Influence of organizational politics on employees' performance: a case of Apple Inc

Author (s): Iloka Benneth Chiemelie 

Published: 08/12/2013

0.1 ABSTRACT

Purpose: existing literatures suggest that the perception of organizational politics negatively influence employees’ performance in the workplace, and these negative influences can be reduced by numerous mitigating factors. This is the main purpose of the research “To evaluate the impacts of perceived organizational politics on job performance, and the roles of emotional intelligence and workplace spirituality in mitigating these impacts in relation to a real-time scenario in Apple Inc. ”

Design / methodology / approach: this research is primary based; with data for prove of hypotheses gathered via online survey. The choice of online survey is to offer responders from all over the world to participate in contributing to the overall quality of the research. The gathered data were analyzed with SPSS – factor analysis and multivariate regressions were conducted to prove the hypotheses.

Findings – it was revealed in the finding that perceived organizational politics can reduce job performance and employees level of commitment. This is because; victimized employees see the organization as not being appreciative of their contributions towards the growth of the system. It was also revealed in the finding that emotional intelligence and workplace spirituality help to reduce the negative influences exerted on job performance and employees commitment by organizational politics.

Originality / value: the findings offer important implications for the support of theories on organizational politics and job performance, and how emotional intelligence and workplace spirituality help to mitigate these issues.

Keywords: organizational politics, emotional intelligence, workplace spirituality, Apple Inc.

Paper type: Research work for the award of MSc (Management).

  

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Organizational politics is becoming a common topic in management studies. This is mainly because of the high negative influence it has on the workforce. As managers struggle to find new realms for improving overall productivity, factors such as perceived organizational politics is a worry to most managers. This is because; the way an employee perceives organizational politics can directly influence his level of commitment and job performance (Ferris and Kacmar, 1992; Vigoda-Gadot, 2003). The main reason behind such influence has been attributed to the fact that, organizational politics is normally perceived in situations that are related to power and sharing. That is, employs can easily view abuse of power or denial of worthy appraisal as neglect for their commitment to the organization, and this will reduce their overall commitment and performance.

As a support to the above statements are recent studies which have found organizational politics and political perceptions as having a negative influence on both workers and their working environment (e.g., Ferris et al., 1989; Ferris et al., 2002; Kacmar & Baron, 1999; Mayes and Allen, 1977; Porter et al., 1981). Studies (e.g. Witt, 1998; Kacmar et al., 1999) have indicated that there is an existing negative relationship between job performance and perceived organizational politics.

In this case, this paper aims to illustrate the influence of organizational politic on employees’ performance by considering a scenario form an existing company. The chosen company for this case is Apple Inc. in the United States. This paper will undertake a critical study of recent issues in the company, and try to find a link between these issues and organizational politics by conducting a survey with the related issues.

Thus, this paper is divided into three sections. The first section is a background overview on Apple Inc. and the recent employee related issues in the company. The second section presents a literature review on the context of organizational politics and the role that emotional intelligence as well as organizational spirituality has to play. This section will also develop hypotheses that will be tested later on in this paper. The final section is a survey analysis, which include data collection and analysis of collected data in relation to the hypotheses developed and issues highlighted in Apple Inc. This section will also provide findings from the analysis which will be used to prove the hypotheses.

2.0 COMPANY BACKGROUND

Apple Inc. is a corporation founded in California in 1977. The company designs, manufactures and markets computers, mobile communication devices and portable digital music and video players (Nasdaq, 2012). The company is also in the production of numerous software, services, peripherals, and networking solutions (Nasdaq, 2012).

Apple products are made available to the global market through the company’s online store, direct sales forces, wholesalers, retailers, and value-added reseller. The company’s most common products are Macintosh® (Mac), iPhone® and iPod®. Its primary markets are the Americas, Europe and Japan; with headquarter in Cupertino, California and employing over 15,000 staffs.

2.1 HISTORY

The Apple Computer was incorporated in 1997. It was co-founded by Steven Wozniak and marketed by Steven Jobs. They introduced the first Apple I computer in 1976. The Apple I was a failure but Apple II launched in 1980 was successful. The company offered its IPO in the year 1980.

