Organizational Politics and Employees’ Performance in Private Sector Investment: A Comparative Study of Zenith Bank Plc and Alcon Plc. Nigeria

Abstract

Objective of research focus to investigate the impact of organizational politics on employees’ performance in the private sectors. Qualitative study was chosen using Zenith Bank Plc and Alcon Plc, Nigeria. The choice of methodology reflects explorative purpose of this research. The data were mainly primary, collected during face-to-face interviews with managers and subordinates of the two firms. Study adopts data categorization approach for the analysis of empirical findings to see the connection between theory and practice. Research found that bad political behavior affects negatively employees’ performance and lowers organizational productivity; while good political behavior affects positively employees’ performance and increases organizational productivity. Reflecting on the problems identified in this study, the authors recommend that every political maneuvering should be managed within reasonable bounds. Again, the authors hereby recommends seven approaches as follows; screen out exceedingly any political individuals during recruitment exercise; create an open-book management system to keep track of  employee’s behavior; periodic financial and accounting statements for all employees should not be politicized; establish formal conflict resolution and grievance processes; openly identify and reward staff who get real results without political games; disciplinary committee should be set up and defaulters should be apprehended to serve as a deterrent for others to follow; organization should adopt sensitive analysis approach to track and monitor any strange behavior of workers in the work environment. Reflecting on the outcome of this research, firstly, one of the problems encountered in carrying out this research was due to difficulty getting enough people to answer interview questions due to tight schedules of the participant; this has implications on the sample size and is considered as one of the study limitations. Based on this, the author recommends future researchers to consider large sample size when replicating study or use alternative research methodology to see if the same result will be replicated.

Key terms: Influence, Private sector, Organizational politics, Performance, Political behavior.