the hypothesis of general political
Behaviour has a negative and significant effect on employee affective commitment in Gondar
city administration.

Therefore, H1 is accepted.

58
H2: Organizational politics, as measured by “going along to get ahead”, has a significant
negative influence on employees’ affective commitment in Gondar City Administration.

The obtained result shows there is significant relationship between Go along to Get Ahead and
employee affective commitment (β = -0.229, p=0.058) and p<0.10, the hypothesis of Go along to
Get Ahead has a negative and significant effect on employee affective commitment, and then the
alternative hypothesis is accepted, however weak the relationship is, in commercial Gondar city
administration..

Therefore, H2 is accepted.

H3: Organizational politics, as measured by pay and promotion policy, has a significant negative
influence on employees’ commitment in Gondar City Administration.
The obtained result shows there is no positive significant relationship between pay and
promotion policy and employee affective commitment (β = -0.073, p>0.05) and p= 0.523, the
hypothesis of the pay and promotion policy has a negative but insignificant effect on employee
affective commitment in commercial Gondar City Administration.

Therefore H3 is rejected.

H4: Organizational politics, as measured by political clientelism, has a significant negative

influence on employees’ commitment in Gondar city administration.

The obtained result shows there is significant relationship between political clientelism and
employee affective commitment (β = -0.339, p<0.05) and p=0.000, the hypothesis of mission
political clientelism has been a negative and significant effect on employee affective
commitment, and then the alternative hypothesis is accepted in Gondar city administration.

Therefore H4 is accepted.

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Table 13: Summary of hypothesis

H. No Hypothesis Beta value P- value Result

H1 H1: Organizational politics, as measured by
general political behaviour, has a significant
negative influence on employees’ commitment
in Gondar City Administration.
H1a. Affective commitment -0.253 0.004 Accepted
H2 Organizational politics, as measured by “going along
to get ahead”, has a significant negative influence on
employees’ affective commitment in Gondar City
Administration
H2a. Affective commitment -0.229 0.058 Accepted
H3 Organizational politics, as measured by pay and
promotion policy, has a significant negative
influence on employees’ commitment in Gondar
City Administration.
H3a. Affective commitment -0.073 0.523 Rejected
H4 Organizational politics, as measured by political
clientelism, has a significant negative influence
on employees’ commitment in Gondar city
administration.
H4a. Affective commitment -0.339 0.000 Accepted
Source; Survey data (2018)

As the hypothesis summary table 12, shows one dimension of organizational politics (pay and
promotion policy) is rejected because it relationship was insignificant with employee affective
commitment in city administration and organizational politics (i.e. General political behaviour,
Go along to get ahead and political clientelism) are accepted because they have a negative
significant relationship with employee affective commitment in Gondar city administration.

60
 4.7 Discussion on Major Findings
This section summarized the core points and major findings which were obtained from data
analysis of survey questionnaires:

The numbers of male respondents in the sample population are a bit higher (female 39.6%, male
60.4%). The largest group of the population comprises first-degree holders, which is 71.1 % of
the total respondents. Furthermore, 35.8% of the respondents have 5 and less years of experience
whereas 64.2 of them has an experience of 6 years and above in Gondar city administration and
these takes majority. Political clientelism has the highest mean score of 3.3187which is the
highest among the other organizational political dimensions. The mean score for the measures of
go along to get ahead is high (3.2412), followed by pay and promotion policy (3.1567), and
general political behaviour (3.0775).This indicates that, the majority of respondents have slight
agreement on all the measures. Mean score of employee affective commitment is (2.8454) the
responses are above average. This indicates that employees probably have medium emotional
attachment towards their organization.

Pearson coefficients implies that the four organizational politics dimensions factors measuring
perceived organizational politics were all negatively related with employees affective
commitment within the range of 0.499 to 0.584, all were significant at p<0.00 level. Findings
from the multiple regression analysis shows, 44.1% variation in employee affective commitment
is explained by organizational politics (where by R square is .430 and adjusted R square is .453).
Furthermore, the significance value of F change statistics shows a value .000, which is less than
p<0.05, implies the model is significant. This Finding is consistent with other research findings.