In the early eighties, competition from the PC market and internal difficulties led to critical management changes. By 1983, Apple encountered danger with the entry of IBM into the PC market, and the failure of its Apple III version computer. Apple introduced its first mouse driven computer, the Macintosh in 1984.

By 1990 the market was flooded with cheap PC clones and Microsoft had launched Windows 3.0. In 1994, the company launched the PowerPC chip based PowerMac. This new chip allowed Macs to compete with the speed of Intel’s PC processors.

Apple still had problems though and in 1995, the company had a $1 billion order backlog. These problems were compounded by the launch of Windows 95. The company’s performance nosedived in 1995-96 when it lost $68 million.

In 1996, Apple acquired NeXT and NeXT’s operating system, Rhapsody, became Apple’s next-generation operating system. By 1997, Apple had lost hundreds of millions of dollars. Steven Jobs, the original co-founder returned as interim Chief Executive Officer. Under his leadership, Apple reorganized to concentrate on its more profitable competencies. Apple divested its unsuccessful spin offs, including Newton. Soon after Steven Jobs returned, an agreement was made with Microsoft, and was subsequently followed with the appearance of MS Office on Mac PCs. During 2001, the company acquired PowerSchool, one of the leading providers of web-based student information systems for K-12 schools and school districts. Also in 2001, the company acquired Spruce Technologies, a privately held company involved in developing and marketing DVD authoring products.

In the following year, Apple, Ericsson and Sun Microsystems formed an alliance to create a standard format for delivering multimedia content to wireless devices, such as smart phones and PDAs. The alliance combined Apple’s QuickTime video creation software, Sun’s content distribution software and hardware, and Ericsson’s mobile infrastructure and services expertise.

Apple pursued a number of acquisitions during 2002. The company acquired Prismo Graphics, Silicon Grail and certain assets of Zayante, and also acquired the German Apple Computer, Inc. based specialist music software manufacturer, Emagic, which became a wholly owned division of Apple. Additionally, in the second quarter of 2002, the company acquired certain assets of Nothing Real, a privately held company engaged in the development of high performance tools designed for the digital image creation market. Apple launched its iTunes music store, an online store for downloading music tracks and albums in 2003. In the following year, the company signed licensing agreements with three of the largest European independent music labels, Beggars Group, Sanctuary Records Group and V2, adding tens of thousands of additional independent tracks from leading artists to the iTunes music store in the UK, France and Germany. In the same year, Apple introduced its fourth generation iPod portable digital music player.

In June 2005, the company made agreement to use Intel microprocessors in its Macintosh computers. Later in the year, the company collaborated with Acura, Audi, Honda and Volkswagen to deliver iPod with their car stereos for 2006 model lines and also introduced mobile phone with iTunes in collaboration with Motorola and Cingular Wireless.

  

3.0 PROBLEM STATEMENT

Over the course of its journey to stardom, Apple have faced numerous employee related issued. The recent issues faced by the company are contained in its 2012 supplier responsibility progress report. The company stated in the report that its committed to driving the highest standard of social responsibility through its supply base, and conducts regularly audits to ensure that suppliers are always treating their employees right. However, Apple efforts did not stop the company from facing the issues highlighted below:

ü  67 facilities used deduction from wages as a disciplinary measure.

ü  108 facilities did not pay proper overtime wages as required by law.

ü  68 facilities did not provide adequate benefits as required by the law and regulation.

ü  49 facilities did not provide employees with paid leaves or vacations.

Considering that political behavior can be viewed by the nature of the act or by what people see as being politics (Vredenburgh and Maurer, 1984); organizational politics is usually convert and subject to different perception (Drory and Romm, 1988; Kacmar et al., 1999); and people’s attitudes and behaviors are determined mostly by view of reality and reality per se (Lewin, 1936).

As such, it becomes evident that these issues can easily be linked with organizational politics. This is because, some employees might be tempted to sabotage each other’s image in the form of not sharing information or negatively criticizing their efforts in order for the management to adopt wage reduction as a form of disciplinary action on the victimized workers. The management on its own might be political by delaying the wages of their employees in order to achieve their selfish aim of enriching themselves. Thus, the affected employees are likely to experience reduction in their job performance as they will fell neglected by the management and not properly rewarded for their contributions. In that case, they will view imputing of extra efforts as a waste and rather reduce their level of commitment instead of increasing or maintaining it.

