Effect of Diversified Model of Organizational Politics on Diversified Emotional Intelligence

Purpose behind the study is to explore the influence of organizational politics of bankers on the ability based emotional intelligence and their diversified interplay. The sample of 292 bankers was used for testing organizational politics’ effect on emotional intelligence as well as individual and collective effect of facets of organizational politics (general political behavior, going along to get ahead, and pay and promotions policies) on dimensions of emotional intelligence (self and others’ emotional appraisal, use and regulation of emotions). The results witnessed that organizational politics significantly affects emotional intelligence, whereas organizational politics’ dimensions significantly predict each emotional intelligence dimension collectively. It is also noted that general political behavior and going along to get ahead have a negative effect on the dimensions of emotional intelligence. But pay and promotion policies positively influences emotional intelligence dimensions. The study can be helpful for the managers, who can identify the patterns of political behaviors and the persons who use it by openly discussing it with the employees through training. Limitations and future suggestions are presented in later part.


INTRODUCTION
During the recent few decades organizational and academic researchers have realized the fact that organizational politics (OP) is a factor which is important for organizations as well as individuals working in the organizations. Studies conducted on OP concluded it as an epidemic phenomenon [1] and acknowledged its existence in organizations [2][3][4][5]. To address OP, researchers have focused on the perception rather than actual political behaviors and they are of the view that it is more important than the behaviors [6]. Researchers argued in this context that perception of OP is more considered factor conceptually as well as empirically, but still it is signified and less researched [7]. Researches conducted in organizational contexts reported largely adverse consequences of OP both for employees and organizations [8]. These negative consequences are high stress, turnover, low productivity, low job performance and low satisfaction etc. [9]. Chang, Rosen, and Levy (2009) [10] said that politics creates psychological strain, morale problems and imbalanced relationship.
*Address correspondence to this author at the Institute of Business & Management, University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore, Pakistan; Tel: 0092457372921; Fax: 0092457380052; E-mail: jamil2007star@yahoo.com POP is positively associated with stress, burnout and other psychological illness indicators [11]. When a person tries to protect himself/herself from the OP then he/she requires vigilance, which becomes a reason for reduction in his/her emotional and cognitive resources [12]. But this relationship is not clear in the literature as researches concluded that there exists no significant relationship between OP and EI [13,14]. Meisler and Vigoda (2014) [15] conducted a research to find out the interplay of POP and EI and concluded that there exists a significant negative relationship between them. Similarly, Asad and Durrani (2014) [16] conducted a research in Pakistan's telecom sector and found that there exists a positive relationship between POP and EI. So, there are controversies about their relationship which need to be cleared. Samad (2011) [17] conducted a research in Malaysian public sector in which she used the distributive model of POP with job performance: which concluded that all three dimensions of POP i.e. general political behavior (GPB), going along to get ahead (GATGA) and pay and promotion policies (PPP) are negatively associated with job performance. But this is not clear that why job performance decreases and it can be because of negative effect of OP on cognitive and emotional domains. Similarly, a recent research conducted in education sector of Pakistan concluded that GPB and PPP are significant predictors of emotional exhaustion [18]. Most of the researchers are of the view that multi-dimensions should not be used as unilateral construct because each dimension is differently associated with the target variable's dimensions [19,20]. So, present study is attempted to explore the distributive relationship between OP and EI.
OP and EI are being multi-dimensions; it is still under earth that which OP dimension affects the dimensions of EI, the undergone research has this as its major concern. Moreover, this study is searching for more predicted dimension of EI from the dimension of OP collectively, which means it is relatively more affected as compare to the other dimensions. The upcoming portion of this article bears relevant literature as well as evidences behind the perusal of tested relationship and cogent rationale behind the study.