Vigoda and Kapun (2005) studied the effect of organizational politics on private and public
organizations and found a negative association with organisational commitment –0.44 and –0.41
respectively. Rehan and Asma (2013) found a correlation of -0.50 between POPs and employees
organizational affective Commitment. Miller et al (2008) also found correlation between the
dependent and independent variable being -0.41. Moreover, Cropanzano, Howes, Grandey and
Toth (1997) also found a -0.63 correlation of POPs with organizational commitment. And a
research conducted on Pakistani public sector by Raiz (2013) reached the same conclusion on the
association of POPs and affective organizational commitment with a correlation result (r = -0.15;

61
p<0.01). Recent researches are similarly indicate a negative association between POPs and
affective commitment having-0.256 and -0.126 with p<0.01 for General Political Behaviour and
Go along to Get Ahead dimensions respectively (Yilmaz E., Özer G., and Gunluk M., 2014).

Political clientelism is the most contributing perceived organizational politics traits in the
prediction of employees` affective commitment with beta value -0.306. And general political
behaviour, go along to get ahead and pay and promotion policy contribute the following beta
value in the prediction of employees affective commitment (B=-0.243), (B= -0.182), (B=-0.054)
respectively.

There is no multi co linearity problem among all perceived organizational politics variables
which is asserted by tolerance values greater than 0.1 and VIF value less than 10.
Alternative hypotheses related to General political behaviour, go along to get ahead and political
clientelism are accepted as significance levels are .004(p>0.05), .0583 (p>0.10) and .000(p>0.05)
respectively. To the contrary, alternative hypotheses which is related with pay and promotion
policy is rejected as significance levels are .523(p>0.05). It shows that payment and promotion
does not have significant effect on the level of employee affective commitment.

This is also consistent with other previously conducted researches. Regression result of POP
conducted by Rehan and Asma (2013) had a negative direct effect on affective commitment (= -
0.19, p > 5%). Similarly, Miller et al (2008) with the 95% confidence interval found a regression
result R2 ranged from -0.68 to -0.14-; p<.05. The beta coefficient for relationship of POPs and
affective commitment was estimated -0.966 with a significant negative direct effect (Atta et al,
2012) in non western culture. This finding too aligned to results obtained from the work of Raiz
(2013). In her study a significant effects of perception of politics on affective commitment was
estimated with an R2=-0.233; p<0.001). A recent study by Utami A., Bangun Y., and Lantu
D.,(2014) used the three variables(GPB,GAGA and PPP) and found the negative regression
result for POPs and OC beta value of -.338 at p=0.000. However, taking the regression
estimation of each independent variables with negative but insignificant effect on organizational
affective commitment (Adj R2= -0.073; p>10%) pay and promotion policy, in this research, is
against other results referred above.

62
 4.8 Chapter Summary
This research borrowed the three dimensional POPs scale(General Political Behaviour, Go along
to get ahead and Pay and Promotion Policy) from Kacmar and Carlson (1997) and included
additional dimension(Political clientelism) taking the Ethiopian public sector context with five
items. The newly included items and variable were initiated for two reasons. First, the
consideration of using the recommendation of scholars in the field (Kacmar and Ferris, 1991;
Kacmar and Carlson, 1997) to develop the theory of POPs as contribution across cultures
(Timothy, 2012). Second, from personal experience and government system the Model
developed from western democracies, the public sectors is relatively free of the ruling parties and
are operating in a business like environment, could not help to grasp the whole bunch of POPs in
the developing world found at different socio economic status. Therefore, contextualizing the
previously developed POPs to the national context found important. The original factors along
with the newly added variable showed good and significantly correlations within the range of -
0.499 to -0.584 coefficients to employees’ affective commitment. Thus, all independent variables
used i.e. General Political Behaviour; Go along to get ahead, Pay and Promotion Policy and
Political clientelism show a higher level of negative relation with the dependent variable. This
finding is consistent with the findings of other researchers.

In addition, the result of multiple regression analysis of this research paper shows that political
clientelism is the most contributing organizational politics traits in the prediction of employee
affective commitment with beta value of -0.306. General political behaviour and Going Along to
get ahead consecutively contributed -0.253 and -0.229. The regression result of the model in
General was able to explain a substantial amount of variance in affective commitment with
Adj.R2= -0.441; p<1%.

63
 CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

5 Introduction
This chapter commences a review of the main objectives of the study and a summary of the
results relating to them. Conclusions are drawn from the results obtained, limitations are
highlighted and recommendations for further research and for the organization are provided.