However, there will be a great difference between emotionally intelligent employee and those who display high level of organizational spirituality from their respective colleagues. This will be reflected on their different abilities to view the organization’s behavior as either negative on them or caused by variables such as low profit and authorization of payment from the proper management system.

4.0  LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT

4.1 ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICS 

Organizational politics has been viewed as an informal, hidebound, illegitimate and typically divisive attitude and behavior meant at displacing a legitimate power (Mintzberg, 1983, p. 172) and an influential behavior that is designed to strategically increase one’s self-interest (Ferris et al., 1989, p. 145). These definitions carry negative images, but are always common within the general perceptions of employees. Normally, when employees are asked to discuss about organizational politics in their workplace, they usually denote it with negative terms. Employees normally associated it with self-serving behaviors that are meant to increase someone’s qualities at the expense of other employees. These behaviors are often viewed as:

1. Discretionary
2. Associated with defamation, subversiveness, abuse of power and manipulation
3. Contrary to organizational goals and for the interest of the person (Vigoda, 200a, b).

A good example is discrediting a rival’s efforts at work in order to get a head above him, not sharing useful information with other employees as a means of creating more power above them, and doing offering help to the management in other to secure preferential treatments.

Studies on organizational politics have been done in different ways. This has resulted in accumulation of quality knowledge in recent years about organizational politics and its relationship with employee performance. Most of these studies have focused on employees’ perception of organizational politics, which is defined by Ferris et all. (1989) as a sort of behavior designed to strategically maximize one’s self-interest, at the expense of the organizational goal and interest of other people. Gandz and Murray (1980) and Madison et al. (1980) noticed that when employees are asked to describe politics, they normally associate it with self-serving and manipulative activities which are perceived to be negative. Researchers who developed this concepts discovered that workplace politics was seen as self-serving behavior by employees to achieve self-interest, advantages, and benefits at the cost of other employees and sometimes at the expense of the overall organization’s goals (e.g. Andrews and Kacmar, 2001; Cavanagh et al. 1981; Cropanzano and Kacmar, 1995; Dipboye and Foster, 2002; Drory, 1993; Fedor et al., 1998; Ferris and Kacmar, 1992; Vigoda-Gadot, 2003). This behavior is normally associated with defamation, manipulation and immoral ways of overusing power to attain one’s objectives (Kipnis et al., 1980).

It was argued by Ferris and Kacnar (1992, p. 93) that the higher the employees perceive politics in organization, the lower the employee sees the level of justice, equity, and fairness. While these literatures distinguished between organizational politics and fairness (preferential treatment), it has been agreed that these variables are related. Thus, Ferris et al (1996) and Folger et al. (1992) in their different studies adopted the theory of procedural justice to argued that organizational politics is related to how leaders make decision in relation to employee management and overall utilization of the organizations’ human resource tools. Thus, it can be seen that organizational politics have a great impact on the level of employee’s commitment and job performance.

4.2 JOB PERFORMANCE

It has been revealed by research that perception of organizational politics can predict psychological states such as job stress (e.g. Ferris et al., 1996; Kacmar et al., 1999) and fatigue (e.g. Cropanzano et al., 1997); employees attitudes such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment (e.g. Kacmar et al., 1999; Witt et al., 2000; Maslyn and Fedor, 1998; Witt, 1998); turnover intention (e.g. Kacmar et al., 1999; Maslyn and Fedor, 1998) and neglect (Vigoda, 2000a); self-reported performance (Kacmar et al., 1999), supervisor-rated performance (e.g. Witt, 1998), and organizational citizenship behaviors (e.g. Vigoda, 2000b); and organizational performance (e.g. Eisenhardt and Bourgeois, 1988; Zahra, 1987).

Employees’ level of job performance arises from the level of satisfaction felt within the organization. Job satisfaction is viewed as a positive emotional state which is created when people feel comfortable with their job experiences (Locke, 1976, p. 1300). It was pointed out by Ferris et al., that an increase in the level of perceived organizational politics results in a decrease in the employee’s level of job satisfaction and subsequent decrease in his overall job performance. A possible explanation would be that decisions that govern critical organizational areas such as resources allocation can easily be linked with politics, and when employees fell that they are being unfairly treated in the organization, they will be sad and less satisfied with the job experience.