Organizational Politics
Organizational Politics means any action taken in the organization to develop, acquire and use of power to achieve personal goals [5]. Most of the researchers consider OP as a negative phenomenon and neither a completely illegal or legal action [4,21,22]. Politics in the organizations is concluded by the researchers as an enemy of the organizations [4,21,23]. They said that OP is very crucial not only for organizations but for employees as well [5,24,25]. Previously researchers studied its consequences and antecedents [26], but in the recent past, the trend has been shifted to career and job related effects of OP [27][28][29]. In the opinions of other researchers, organizational politics is observable as well as objective in nature but it is different from its perception, which is subjective in nature [6,30]. So, perception somewhat varies from situation to situation, individual to individual and time to time [6] from which it can be concluded that POP is individual centered [31]. POP is more closely related with one's feelings when others are preferred over him/her [32]. Ferris, Russ, and Fandt (1989) [33] developed a model of POP which becomes base of many researches later and remains the predominant model. Many studies validated it by finding its negative relationship with work related wanted outcomes like performance, satisfaction, commitment etc. and positive relationship with work related unwanted outcomes like stress, burnout, turnover etc. [1,10,34,35]. This model was further modified and divided into three dimensions namely: general political behaviors (GPB), going along to get ahead (GATGA) and pay and promotion policies (PPP) by Kacmar and Ferris (1991) [36] which was further defined by Zhou and Ferris (1995) [37] and Kacmar and Carlson (1997) [38]. Kacmar and Carlson (1997) [38] also concluded from the all previous definitions of OP that it is the use of social influence for some self-interest when others should have different interests.

General Political Behavior (GPB)
According to Kacmar and Carlson (1997) [38], these are self-serving manners of the individuals to achieve desired outcomes when there are no rules and regulations available to govern these actions. Decision making process also becomes a reason of politics because many times a few people are engaged in the decision making process, who make influence on decisions for self-interests. Similarly, scarcity of resources also becomes a reason for politics which is equally valuable for everyone in the organization.

Going Along to Get Ahead (GATGA)
OP exists along with conflict [8,21,39]; political behaviors of the employees are of self-serving nature and become a threat for the others' interests which create conflict. Some people retaliate that conflict and others do not, this maybe considered a non-political act but it is considered as political one [38]. Only intent is the basis of political and non-political act [40].

Pay and Promotion Policies (PPP)
This is the system of any organization that how it rewards its employees. The implementation of the system may politically influence and reward those employees who are engaged in political activities [21].

Emotional Intelligence
In the end of 80s Salovey and Mayer (1990) [41] introduced the concept of EI as group of interrelated abilities possessed by an individual to concur emotions and reasoning which kick off a debate in the researchers. Literature witnesses the extensive debate on the conceptualization and development of measurement of EI. This debate is double facet from which one group is of the view that EI is a theoretical model which is made of some abilities and skills in combination [42] known as ability model and other group suggests that it also includes personality and motivational aspects as well, known as mixed model [43]. Some researchers have criticized mixed model because it is no more different from personality traits e.g. [44][45][46] and others criticized it because it does not include any desirable characteristics of cognitive ability from definition e.g. [47][48][49]. Few researchers said that mix model is not up to mark in respect of worth [44] and some said that the concept of it is over broadened [47]. Keeping in view the mentioned criticism present study followed ability-based model presented by Mayer and Salovey (1997) [42], which defines it a set of interlinked abilities and skills. Wong and Law (2002) [50] divide it into four domains:

Self-Emotional Appraisal (SEA)
SEA is a kind of ability possessed by an individual, which makes him/her able to understand his/her deep emotions so that he/she can express those emotions naturally for example one should distinguish between fear or anger. People having this ability would be well known to their emotions and are sensibly dealing others.

Others-Emotional Appraisal (OEA)
Similarly, to the SEA this ability is related to the understanding of others' emotions. People having this ability have power to read others' minds accurately for example a person feeling fear and other understand it and remove the thing which makes him/her feared.

Emotions' Use (UOE)
Every person expresses some kind of emotions; some people use their and others' emotions effectively while other cannot. This is a leadership ability which makes people different from others; those who have this ability can control themselves and others from doing undersired things.

Emotions' Regulation (ROE)
This is a useable ability for recovery from stress and remains normal while facing some issues. For example an employee uses political tactics to get a reward without performance and those who work hard feel anger but they remain cool by regulating emotions.

