The Impact of organizational politics on strategy effectiveness

This paper makes a contribution to an under-explored area in strategy process research – the relationship between organizational politics (OP) and strategy effectiveness. OP has received little attention in mainstream strategy research or practice, despite strong evidence that it is an inherent part of organizational life and has negative implications for both organizations and their members. In the paper, we test a theoretical model of the impact of OP on strategy effectiveness to reveal that, in addition to the well-established negative effects of OP, certain political behaviors have a positive relationship with strategy effectiveness. Further, we show that both an iterative approach to planning which emphasizes involvement of organizational members and a more formal and structured approach to strategic planning appear to facilitate the use of collaborative political behavior, although rational type planning does so in a more limited way. Limitations and implications of our findings are discussed.