Organizational Politics and Citizenship: Attributions of Intentionality and Construct Definition

Organizational politics and organizational citizenship have emerged in recent years as important, but apparently distinct, work behaviors. Indeed, one might be inclined to argue that, on the surface at least, these constructs represent polar opposites. This chapter suggests that when examining the actual behaviors themselves, in many cases politics and citizenship appear to be quite similar, if not identical. Thus, it is argued that the key distinction between organizational politics and citizenship involves a behavior labeling process that is triggered by the perceiver's attributions of intentionality. A model of the process dynamics is presented, and implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.