Organizational Politics and Emotional Intelligence
There are two different viewpoints about OP in organizations: the first is the manifestation of social influence that results in desired organizational outcomes and the second is narrow one; in which it is considered as a practice of unsanctioned self-serving activities, which are not concurred with overall organizational goals and taken as perceptual rather than objective phenomenon [51]. Ferris, Russ, and Fandt (1989) [33] introduced POP model which is followed by most researchers, with a few exceptions, demonstrating the subjective evaluation of an individual about his/her work environment [52].
It is researched that OP negatively predicts job outcomes like commitment, satisfaction, performance etc. and positively predicts turnover intention, job stress etc. [6,17,35,53,54]. Meisler and Vigoda (2014) [15] said that when a person participates or witnesses organizational politics, it is hard to ascertain that it does not generate intense emotions in that person. They further said that OP is the reason to give birth to frustration and anger. Despite of its importance in the life of organizations and individuals work in organizations, it remains less researched phenomenon.
Literature witnessed POPs close linkage with the employees' work outcomes; it is likely to have relationship with their emotions as well. But studies conducted on testing this relationship are fewer and there are controversies about their relationship. Vigoda and Meisler (2010) [13] conducted a research which concluded that there is no significant relationship existing between OP and EI, similarly, Meisler and Vigoda (2014) [15] concluded that there is a significant negative relationship existing between EI and OP. Asad and Durani (2014) [16] conducted a research in Pakistani banking sector and found that there is a significant positive relationship existing between EI and OP. Shrestha and Baniya (2016) [14] tested the relationship of OP and EI in Nepal and found that there exists an insignificant relationship between these two variables. So, the present study serves the literature by making clear this relationship as suggested by Shrestha and Baniya (2016) [14]. Kacmar and Ferris (1991) [36] presented a multidimensional model for POP which becomes base for the modern organizational and industrial research. Similarly, Salovey and Mayer (1990) [41] introduced ability based EI concept which becomes base of modern ability based multi-dimensional EI model of Wong and Law (2002) [50], who divided it into four sub dimensions. So, both of these are multi-dimensional and should not be used as unilateral construct because every dimension of predictor variable is associated with target variable's dimensions differently [19,20]. These two variables are used in diversified forms in different studies separately [17,18,[55][56][57], but there is a need to measure relationship between diversified models of EI and OP.
Pakistan have gained more popularity after signing China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) along with its strategic location and mix economy which includes services, industry, agri. etc. This project will attract new investments locally as well as internationally and the circulation of money will be increased, which will make the banking sector as a key player. Banking industry is also a major contributor in economic growth as its asset growth rate was 15.4% for 2014, which crossed12.5 trillion first half of 2015 [58]. The banking sector employs most of the population of Pakistan and it has had a very controlled and developed HRM system. Despite of all this, banking sector employees have still been facing stress, anxiety etc. [59,60] and turnover intension which are the consequences of OP [61]. By keeping in view the literature there is a dire need to unearth the dimensional relationship between OP and EI along with making their direct relationship clear. If the purpose of the study meets then it can be helpful in knowing the most affecting dimension of OP which leads to better deal with psychological issues and achieve goals of the organizations.

Sample and Procedure
An instrument adopted from the literature was used for data collection. Data was gathered from a public bank's (NBP) employees and private banks' employees (UBL, ABL, HBL, MCB and Alflah Bank) from Sahiwal, Okara, Bahawalnagar, and Pakpattan districts. Questionnaire was distributed to 400 employees of private and public sector banks out of which total 292 (163 from private banks' employees and 129 from public bank's employees) useable responses were received which constitute turnover of 73%. Profiles of the respondents were of the diverse nature that is of different qualification, age, position etc. Conclusively, it can be said that they were the true representatives of the employees who have not responded the survey. The questionnaires were directly handed-over to the participants, after making them clear the purpose of the research and the usefulness of responses they give. Respondents were assured that the responses they are giving will remain with us and confidential as these were collected for the study purpose only. It will never be in reach of the organizations because no questionnaire bears any name and other identification mark.
The respondents were predominantly male (N=228, 78.1%) and remainder respondents were female.

