The antecedents and consequences of the political skills: a longitudinal case study

Abstract

Political skills(PK) have been a new subject under discussion in recent years.But the existing literature has been confined to the impact of the study on PK on the variables of the outcome of individual work,and it has been rare to probe the antecedents of PK and their intermediary mechanism that impacts on the variables of the results of work.Taking as the object of our research 324 university graduates who have just become employees in 20 manufacturing industries and their corresponding supervisors,we have make an attempt to make a case study on the above-mentioned subject under discussion.The results of our study indicate that the development of employees ' PK is due to their individuality,and their personality of self-monitoring,their internal distinctive character of self-control and their outgoing personality have positive effect on employees' PK,that PK are a kind of obtainable individual ability that can be obtained via personal learning,that the supervisor's political teaching can help employees to upgrade their PK,that employees' political study plays a role of complete intermediaries in the relationship between the political guidance and the PK,and that PK can promote the employees' professional development by means of backing their individual reputation and power.

政治技能是近年來一個新興的研究議題,已有文獻局限于研究政治技能對個體工作結果變量的影響,鮮有探討政治技能的前因及其對工作結果變量影響的中介機制。以20家制造企業中的324名新入職大學生員工及其主管為研究對象,本文對以上議題進行了實證探討。研究結果表明:員工的政治技能發展首先是"個性使然",自我監控性格、內控人格特質、外向性格對員工政治技能具有正向影響作用;政治技能是一種可以習得的個體能力,具備學習效應,主管的政治教導能幫助員工提高政治技能,同時,員工政治學習在政治教導與政治技能的關系中起著完全中介的作用;政治技能促進員工的職業發展,該作用是通過促進個人聲譽和個體權力而實現的。