How organizational politics impact performance and deviance through authenticity and exhaustion

We used a multi-method approach (i.e., two experiments and a multi-source survey) to investigate the mediating mechanisms that link two distinct facets of organizational politics to employee performance and deviance. Study 1 adopted an experimental design to test the impact of high/low general political behavior on authenticity. The lowest levels of authenticity were found in subjects in the high (versus low) general political behavior condition. In study 2, we used a similar experimental design to test if high/low perceptions of politics related to pay and promotion influence emotional exhaustion at work. Subjects in the condition depicting high politics in pay and promotion reported the highest levels of emotional exhaustion. Study 3 replicated and generalized the results from Studies 1 and 2 by surveying 132 employees and their supervisors working in a call center. The results show that authenticity mediated the effect of general politics on supervisor-rated performance and that emotional exhaustion mediated the effect of pay and promotion politics on supervisor-rated deviance. Overall, our findings suggest that distinctive types of perceived political behaviors at work influence individuals in negative ways, eventually inducing employees to lower their performance and engage in deviant practices.