The Relationships between Perceived Organisational Politics, Employee Political Skill and Job Stress among Employees in the Ghanaian Private Sector

Abstract

This study examined the relationships between Perceived organisational politics, Employee political skill and Job stress and further sought to explain the context of Organisational politics from the perspective of the individual. The transactional stress model guided this research. This model acknowledges that individuals can have extremely distinct attitudinal and behavioral responses to the same situation. Using a cross sectional survey design and convenience sampling, questionnaires were administered to 250 employees from the private formal sector across various industries in Ghana. Findings indicated that lower level employees perceived more politics compared to employees at high organisational levels. Political skill was found to moderate the relationship between Organisational politics and Job stress. It was also found that among the dimensions of Political skill, Networking Ability was the most predictive of Job stress. It is recommended that Political skill should be used to improve or reduce stress by training the political skill of the employees. Human resource personnel should use political skill as a determinant of higher level of performance or employee success during selection and recruitment.