Organizational Politics and Multisource Feedback

by Ford, John M.

The current research examined the effects of perceptions of organizational politics, understanding of organizational processes, and control over organizational events on rater attitudes (i.e., acceptance, cost-benefit evaluations) toward multisource feedback systems (MSFS). Six-hundred-and-three employees were surveyed concerning their perceptions of organizational politics, understanding, control, and rater attitudes toward MSFS. The present research demonstrated that (a) understanding interacted with organizational politics perceptions in the prediction of rater acceptance of MSFS, (b) control moderated the relationship between understanding and rater attitudes toward peer feedback, (c) perceptions of organizational politics were consistently negatively related to the favorability of rater attitudes toward MSFS, (d) participants reported the most positive attitudes for providing supervisor feedback, followed by subordinate feedback, followed by peer feedback, and (e) individuals with prior experience with MSFS reported more positive attitudes toward MSFS than did individuals without prior experience with these systems. Contributions, limitations, and potential avenues for future research are discussed.