The moderating effects of emotional intelligence on the relationship between organizational politics and work outcomes

In a simple term, politics is a fact of life in organizations. Scholars stated that organizations are considered as political entities where employees and stakeholder's relationships and behaviors are affected significantly through power and influence. Even though organizational politics is found to be useful in certain circumstances, a decade of empirical research has indicated that perceptions of politics (POP) in the work environment have received negative responses from employees. Therefore, since politics is an inherent situation in an organization it should be investigated more empirically. Generally, three lines of research exist related to organizational politics. These are; (1) Studies on influence tactics initiated byorganizational members, (2) Studies on employees’ subjective perceptions of politics, and (3) Studies of political skills and capacities of individuals within the workplace

In this study the second technique is applicable. The choice of the second approach is based on the notion that rather than exclusively an objective state, it is appropriate to construe organizational politics as a subjective experience and, thus, as a state of mind. On the other hand, emotional aspects of organizational politics (OP) have been researched less even though it is assumed that political struggles induce intense emotions for both those who participate directlyand who witness the struggle. Emotional intelligence can play a moderating role in which the adverse emotional responses by organizational members due to POP and aggressive political behaviour can be minimized. However, the role that emotional intelligence played in organizational politics received little attention. Thus, to enhance our understanding of how emotional abilities provide the resources with which to cope with the negative implications of organizational politics examining the hypothesized moderating effect of the overall construct of emotional intelligence is very essential. Therefore, this study's primary aimed at exploring the direct effects of POP and EI on work outcomes, as well as the moderating role of EI on POP-work outcomes relationships. The work outcome constructs included are job satisfaction, affective commitment, turnover intention, and negligent behaviour. The specific objective of this study includes.

1. To examine the direct effects of POP on work outcomes. 2. To examine the direct effects of EI on work outcomes. 3. To explore the role of EI as a moderator in the POP-work outcomes relationships.

Methodology A cluster sampling technique was used to select three public universities that are found in the Amhara region, Ethiopia. The participants were selected from these public universities using a simple random sampling technique. This study used self-administered questionnaire based on five points Likert scale. The statistical analysis method employed includes descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling (SEM). The structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to develop two models, namely the measurement model, and the structural model and test the hypothesis. IBM SPSS AMOS 23 software was employed for testing the hypotheses using the collected data from 332 respondents at a particular point of time.

Major Findings The effects of POP on work outcomes ? In terms of politics perception, this study result shows that the hypothesized correlation between politics perception and the four outcome variables are significant. The proposition that POP will be negatively related to job satisfaction was supported. Regarding the relation of POP with affective commitment, this study showed that POP was negatively related to affective commitment. Employees feel much attached to their organizations and a great feeling of belonging if they consider their organization to be not much political. POP was positively linked to turnover intention. Finally, this study found that POP was positively and significantly related to negligent behaviour.

The effects of EI on work outcomes: EI was found to be predictors of the three outcome variables namely, job satisfaction, affective commitment, and turnover intention. The empirical evidence shows that emotional intelligence has a positive effect on job satisfaction and affective commitment. EI and turnover intentions are found to be associated negatively. However, the predicted negative relation between EI and negligent behaviour could not be confirmed in this study.

The moderating role of EI: This study showed that the effect of politics perception on both negligent behaviour and job satisfaction was moderated by the employee's EI. However, EI does not play a moderating role in the influence of POP on the rest of the two variables.