5.1 Summary of main findings

The main objective of this study was to examine the effect of perceived organizational politics
on employees’ commitment in the public sectors under Gondar city administration. To carry out
this study descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analysis were employed using IBM
SPSS (2015) program package. To conduct this study the following basic questions were
developed.

 Does employees’ perceived organizational politics as measured by general political

behaviour affect organizational commitment?
 Does the “go along to get ahead” perceived organizational politics affect organizational
commitment?
 Does employees’ perceived organizational politics as measured by pay and promotion
policy affect organizational commitment?
 Does party politics as part of organizational politics played a significant role in affecting
employees’ commitment in Gondar City Administration?

To address the basic and specific question of the research data were collected from 12 public
offices under Gondar city administration using simple random technique. Out of 529 public
employees in the city 215 were taken for the sample test and distributed a questionnaire in which
only 187 returned for valid entry and 28 were failed to be collected.

After conducting different investigations on the interesting variables it come up with the
following major findings:

64
“Political Clientelism” has the highest mean score of 3.3187, which is the highest among all
organizational politics dimensions. Hence, Employees in Gondar city administration view their
organization as dominated with political clientelism. The second organizational politics trait
which is perceived by respondents is “Go Along to Get Ahead” which has a mean score of
3.2412. This result, likewise, indicates that most respondents perceived their organization has
employees with servility behaviour for not to loss what they thought is important. Compared to
other organizational political behaviour the least popular organizational politics perceived by the
respondents is Pay and Promotion Policy which has the mean score of 3.1567. Lastly,
organizational politics trait which is perceived by respondents is “General Political Behaviour
“which has a mean score of 3.0775. And, employees’ affective commitment in Gondar city
administration public Sectors has a mean score of 2.8454, which is about an average.

The correlation result of the study showed general political behaviour is negatively and
significantly related to employees’ affective commitment by (r= - 0.582, p=0.00). Go along to
get ahead dimension of POPs of Gondar City administration have a negative and significant
relationship with employees affective commitment by (r= -0.580, p=0.00). The administration
pay and promotion policy is negatively and significantly related to employees’ affective
commitment by (r= -0.499, p=0.000). The political clientelism nature in the administration has a
positive and significant relationship with employees affective commitment by (r= -0.584,
p=0.000).

The regression analysis of the study using model 2 with four of the independent variables can
explain 44.1% of the variations in employees’ affective commitment in the organization and the
remaining 55.9 % of variance remain are explained by other factors.

5.2 Conclusion
This study was initiated to examine the effect of perceived organizational politics on employee
affective commitment in Gondar city administration. The study found that political clientelism is
the first and the most contributing POPs dimension in the prediction of employee affective
commitment. This implies that employees in the city administration perceived unfair relation
between supervisors and their peers under the pretext of party affiliation. The role of the ruling
party in supervising the bureaucracy through creating overlapping offices has stronger influence

65
over its respective administration against the conventional modus operandi of running public
office. One means of ensuring control is conducting the performance appraisal of offices and
employees in light of what the party dictates strength and weakness. Ipso facto, an apparent and
significant level of disappointment is intensified causing negative reaction toward employees’
commitment to their administration. In addition to creating overlapping offices and positions, the
ruling party appointed its loyal individuals over resourceful sectors. Those individuals will serve
their masters and their own self interest using their public position and client protection. Thirdly,
the group may influence professional recruitment in the sectors catching their interest thereby
serve party purpose in their respective fields.

The adversarial impact of these practices on employee affective commitment is aggravated

because of its use for satisfying personal interest apart from party/national interest. One of the
means to influence others either to cooperate or refrain from objecting their practice is
mentioning party instructions, their loyalty, connections and dedication, when they may or may
not in reality. In return for their misconduct, their group members (who are in the hierarchy of
the party) provide them protections from being held accountable such as arranging a safe
position or transfer. This is what Paulos (2007) termed “political clientelism”. Employees
perceived this flawed party-government wedding either decides to be pseudo zealot so that to
met their personal benefit or refrain themselves to stand out against political clientelism.
Considering all members joined the party would not be able getting what they wanted, their
attachment with their party and office would be deteriorated. Therefore, it is possible to conclude
that POPs as measured by political clientelism significantly affects employees’ affective
commitment to their organization in Gondar city administration reminding the regression
analysis results computed above.