Measurement
Adopted instrument from literature was used containing likert scale ranges from 1-strongly disagree to 5-strongly agree, which were self-responded by the employees of banking sector of Pakistan.

Organizational Politics
The shortened 12-items scale version of Kacmar and Carlson (1997) [38] for POPs was used consisting three sub dimensions namely GPB, GATGA, and PPP. Details of these items are given in Table 1. The overall reliability was .815 which is consistent with the previous researches e.g. 0.77 [1], 0.74 [6] & 0.76 [62].

Emotional Intelligence
Self-report 16-items scale for EI developed by Wong and Law (2002) [50] was used which consists of four sub-dimensions i.e. SEA, OEA, UOE and ROE, detail of items for each sub-dimension is given in Table  1. The overall reliability in this study was .85 which is supported by the previous researches because it is internally consistent and valid [50,55,63,64].

Data Analysis
We used hierarchical regression for testing proposed hypotheses which includes series of equations and seemed good method to analyze the data. It looks appropriate to analyze data which includes more than one independent variable while checking their effect on single variable. Age and gender were included as standard control variables along with dimensions of organizational politics.

Descriptive Statistics and Correlations
Means, SD and correlation of the variables of the study are presented in Table 2 which shows that OP has a significant negative effect on EI (r=-.24, ρ˂0.01). To assess the relationship between organizational politics dimensions and the dimensions of emotional intelligence, Pearson correlation was calculated.

Hierarchical Regression Analysis
We tested independent variables i.e. OP dimensions' relationship with each dimension of EI by using hierarchical regression model as presented in Table 3. We entered controlled variables age and gender in the 1 st step and all three dimensions of OP in the 2 nd step. H6 suggests that GPB, GATGA and PPP have a combined effect on SEA. In the first part of the Table 3 we entered age and gender, in the first block and in the second we entered GPB, GATGA and PPP along with age and gender. The results of the hierarchical regression in Table 3 revealed that all three dimensions of OP have no significant relationship with SEA (β=-.007 ns, β=-.084 ns, and β=.130 ns respectively). But overall the combined effect of all three dimensions is significant (F= 3.274, ρ=.007, R 2 =.054) which supports our H6. Our H7 suggests that GPB, GATGA and PPP have a combined effect on OEA. In part two of Table 3 we entered GPB, GATGA and PPP as independent variables along with OEA whereas, age and gender as controlled variables. The results of the hierarchical regression in Table 3 revealed that all three dimensions of OP have no significant relationship with OEA (β=.047 ns, β=-.154 ns, and β=.038 ns respectively). But overall the combined effect of all three dimensions is significant (F= 3.695, ρ=.003, R 2 =.061) which supports our H7. Furthermore, H8 suggests that GPB, GATGA and PPP have a combined effect on UOE. In the third part of the table we entered again the same independent and controlled variables along with UOE as dependent variable. The results of the hierarchical regression revealed that GPB and PPP have no significant relationship with UOE, but GATGA has a significant negative relationship with UOE (β=-.128 ns, β=.056 ns and β=-.239, ρ=.002 respectively). Again the overall combined effect of all three dimensions is significant  =.154) which concurs our H8. In the last hypotheses we suggest that GPB, GATGA and PPP have a combined effect on ROE. In the last part of the Table 3 we entered age and gender in the first block and in the second we entered GPB, GATGA and PPP along with age and gender. The results of the hierarchical regression revealed that GPB has a significant positive effect (and β=.158, ρ=.021), GATGA has a significant negative effect (β=-.234, ρ=.003) and PPP has no significant effect (β=0.80 ns) on ROE. But overall, the combined effect of all three dimensions is significant (F= 8.459, ρ=.000, R 2 =.129) which is in accordance with H9.

