Workplace politics and performance appraisal: A two-study, multilevel field investigation

Drawing from Johns’s theory of self-serving behavior, we identified workplace politics as a contextual factor that affects the relative costs and benefits associated with supervisor rating behaviors. Our investigation tested these ideas by considering how politics influence the way in which raters combine information when evaluating subordinate performance. Specifically, we examined the three-way interaction of in-role behavior, extra-role behavior, and politics perceptions on overall ratings of performance in a two-study, multilevel investigation. Across two studies, results generally were consistent with the hypothesized three-way interaction, such that the joint effects of extra-role and in-role behavior on performance ratings varied across levels of politics. Implications of these findings and future research directions are discussed.