4.3 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERCEIVED ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICS AND JOB PERFORMANCE

The relationships between perception of organizational politics and job performance have received a vast empirical support. Studies that adopt traditional regression techniques (e.g. Cropanzano et al., 1997; Ferris and Kacmar, 1992; Witt et al., 2000) and studied that adopt structural equation modeling techniques (e.g. Kacmar et al., 1999) have revealed that perception of organizational politics is a negative influencer of job performance. This is because, it results in numerous emotional and psychological damages such as inferiority complex, low self-esteem, and felling of being unfairly treated. Once employees start to experience such, their level of commitment will be reduced and overall job performance will be influenced as well. Therefore, it can be seen that job performance is hugely influenced on a negative approach by perceived organizational politics.

4.4 THE ROLE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND SPIRITUALITY ON EFFECTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICS ON JOB PERFORMANCE

Emotional intelligence is now a commonly used word in the business environment of nowadays, amongst business leaders and managers. Besides the business environment, emotional intelligence has been recently discussed in numerous academic fields (Dasborough & Ashkanasy, 2002; Murphy, 2006; Zeidner et al., 2004). This is because, individual emotions have been proven to play a vital role in business management and personal lives of employees (Iloka, 2012). Emotional intelligence basically deals with how we handle our emotions in relation to how we are being treated by people around us (Iloka, 2012).  

Daniel Goleman (1998) developed the four elements of emotional intelligence as: a) self-awareness – which is the ability to understand our individual emotions and feel the impact while used gut feeling as the foundation for our judgment (Goleman, 1998); b) self-management – which is the ability to control our emotions and impulse while adopting to situation in hand (Goleman, 1998); c) social awareness – it is the ability to see and understand other people’s emotions in relation to social norms (Goleman, 1998); and d) relationship management – the ability to inspire, influence and develop others during conflict management (Goleman, 1998).

Spirituality on the other hand, refers to employees’ religious belief and how these beliefs influence their day to day activities with people in an organization. From the above theories, it had been supported by other theories that the level of emotional intelligence and spirituality highly influence perception of organizational politics.

Emotional intelligence and spirituality influences variables such as organizational status (e.g. Drory, 1993), control (e.g. Ferris et al., 1996), goal congruence (e.g. Witt, 1998), understanding (e.g. Kacmar et al., 1999), organizational commitment (Hochwarter et al., 1999), participation in decision making (e.g. Witt et al., 2000), reactive political behaviors (e.g. Valle and Perrewe´, 2000), teamwork (e.g. Valle and Witt, 2001), and job self-efficacy (e.g. Bozeman et al., 2001) and these variables can mitigate perceived organizational politics.

As stated by Goleman (1998), self-management which is the ability to control our emotions while adapting to situation in hand can help people with high level of such qualities to view perceived organizational politics as a minor issues and thus, it will have little effect on their job performance. While people low on this quality can see organizational politics as a major issue and it influence their job performance in return. This is also applicable to social awareness and relationship management which determines our ability to influence people, such as advising and influencing leaders to stop preferential treatments in organization and in return reducing the level of organizational politics. Spirituality on the other hand plays a crucial role in the sense that most religious teachings preach dedication to work irrespective of changes experienced.

Therefore, it will be hypothesized that:

HP1. Organizational politics is a common phenomenon in most organizations.

HP2. Organizational politics is associated with negative effects.

HP3. Organizational politics can directly influence employees’ job performance negatively.

HP4. Employees with high level of emotional intelligence and/or spirituality can easily mitigate the influence of perceived organizational politics on them.

HP5. There is an extent to which employees that are capable of mitigating the negative influences of organizational politics can go.

  

5.0 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

5.1 PROCEDURE

Since this paper focuses on illustrating that organizational politics negatively influences employee’s performance, and that emotional intelligence and organizational spirituality are mitigating factors to the negative influence of organizational politics, this research will be conducted by following the research framework illustrated below.

Figure (1) research methodology framework

From the figure one above, it has been resulted that this research will follow a pattern designed to understand the influence of organizational politics (independent variable) on the performance of employees (dependent variable) by considering the factors that mitigates such influence (emotional intelligence and organizational spirituality). As such, the questionnaire will be designed to include all these elements.