The second and the most contributing POPs trait in predicting employees` affective commitment
is general political behavior. General political behaviour is associated with individuals’ effort to
actively participate in forming or joining unsanctioned groups and practices pursuing to satisfy
the interest of self. Such political behaviour might be triggered by a number of factors; scarce
resource, ambiguous policies and directions, and decision making under uncertainty (Kacmar
and Carlson, 1997). Under organizational system where rules are unable to support all conditions
popped up in the sector, individuals are offered an opportunity to give their own interpretation

66
inclined to their favor. Individuals who are heading this sloped interpretation endeavored for
legitimacy by deceiving and co-opting colleagues or go after those who are against them
otherwise. Second when resources are scarce, it is for few that is possible to satisfy personal
benefit even by compromising the organizational interest.

In the Ethiopian civil service the remuneration is meager, promotions and transfers are limited;
i.e., resources are scarce viz. Hence, competition over these opportunities is expected to be
higher. For this very reason individuals jockey to win any available opportunities worth
benefiting from recruit to maneuver others. As benefits are limited in any way, however, many of
the employees lost trust in their organization and demised to the nadir of affective commitment.
From this stand point and this research finding, it is possible to conclude that general political
behaviour is prevalent in Gondar city administration and affected employees` affective
commitment negatively and significantly.

“Go along to get ahead”, following general political behaviour, is the third contributor for
adversely effecting employees’ commitment in Gondar city administration. This dimension of
politicking is envisaged when individuals show a desire of “avoiding conflict, and therefore, not
resist others’ influence attempts” (Kacmar and Carlson, 1997). Albeit their inactivity against
treats from politicians, they have still a stake being a pawns of others. Considering their silent
reaction in fear of the conflict which may precipitated losing regular benefits, it is still protecting
personal benefit than organization`s; being a benefactor for forward politicians. Hence, they
themselves considered politicking. Second to that, their silence provides additional benefits and
which is reasonably considered them as member of operating political group (Frost, 1987).
Perceiving and identifying this political behaviour in their organizations leads employees to be
apathetic and lethargic in discharging their duties over time. The result of this study, albeit
minimal, has found a negative and significant effect on employees’ affective commitment.
Therefore, it is for the third round possible to conclude that perceived organizational politics as
measured by go along to get ahead has a negative significant effect on employees’ affective
commitment in public sector of Gondar city administration.

The last independent variable, pay and promotion policy, however, found insignificant in
affecting employees organizational commitment though estimated correlation is relatively

67
stronger and directed negatively. Given pay and promotion policy is associated with the
organizations human resource practice in rewarding political behaviours. If “Organizations
designed reward systems that perpetuate political behavior in a variety of ways (Kacmar and
Feriss, 1992), i.e., favoring individual political behaviours than organizational interest, it can be
identified with a political behaviour of pay and promotion policy. Because of this fact employees
tend to enter in to politicking so as to win rewards, just for personal benefit, by following the
rewarding policy while compromising organizational interests. Collusion of individuals for this
purpose dejected others; therefore affect their attachment with the organization.

Despite this mainstream research output, the regression result of this study tells insignificant
effect of pay and promotion policy in the study area and culture. This can be understood for
employees’ perception in Gondar city administration associated with the pay and promotion
policy IS attributed for other causes, therefore, overlook its negative impact on their affective
commitment. Among others, employees might have found worth compete for rewards from the
HRM system, rather focused on other better means of satisfying their self interest. This let us
conclude that a pay and promotion policy dimension, keeping other things constant, of POPs is
negatively related to organizational commitment but failed to uniquely contribute on its variance.

5.3 Recommendations
Based on the research finding and conclusions made, the researcher came up with some
important recommendations which would help Gondar city administration on effectively
managing perceived organizational politics that significantly contribute to the improvement of
employees` affective commitment. The recommendations given are the following:

 The overall result of this research indicates that perceived organizational politics has a
significant negative influence on employees` affective commitment in Gondar city
administration. Among others, political clientelism is highly perceived and substantially
affected employees’ affective commitment in the administration. Though the impact is
induced externally and couldn’t be alleviated by the administration`s lone capacity, there
needs to have an effort to work as far as the working legal and administrative system
supports so. In addition, there need to be a system that provides counter protection for those

68
 threatening political deceivers under the disguise of any political party or connections to any
group. More importantly, in collaboration with the regional and central governments, it is
advised to work to separate the political and administrative responsibilities of employees
through legal and structural arrangements so that employees need relative freedom of
conducting their will in which their affective commitment to their administration is
improved.

