Perceived ethicality of political behaviours in organisations: a constructivist grounded theory study Online publication date: Fri, 08-Feb-2019
by Sauvik Kumar Batabyal; Kanika T. Bhal
J. for Global Business Advancement (JGBA), Vol. 11, No. 6, 2018
Abstract: Office politics is a part of everyday professional life. In this work, we have attempted to uncover the cognitive moral logic employees utilise with regard to political behaviour in organisations. To accomplish this, we applied the constructivist grounded theory methodology by conducting, recording, analysing and coding 27 in-depth semi-structured interviews of working individuals in various organisations. Our results revealed 13 rationalising tactics or neutralisation techniques for judging whether a given political behaviour was ethical or not unethical and six different rationales of mostly normative nature for perceiving political conduct as unethical. Moreover, it also revealed that while applying logic in the context of office politics, employees tend to use more than one logic-combination. The justifications for employee behaviour seemed to depend on the position and the nature of the individual. The practical implications, limitations of this study and future research directions are also discussed.
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the J. for Global Business Advancement (JGBA):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:
Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.
If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com
Our Blog 
Follow us on Twitter 
Visit us on Facebook