5.2 DATA COLLECTION

Data for this study was gathered via online survey. The choice of online survey is to ensure that employees from all industries have an equal right of contributing their answers. Being available online, the question will also enhance data analysis as the response can be easily imputed by copying response and pasting it into the SPSS file – ensuring reduction in typical error associated with manually imputed data. Prior to finalizing the decision of adopting online survey, a pilot test was conducted via the same medium and it yielded a 1% response rate from visitors. The result of the pilot test served as a boost to the decision to adopt online survey. Survey was chosen as the medium of data collection because its easily generalizable and readable (Churchill and Iacobucci, 2005), offers an opportunity to access high volume of variables (Ma, 2007), convenient, fast and cost effective.

5.3 MEASUREMENT

The gathered data are measured by adopting the likert scaling method. The likert scale used is 7-point scaling method as illustrated in the table (1) below. The reason for using likert scaling method is because it will aid easier and appropriate identification of response rather than the congested nature of real answer experienced with a “yes” or “no” format.

Table (1): Adopted 7-point likert scaling method.

Totally disagree	Strongly disagree	Somehow disagree	Not sure	Somehw agree	Strongly agree	Totally agree
1	2	3	4	5	6	7

5.4 RESPONDERS’ PROFILE

The responders for this research will comprise of both working male and females from all industries across Malaysia. The choice of Malaysia as the only country is to ensure a country specific result that can be applicable within the market studied. Since the data for this research is not expected to be above 200 responses, generalizing it on the global market will not allow easily applicability of the finding. On the age front, responders are expected to be between 18years and above. This is because; such age offers the level of maturity needed to understand organizational politics and its influence on performance for this research.

5.5 CODING

The data is coded and analyzed with IBM SPSS data analyzer. SPSS has become a commonly data analyzing tool in business research due to its vast applicability and high level of reliability. During the coding process, it was discovered that 9 out of the total responders has at least one unanswered question. Other response by these responders were still considered as they maintain a great value of reliability, while the one unanswered questions were coded with the number 9 to indicate it as unattended.

  

6.0 DATA ANALYSIS

6.1 RELIABILITY TEST – CRONBACH’S ALPHA

Cronbach’s alpha was developed by Lee Cronbach in 1951 as a tool for measuring the internal consistency of a scale or test (Mohsen and Reg, 2011). The test of reliability makes an analysis of gathered data against certain variables, and determines factors and response pattern to test is the data are significantly reliable. The test is considered important because, it illustrates the internal consistency and coefficient of gathered data.

Table (2): Test of reliability

Case Processing Summary
		N	%
Cases	Valid	100	100
	Excludeda	0	0
	Total	100	100.0
a.       Listwise deletion based on all variables in the procedure.

From the above analysis, the Cronbach alpha is 0.629 or 62.9% score. This implies that the data gathered is highly significant as it scores well above the normal 0.50 or 50% mark. The reliability of data gathered further strengths the research, as it shows that findings will be reliable as well.

6.2 FACTOR ANALYSIS

Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity and Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin Measure of sampling adequacy were adopted for testing the validity of this research, by analyzing each variable according to its strength of association with other variables. The Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy (KMO) was computed to illustrate if factor analysis is suitable for this research. KMO value ranges between 0 to 1 and the gathered variables must meet an overall KMO value of 0.60 in order to be considered suitable for factor analysis (Sabbir, et al., 2011).

Table (3): KMO and Bartlett's Test
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy.		.654
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity	Approx. Chi-Square	659.801
	df	190
	Sig.	.000

It can be seen that the KMO value is significant at 0.00 from the test of sphericity, and this shows that overall data gathered are viable and the high chi-square value implies that the hypotheses are highly provable from the gathered data.

In order to determine the number of factors to be considered, the two variables of perceived organizational politics and job performance will be employed in a contrasting way. Hair et al., (1992) stated that in order to determine the minimum loading acceptable for  including any item into the variable, loadings with values above 30.0 will be considered significant and the higher the value, the greater the significance. The two variables loaded for analysis are organizational politics and employees’ performance. The result shows significance between the variable and loading values with relation to emotional intelligence and organizational spirituality.