 General political behaviour is perceived by employees of the administration based on our

empirical assessment. This means employees agreed the prevalence of dominant individual
behaviour whom endeavored for personal interest by threatening the interest of others and
organization. Moreover, it is found that those individuals often create a political group so as
to influence decisions. As those individual and group behaviours are evolved from scarce
resources and ambiguous policies and instructions, the city administration need to adopt and
communicate clear instructions for delivering public services efficiently. Any legal and
administrative loopholes open for misinterpretation and doubt shall be continuously
addressed. Given the capacity of the administration, available budgets and working materials
together with open and lawful employee transfer, responsibility assignment and promotion
shall be devised and communicated with employees. Here, the supervision and formal and
informal communication of higher officials shall be employee centered and be supported
with clear instructions.

 The third bunch of recommendation goes in response to addressing the go along to get ahead
behaviours. This behaviour, albeit limited compared to the previous two, is perceived
impacting employees commitment negatively. This behaviour is critical that the
administration shall ponder over. Employees need to be empowered to stand influences from
political groups. Transparency and rule based performance evaluation and supervision
encouraging employees to criticize, comment and whistle blow any misconducts shall be
established and promoted. The administrative system need to be structured and function in
the way that underpins pro-organization (people) practices and punish self serving political
behaviour and practice.

69
 Finally, though the pay and promotion policy was not perceived having unique contribution
in reducing employees’ commitment, it is worth considering its application as its mean score
estimated over average. Sticking to the civil service proclamation and directives with an open
and participatory application while fostering organizational interests will have an assist in
reducing the negatively perceived pay and promotion political behaviour of the human
resource practice.

5.4 Limitation of the Study

The issue of organizational politics, especially when conducted in the civil service, is sensitive
and doubtful which may led the respondents themselves politicize in responding items. In this
kind of topic methods shall help to triangulate such as one to one interview and FGD. Hence, it is
believed that all the necessary data are not perfectly obtained. The model applied introducing
new variable and items is applied only on the Ethiopian context from the sample taken in one
metropolitan city. Ipso facto the research and model may not work to generalize to other cultures
and places.

Future researches can contribute on the model and topic by testing to different population and
cultures. Changing the data collection method and analysis technique can be used for further
understanding in unique public and private environments in the developing world. Thirdly,
state/nation-wide study is needed as competition for and amount of resources are varied and
plenty in which actors are supposed to be qualified in politicking.

5.5 Contribution of the Study

This research issue of organizational politics is under researched in developing world.

Furthermore this topic is less studied in public offices. Above all the issue of organizational
politics has been separately studied from state politics; from which it originated. This deviation
by the western scholars is probably attributed for the mainstream understanding held over
separation of state and politics and the flow of resource ownership and management from public
to private sector. However, the increasing complexity of social and economic system is pushing
party politics (politician) involvement against the long held civil bureaucracy. From this stand
point, the study of organizational politics shall consider state politics for studies to be conducted

70
in the developed world. This research can be considered among the first row in an attempt to
address the issue. This is the first contribution of this study paper.

Secondly, and most importantly, contrary to the previous argument, most of the developing
world public sectors are under strict control of national politics and subject to serving politicians’
purpose of their time. Hence, studying organizational politics in this specific sector and context
requires an approach that can address political clientelism as a means of pursuing self interest
under the disguise of political connections. Political clientelism has been studied from political
science and resource distribution perspective which is the overt act conducted when state
institutions are failed to effectively function. Associating this field of study with organizational
behaviour which mostly emphasis on perceived level of issues help practitioners to definitively
grasp the whole intent of the topic. The study has attempted fill this knowledge gap.

71
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 Appendixes
Questionnaire
Bahir Dar University
College of Business and Economics
Department of Management: MBA Program
Dear respondent:-
I, Abraraw Chale, a graduate student of Bahir Dar University, am conducting a research on “The
effect of organizational politics on employees’ commitment in the Public Sector: The Case of
Gondar City Administration”. The purpose of this questionnaire is, therefore, to collect data
from Gondar City Administration employees.

As information collected from this survey will be used in strict confidence and for research
purposes only, therefore, has no impact on your employment with this organization, it is
important that you answer each question and respond to each statement as openly and candidly
as possible. You are not expected to write your name for the sake of confidentiality.

Thank you in advance for your kind cooperation!

