The Prevalence of Political Behaviors in Types of Organizational Structure with Power Recourses Mediation: A Case Study of Fars Province Education

Abstract

Introduction Political behaviors are considered as one of the constituent elements of organizations that can create divisive and harmful working environments that have increasingly negative consequences on the organization and employees. Therefore, it seems necessary to pay attention to the prevalence of political behavior in the organization and the factors affecting it to prevent and limit such behavior. In this study, the effect of various organizational structures mediated by power sources on political behavior has been investigated. The present study sought to provide a clear understanding of the desired organizational performance to effectively manage and achieve the goals of the educational organization by examining the relationships between variables and creating a small field for the development and promotion of the educational organization. Managers can also control these variables by recognizing political behaviors, existing organizational structure, and sources of managerial power, and use it to achieve organizational goals. Material & Methods The present study was descriptive and survey in terms of the method and purpose. The statistical population of all employees of Fars General Directorate of Education included 432 individuals. Using Cochran's formula, the sample size was 203 persons. They were selected by the systematic random sampling method in such a way that the list of employees was prepared in alphabetical order and the first two people were drawn and examined using coins. After checking the level of normality and identifying the outliers, the final analysis was performed through 201 questionnaires. Data collection tools were Torkzadeh and Mohtaram’s (2014) Organizational Structure Model, Torkzadeh and Moeni Shahraki’s (2010) Power Resources Identification Approach, and Torkzadeh and Fereydouni’s (2015) Political Behaviors. Data were analyzed using SPSS 24 and AMOS16 software, t-test, paired t-test, intra-group variance analysis, Benfrony, and path analysis. Discussion of Results & Conclusions The results showed that the average deterrent structure (3.38) was higher than the empowering structure (3.32), but this difference was not statistically significant (p=0.37). The highest average was related to the source of moral power (3.45) and the lowest average was related to the source of punitive power (2.87). The result of the follow-up test showed that the average source of rewards power was significantly lower than other sources of power (except punitive power) and the average source of punitive power to resources of power of legitimacy, information, ethics, culture, and environmental dominance, but the average power source ethics was significantly higher than other sources of power (except for environmental culture and dominance) and the average power source of information was significantly higher than the average source of peripheral environmental power (p < 0.001). The average score of political games, political tactics, and power games was higher than the acceptable level of adequacy and lower than the desirable level of adequacy (p=0.001). The type of empowering organizational structure was not predictive of political behaviors and the variable of power sources in this regard was not intermediary, but in the deterrent structure of power sources, the relationship between the type of deterrent organizational structure and political behaviors was the relative intermediation. Based on these results, the awareness of organizations’ managers about a variety of political behaviors and the dimensions related to each of them were necessary to deal and react quickly to their prevalence in the organization. Considering the effect of deterrent organizational structure on political behaviors through power sources, managers must understand the characteristics of this structure and reduce the barriers of organizational structure by designing interactive models, controlling the actions of individuals by functional power sources, and thereby reducing the prevalence of negative political behaviors.

Keywords

• organizational structure
• power resources
• political behaviors