Table (4): Communalities
	Initial	Extraction
Organizational Politics is a common practice in my workplace	1.000	.617
I have witnessed employees gossiping about other employees’ performance politically	1.000	.773
I am usually punctual and committed to work	1.000	.718
I have been mistreated by my fellow colleagues in the company	1.000	.571
I have been denied my rights by a senior executive due to preferential treatment for another worker	1.000	.629
Some workers who are late are not punished the same way I am punished when I am late	1.000	.668
I have politicized against a fellow employee that I don’t like	1.000	.694
I tend to perform less when I experience political behaviors in the organization	1.000	.808
Being mistreated in the organization can have a huge negative impact on my commitment level	1.000	.694
I can leave a company as a result of organizational politics	1.000	.769
If I was the manager, I would sack employees that politicize against others	1.000	.588
I correct senior staffs when I experience preferential treatment	1.000	.735
My comments in relation to preferential treatment are always handled by the senior staffs	1.000	.656
Organizational politics is common in power and appraisal related issue	1.000	.728
I think managers should take organizational politics as a serious issue	1.000	.740
Poor job performance doesn’t necessary mean the person is experiences political behaviors against him in the organization	1.000	.609
Gossiping about the performance of people is a common practice in the organizations	1.000	.727
A good emotional balance helps to reduce the level of damages caused by organizational politics.	1.000	.787
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

The table (4) above illustrates the differences between the variables by demonstrating the percentage of variable responders attended, in relation to how perceived organizational politics influences their performance either in their present workplace or in their previous workplace. From the above analysis, it can easily be seen that perceived organizational politics negatively influences job performance in the workplace, with 0.808 extractions agreeing to such. From all the analyzed data, this particular variable recorded the highest extraction score. Other extractions with a score above 0.70 are in support that gossiping is a common practice in the organization, gossiping or what employees heard about other employees can influence their rating of the employee being gossiped about; employees easily detect preferential treatments that are leveled for other employees against them. All these stand in support to the idea that politics is a part of everyday activity in the organization, and corporations must find ways to solve the issues created by organizational politics as they can negatively influence job performance. The reason for such negative influence of organizational politics on employees’ performance can be seen in the extractions above 0.60, where responders agree that mistreated by senior executives who accord preferential treatment to other employees at their own disadvantage, responders who say that some employees are not being punished when they are late to work like themselves, and political behaviors leveled against them can reduce their level of commitment to the organization.

6.3 REGRESSION ANALYSIS

6.3.1 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS

The first thing in regression analysis will be to describe the man of demographic data gathered in relation to their response part. As illustrated in the table (5) below, the average age of responders is between the rage of 20 to 39 (1.87). This is because, from the statistical analyses, 1 was denoted to represent age of 19 and below, 2 represents 20 to 39, 3 represents 40 to 59 while 4 represents 60 and above.

Table (5): Descriptive Statistics
	Mean	Std. Deviation	N
Ages of Responders	1.87	.384	100
Average Monthly Wages/Salary	1.69	.851	100
Gender of Responders	1.46	.501	100
Type of Employment	1.70	.770	100

Employees’ age, type of employment, gender and average monthly salary also influenced perception of politics in the organization. The age of responders influences their response pattern because, it is believed that the older a responder is, the more likely he or she must have worked with different organizations and clearly understand the issue of politics and its influence on employees’ performance. Wage salary also influences the response patter as the higher an employee is being paid; the more likely he or she is to be politicized against by his colleagues. Another interesting discovering is that organizational politics is most common amongst women than men in the workforce, thus, more women are likely to have experienced political behaviors directed towards them, and collided with other employees to politicize their colleagues than men. Type of employment also influences response, as full-time employees reported more events of organizational politics can part-time employees. This can be because; power struggle is more common in full-time employment, whereby employees depend on that particular job for survival and sustainability of their dependent families. Therefore, they are willing to do anything to keep their job, even if its colliding against fellow colleagues as they would not like to be put through the stress of looking for a new job.

