Unveiling the Power Play: How Newcomers’ Traits Shape Political Acumen Within Organizations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33423/jop.v24i2.7016Keywords:
organizational psychology, political knowledge, organizational politics, personality traitsAbstract
Political knowledge describes “an individual’s understanding of specific influential others’ relationships, demands, resources, and preferences” (Granger et al., 2020), is an often-overlooked dimension of learning how to fit into a new organization (Chao et al., 1994; Taormina, 1994). Moreover, newcomer research has been conducted independently of individual newcomer personality differences. To extend previous research, the present research examines newcomers’ Big Five personality traits and political knowledge as an immediate outcome of the process of newcomer adjustment. A 3-wave longitudinal study of 439 newcomers in 7 organizations examined Big Five personality traits as antecedents of political knowledge of the organization. The results suggested that among the Big Five traits, openness, neuroticism, and conscientiousness were positively related to apolitical knowledge of the organization. Overall, the results suggested that the Big Five are one of the key determinants of organizational political knowledge.
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