Measuring Political Perceptions in Organizations: Assessing Reliability and Validity of POPS across Cultures

Abstract

This study addresses the reliability and validity across cultures of the perceptions of organizational politics scale (POPS) developed by Kacmar and Carlson (1997). First, POPS is discussed generally by tracing the development of previous scales and how POPS fits into that stream of research. Subsequently, reliability and validity are addressed from across cultural settings. Reliability of POPS is assessed using Cronbach’s alpha; validity is discussed by considering discriminate and concurrent validities. The general finding of this study is that POPS is consistently reliable across cultural settings and consistently demonstrates strong correlations with criterion variables related to POPS from within the nomological network. However, concerns about the discriminate validity of POPS in relation to perceptions of organizational support and organizational justice are shown to exist across cultural settings. In conclusion, suggestions are made for ways to build a stronger case for the reliability and validity of POPS within future research.