7.0 PROVE OF HYPOTHESES AND APPLICATION OF FINDING TO APPLE INC

Table (6): Frequency distribution Statistics
		Organizational Politics is a common practice in my workplace.	I have witnessed employees gossiping about other employees’ performance politically.	I put my best efforts at all time for the growth of the company.	Being mistreated in the organization can have a huge negative impact on my commitment level.	I can leave a company as a result of organizational politics.	I put my best efforts at all time for the growth of the company.	I tend to perform less when I experience political behaviors in the organization.
N	Valid	111	111	111	111	111	111	111
	Missing	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Mode		6	5a	3	3	5	6	5
Percentiles	25	5.00	4.00	3.00	3.00	4.00	4.00	4.00
	50	6.00	5.00	5.00	5.00	5.00	5.00	5.00
	75	7.00	6.00	6.00	6.00	6.00	6.00	6.00
a. Multiple modes exist. The smallest value is shown

The overall primary research is centered on proving the hypotheses that perceived organizational politics results in lower job performance, and this could be the reason for some of the issues in Apple Inc. The frequency distribution statistics above will be used to analyze these claims in order to better understand the factors behind perceived organizational politics and its effects on employees’ job performance.

From the table (6) above, 75 percentile fall within the category of responders that agree that organizational politics is a common practice in their workplace. This implies that most employees are aware of what organizational politics is, certain behaviors that can be linked to organizational politics and how to inhibit such behaviors. This is in line with literatures that suggests that organizational politics is common in most organizations, and its effects can be felts amongst all areas of the workforce (e.g. Andrews and Kacmar, 2001; Cavanagh et al. 1981).

Additionally, 75 percentile also represent the number of responders who agree that they have witnesses some employees gossiping about the performance of other employees. This is highly significant considering that the communalities analysis revealed that gossips about employees influence how they are rated and viewed by other employees. Thus, this political behavior can change to a corporate believe, whereby all employees view a particular corporate member as being negative (which he or she might not actually be), and this can influence their behavior towards that member. As such, the member will be unwanted in the organization and possible withdraw due to the pressure from his colleagues.

This second finding is supported by the 75 percentile of responders who also represent the responders, who agree that they will leave a company as a result of organizational politics. The study found that most responders are punctual to work and put all their efforts towards producing a favorable output for the organization. Thus, when they are politicized in the company in form of denying them some due benefits, they will start to view the organization as not being appreciative of their contribution towards the growth of the corporation. On the long-run, they will be left with no option than to leave the corporation as a result of the frustration they get from working in such an unfavorable and un-wanting environment.

While the third finding states that most responders agree to put their best efforts to work, and always punctual, the fourth finding has found some factors that might inhibit this behavior. It was found from the study that being mistreated in an organization can have a negative huge impact on the commitment of the employee, and perceived organizational politics can reduce job performance as agreed by the 75 percentile of the responders who either, agreed, strongly agreed or totally agreed to the question. It can be then be stated that the objective of this paper has been achieved through this finding, as there is a direct relationship between perceived organizational politics and reduction in employees’ job performance, as well as level of commitment to an organization. This finding is supported by numerous researches (such as Cropanzano and Kacmar, 1995; Dipboye and Foster, 2002; Drory, 1993; Fedor et al., 1998; Ferris and Kacmar, 1992; Vigoda-Gadot, 2003) that also stated that perceived organizational politics reduces the level of employees commitment and job performance.

While they perceived organizational politics has been linked to reduction in job performance and employees’ commitment, the communalities analysis reveals that employees’ level of emotional balance can reduce these effects, and employees are still commitment to their work despite perception of politics in the system as a result of citizenship behaviors.

8.0 RECOMMENDATION AND REFLECTION

The study has been able to demonstrate that perceived organizational politics results in reduction on employees’ job performance and organizational commitment. This is true as 75 percentile of the responders agree to this statement. Thus, it is expected that when workers are politicized or mistreated in their workplace, their overall job performance will reduces as a results of reduced interest and commitment.

This case was demonstrated by applying a real life scenario as is experienced in Apple Inc. it was found from the study that many of the company’s facilities denied employees their due rights, by paying their below standards set by law or not paying them at all. In the general workplace, employees expect to receive the value for their contribution towards the company’s growth. Thus, when they are denied these benefits, they tend to associated it with politics in the organization because some people are being paid while they are not being fully paid.