Part One: General information of respondent

Age
20 or below 31-35 21-25 36-40 26-30 41 or above
Gender
Male Female
Highest Level of Education
Diploma Bachelors Masters Other

Post
Politically appointed Civil servant (Part Member)

Income Level
Below 2,500 2,500- Above 4,500

Years with this Organization

Less than a year 1-5 yrs. 6-10 yrs. 10 or above

79
Part Two: Perceived Organizational Politics
Please indicate the degree of your agreement/disagreement with the following statements. (Mark “x” the choice
that best describes your view)

Employees POPs of Gondar City Administration

Agree nor
Disagree

Disagree
Strongly

Strongly
disagree

Neither

Agree

agree
Factor 1: General Political Behavior

People in this organization attempt to build themselves up by tearing others down.

There has always been an influential group in this department that no one ever crosses.
Factor 2: Go Along to Get Ahead
Employees are encouraged to speak out frankly even when they are critical of well-established ideas.
There is no place for yes-men around here; good ideas are desired even if it means disagreeing with
superiors.
Agreeing with powerful others is the best alternative in this organization.
It is best not to rock the boat in this organization.
Sometimes it is easier to remain quiet than to fight the system.
Telling others what they want to hear is sometimes better than telling the truth.
It is safer to think what you are told than to make up your own mind.
Factor 3: Pay and Promotion Policies
Since I have worked in this department, I have never seen the pay and promotion policies applied
politically.
I can’t remember when a person received a pay increase or promotion that was inconsistent with the published
policies.
None of the raises I have received are consistent with the policies on how raises should be determined.

The stated pay and promotion policies have nothing to do with how pay raises and promotions are determined.

When it comes to pay raise and promotion decisions, policies are irrelevant.
Promotions around here are not valued much because how they are determined is so political.
Factor 4: Political clientelism
There are feared people here because they are party members
Employees` performance appraisal is conducted in line with party criteria and direction than job
specifications and description
There are influential employees here because they are loyal and committed party members
Loyal and committed party members are heard and believed by the top officials than others.
It is political affiliation taken as the criteria to go to top
Party evaluation results and decisions affected organizational and individual performance evaluation.
Employee Commitment
I feel a strong sense of belonging to my organization
I am proud to tell others that I work at my organization
I feel personally attached to my organization

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 Reliability Test of Each Item
General Political Behaviour
Item-Total Statistics

Corrected Item- Cronbach's

Scale Mean if Scale Variance Total Alpha if Item
Item Deleted if Item Deleted Correlation Deleted

GPB1 2.97 1.816 .571 .

GPB2 3.19 1.766 .571 .

Go Along to Get Ahead

Item-Total Statistics

Cronbach's
Scale Mean if Scale Variance Corrected Item- Alpha if Item
Item Deleted if Item Deleted Total Correlation Deleted

GAGR1 19.77 34.785 .638 .813

GAGR2 19.61 36.590 .557 .826
GAGA3 19.38 36.523 .565 .825
GAGA4 18.89 39.867 .376 .849
GAGA5 19.38 31.501 .753 .793
GAGA6 19.68 33.459 .689 .805
GAGA7 19.42 35.343 .583 .822

Pay and Promotion Policy

Item-Total Statistics

Corrected Item- Cronbach's

Scale Mean if Scale Variance Total Alpha if Item
Item Deleted if Item Deleted Correlation Deleted

PPR1 15.76 23.287 .418 .778

PPR2 15.59 22.669 .439 .775
PPP3 16.10 22.115 .526 .753
PPP4 15.84 21.292 .615 .732
PPP5 15.78 20.368 .637 .725
PPP6 15.62 21.385 .572 .742

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Political Clientelism
Item-Total Statistics

Corrected Item- Cronbach's

Scale Mean if Scale Variance Total Alpha if Item
Item Deleted if Item Deleted Correlation Deleted

PA1 13.02 20.752 .646 .813

PA2 13.43 19.526 .652 .812
PA3 13.43 20.300 .689 .801
PA4 13.31 20.462 .652 .811
PA5 13.19 21.841 .614 .821

Affective Commitment
Item-Total Statistics

Corrected Item- Cronbach's

Scale Mean if Scale Variance Total Alpha if Item
Item Deleted if Item Deleted Correlation Deleted

AC1 8.21 14.556 .717 .897

AC2 8.64 14.221 .774 .877
AC3 8.57 14.290 .815 .863
AC4 8.73 13.314 .826 .858

Linearity of each variable to the dependent variable

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