Perception of organizational politics, psychological safety climate, and work engagement: A cross-level analysis using hierarchical linear modeling

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to empirically test the hypot-hesis that the organizational psychological safety climate and the percep-tion of organizational politics predict the extent to which employees feel engaged in their work. Using hierarchical linear modeling and data collec-ted from 1,244 employees in 64 organizations, organizational level psycho-logical safety climate and employee-level perception of organizational poli-tics predicted employee work engagement. There was also an unexpected significant cross-level interaction, so that the negative effect of the percep-tion of organizational politics was amplified in organizations with a positi-ve psychological safety climate. In other words, organizational psychologi-cal safety benefits the work engagement of individuals more when they perceive the existence of low organizational politics. The results offer in-sight into the mechanisms by which the perceived organizational context may influence employees” work engagement and highlight the importance for the perceived organizational consistency in the promotion of work en-gagement within their organization.