The finding reveals that employees view organizational politics as any of preferential treatment, meant to favor some employees at their own loss. Thus, when some employees are paid in one facility and others are not paid in another facility, whereas all these employees work for the same company (Apple Inc. in this case), the unpaid employees will start to feel that the company is not fully appreciating their contribution towards its growth. As such, the finding revealed that the commitment level of these employees will start to meltdown and it will eventually reduce their job performance and possibly result to high employee turnover. Therefore, it is recommended that Apple Inc. should treat these issues serious and find ways to eliminate such occurrence in the future, in order for the company to maintain its current growth and create room for improved performance in the future. Based on the finding, it is recommended that Apple Inc. should incorporate a training program deisgned to increased employees emotional intelligence and workplace spirituality as they were found to mitigate the negative effects of perceived organizational politics on job performance.

A general reflection about this study is that, while numerous efforts in terms of both human and capital resources have been imputed into the development of this paper, all these efforts can be said to be worthwhile because this paper has been able to prove that organizational politics reduces job performance and level of commitment in the workplace. This paper also creates new areas of interest for study such as how these reduction in performance can be corrected, what measures should be used to reduce organizational politics in the workplace.

9.0 CONCLUSION

One unique element of this study has been its support to the fact that organizational politics is a serious issue which managers and academicians cannot afford to ignore. This is because, the concept of organizational politics has been linked to different forms of negative effects on employees job performance and a neglect of this issue by managers will mean that they won’t be able to understand why employees job performance are on the low.

From the literature review, it became evident that they are numerous studies that support the finding of perceived organizational politics negatively influencing job performance. Other literatures also stated that employees’ level of emotional intelligence and workplace spirituality can serve as mitigating factors to the effects of perceived organizational politics. Thus, it became evident that the objective of this research is one which already exists in literatures.

The study highlighted certain issues in Apple Inc. that might be linked to organizational politics such as unreliable pay system, as it was deduced that these issues can reduce employees’ level of commitment and job performance. This statement was further proven in the finding which revealed that employees who fall victim to organizational politics usually experience changes (negative) on their job performance and level of commitment. It was also revealed in the finding that emotional intelligence and workplace spirituality help to mitigate the negative effects perceived organizational politics. Thus, it was later recommended that Apple Inc. should design training and development programs that incorporate skills on how to improve employees’ emotional intelligence and workplace spirituality in order to reduce the negative impacts of perceived organizational politics.

In conclusion, it can be stated that politics in organizational system is a serious issue that managers should look into, as it directly influences the level of commitment and job performance of employees in the system. This is because, as reduction in job performance will result in reduction in overall organizational output, while a reduction on the level of commitment will increase turnover intention and result in numerous loses (both human and capital resources) to the company.

  

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11.0 APPENDICES

11.1 PERCEIVED ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICS AND EMPLOYEES’ PERFORMANCE: ROLE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICS.

Name (s)
Gender	Male or Female
Age	18 to 39	40 to 59	50 and above

PART 2

PLEASE ANSWER THESE 20 QUESTIONS                                                                       

#		1 – totally disagree to totally agree – 7
		1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1	Organizational Politics is a common practice in my workplace.
2	I have witnessed employees gossiping about other employees’ performance politically.
3	I am usually punctual and committed to work.
4	I put my best efforts at all time for the growth of the company.
5	I have been mistreated by my fellow colleagues in the company.
6	I have been denied my rights by a senior executive due to preferential treatment for another worker.
7	Some workers who are late are not punished the same way I am punished when I am late.
8	I have politicized against a fellow employee that I don’t like.
9	I tend to perform less when I experience political behaviors in the organization.
10	Being mistreated in the organization can have a huge negative impact on my commitment level.
12	I can leave a company as a result of organizational politics.
13	If I was the manager, I would sack employees that politicize against others.
14	I correct senior staffs when I experience preferential treatment
15	My comments in relation to preferential treatment are always handled by the senior staffs
16	Organizational politics is common in power and appraisal related issue
17	I think managers should take organizational politics as a serious issue.
18	Poor job performance doesn’t necessary mean the person is experiences political behaviors against him in the organization.
19	Gossiping about the performance of people is a common practice in the organizations.
20	A good emotional balance helps to reduce the level of damages caused by organizational politics.