DISCUSSION
As discussed earlier, the prime goal of the present study was to find the direct as well as diversified relationship of OP and EI. We hypothesized in H1 that OP significantly predicts EI and findings revealed the expected results that OP significantly predicts EI.
Banking is a service industry which is emotional labor intensive [65] and results concluded that OP has a significant negative effect on the emotional intelligence of the employees of banking sector. This finding concurs the finding of Meisler and Vigoda (2014) [15] and contradicts the findings of Asad and Durani (2014) [16] with respect to their direct relationship, whereas, our findings contradict the findings of some researchers in the context of significance of the relationship between OP and EI irrespective of negative or positive [13,14]. The possible reason behind the conclusion is that perception of OP of banking sector employees affects their abilities to perceive and appraise others' as well as their own emotions and ultimately causes inability to regulate and use their emotions.
The conducted research has many contributions to the literature of organizational politics such as; it found that OP has a significant negative effect on EI. This finding suggests that those employees who perceive their organizational environment politically influenced become unable to assess their own and others emotions accurately. As they do not assess emotions correctly, this leads their inability in regulating and using emotions correctly. Secondly, this study enriches the scope of viewing the interacting mechanism of OP and EI. Any research tried to test their relationship considers their direct relationship rather than to check their diversified relationship. This research is from the first few studies which used OP as a multidimensional as well as with diversified model of EI and comes up with results that all dimensions of OP in combination significantly affects each dimension of EI. Thirdly, results revealed that pay and promotion policies have no significant but positive relationship with all the four dimensions of EI. Possibly, this is due to the welldefined targets and associated rewards system because the figures tell everyone his/her achievements.
The results in the first and second part of the Table  3 show that the overall regression model is significant but no individual facet has a significant effect on appraisal of self and others' emotions. This is due to that there is no effect of individual facet of OP on the ability of employees to appraise self-emotions. Further, results revealed that going along to get ahead is the facet which has a significant negative effect on both ROE and UOE. Finally, as the most of the studies measure effect of EI on different job outcomes, performance and leadership [15]; the present study measures the effect of OP on EI.
What we have discussed so far is its contribution to the literature, but this study also has some managerial implications as well. Overall, this study sheds light on the three main areas that banks can focus on to get benefit from it: 1) POP can affect the EI of employees, 2) role of diversified model of OP in affecting each facet of EI, 3) relative role of each dimension of OP to affect EI dimensions. In this regard the first thing is to recognize the politics, if it does exist, then this study will help to identify that why employees act in this way who perceive organization as a political arena. It is already demonstrated in the literature of EI that it can be enhanced by training [66,67]. We should keep this in mind that the management of the bank can design training programs for enhancing EI so that employees can control effect of OP on their emotions. In training, managers can tell that what type of political behaviors exist in the organization and this will provide them with the knowledge that which employees are using which type of politics. In this way politics is not whispered only but also discussed to control its negative effects by changing the employees' perception about politics.

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Although present research contributes to OP and EI literature in a number of ways, but it also has some limitations. We used WLEIS [50] self-report measures which is based on ability model of Mayer and Salovey (1997) [42], which is a reliable scale as it is used in different cultures and different gender groups [15]. They are of the opinion that common method variance is not the reason to invalidate the data in most of the researches, but only relying on self-report may give birth to others concern. So, in future researchers can employee different methods for data collection. Further, the presented data was collected from branches of old five banks. In future, to validate results of present study, the data may be collected from regional offices as well. There can be the issues of mono method bias as the present study used five points likert-scales for all variables [68], so, in future researchers can use different scales for every variable.

CONCLUSION
The study's results give a snapshot of organizational politics and EI interplay of employees of the banking industry. The diversified relationship of OP and EI is unclear and there is need to uncover it, which this study attempt to do. This effort results in some significant outcomes including all three dimensions of OP collectively affect each dimension of EI as well as pay and promotion policies is positively associated with all facets of EI as compare to the other two OP dimensions which are negatively associated with them. Moreover, this study is an addition to the body of knowledge that how important individual dimensions of OP and EI are in the organizations. It is helpful for the banks that how political their environment is and how they can improve it to avoid its effect on EI. It could be worthwhile if the banks collect data from the applicants before recruitment and then compare it with data collected from the selectees after some time, which will make them able to find the effect of politics exist in the organization.