Does participation in the workplace spill over into political participation? A latent class analysis approach to patterns of political behavior

PurposeThis study examines Pateman's “spillover thesis” that democratic participation in the workplace will “spill over” into political participation. It applies a latent class analysis (LCA) to identify patterns of political behavior and uses workplace participation and political efficacy as predicting variables of political behavior patterns.Design/methodology/approachThis study analyzed the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) in 2014 General Social Survey (GSS) data. This study applied a LCA to identify distinct patterns in people's political behaviors and did a multinomial regression analysis to predict the patterns with workplace participation and political efficacy.FindingsThe study found partial support for the spillover thesis. Among three distinct political behavior patterns, two active patterns were associated with political efficacy. However, the mediation from workplace participation to political participation through political efficacy was not supported. Respondents involved in workplace units that collectively make work-related decisions were more likely to be active in political behaviors, but only one set of political activities. Higher political efficacy was found to lead to more active overall political participation of both patterns.Originality/valueUnlike the previous studies of democratic spillover, which treated political behaviors either as independent types of behaviors or as a summative index of such binary coded variables, this study addressed such shortcomings of the previous studies by providing a more complex picture of political behavior patterns and their relationship with workplace participation. Future research can build on this unique methodological endeavor to explore a holistic picture of how workplace practices can influence politics and democracy through individual workers.

Perceived Abusive Leadership, Narcissistic Personality, and Employee's Political Behaviors: A Moderated-Mediation Model

Limited research has explored the potential explanatory mechanisms for the link between abusive leadership and non-negative employee-based behaviors in the effectiveness of organizational management. Based on affective response theory to construct a theoretical model, this study enhances the mapping of how employee-perceived abusive leadership triggers employee affective responses and influences their political behaviors to facilitate task-related goals. It also investigates how the moderating effects of employee-perceived leader's narcissistic personality interact with the variables of the main effects. This study was implemented in Taiwan's financial and insurance institutions. Using a sampling framework via a market survey agency, participants completed three online surveys within a 3-week period. 350 employed participants registered for the study. Based on the findings, we suggest that managers in a hierarchical organization may be able to intentionally vary their leadership style to arouse employees' negative emotions without hindering, and perhaps even improving, employees' motivation to achieve their task aims. When leaders demonstrate their self-confidence in the workplace, employees perceive less anxiety at work and less need to adopt workplace political behaviors to solve work troubles. This research suggests managers should recognize employee-perceived abusive leadership as an influential factor that contributes to illuminating the processes underlying workplace perception-to-behavior and leader–member interactive links, as well as the boundary conditions of mediating and moderating these processes.

Etnografia wielostanowiskowa: inspiracje metodologiczne do badań nad politycznością

Spatial and social mobility in an increasingly globalized world is associated with new challenges for social sciences, including political science. This also applies to methods and methodology. The article aims to reveal the cognitive potential that lies in the use of multi–sited ethnography for research on politics and on the study of political behaviors (das Politische). The utility of this approach is illustrated on the basis of the research on social and spatial mobility of small town residents conducted with the use of this method.

Does Affective Polarization Undermine Democratic Norms or Accountability? Maybe Not

Scholars warn that affective polarization undermines democratic norms and accountability. If citizens increasingly detest the other party’s supporters, are they more likely to endorse norm violations, overlook copartisan politicians’ shortcomings, oppose compromise, adopt their party’s views, or misperceive economic and public health conditions? A large, influential literature speculates as such. However, such speculation remains difficult to test. We argue the contrary: affective polarization’s consequences should be generally confined to interpersonal domains, with more circumscribed political implications. We support this argument with unique experiments which exogenously manipulate citizens’ levels of affective polarization and trace downstream consequences, such as their reaction to information about their actual representatives. In our experiments (N = 9,836) we produce the equivalent of three decades change in affective polarization, but find no evidence that these changes in affective polarization influence a broad range of political behaviors—only interpersonal attitudes. Our results raise doubt about the view that reducing affective polarization would meaningfully bolster democratic norms or accountability.

Influence tactics and “second-order” change in schools: case study research of principals' political behaviors and strategies

PurposePrincipals are considered central in initiating and mobilizing changes in schools; however, their political behaviors in the course of school changes are underexplored. The present research investigated the influence tactics used by school principals to induce teachers to join a process of second-order (deep and wide) change in the school teaching and culture. In specific, the authors were interested to know which influence tactics, principals and staff members considered to be efficient during such a second-order change process.Design/methodology/approachThe study was based on a case study method focusing on four Israeli Jewish state public religious schools participating in the “Routes” program aimed at strengthening religious values in schools. Data collection included semi-structured interviews with principals, teachers with program coordinators responsibilities and teachers in four schools.FindingsThe results indicate that school principals who are considered successful in leading changes display two key influence prototypes: a hybrid type that combines soft and hard influence tactics and a unitype that relies on soft influence tactics.Originality/valueThe research study contributed to the limited knowledge in educational administration on micropolitics and political behaviors in the course of school changes.