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The purpose of this paper is to inspect the influence of organizational climate on the social desirability of political behaviour of employees. It also examines perception of politics and perceived behavioural choice as the underlying mechanisms that mediate the relationship between organizational climate and social desirability of political tactics. Finally, the paper studies the influence of desirability of politics on frequency of use of political tactics.

The study uses data (n = 234) collected from a large public sector organization in India. The inter-relationships are tested empirically using structural equation modelling.

The findings suggest that organizational climate significantly influences the social desirability of political tactics such that positive climate leads to lower social desirability of political tactics. Also, perception of politics and perceived behavioural choice mediate the relationship between organizational climate and desirability of political tactics. Finally, the social desirability of political tactics positively and significantly influences frequency of political tactics used.

Because of the nature of the study, generalization must be made with caution since it has been conducted in an Indian public sector organization, and errors due to measurement method could be present. The study provides a better understanding of the relationship between organizational climate and political behaviour and clarifies the mediating role of perception of politics and behavioural choices. It also elucidates the need for organizations to accept the active role of employees in determining the nature of workplace politics.

The study establishes political perceptions and perceived behavioural choice as important mediators between climate and political behaviour, fostering in-depth research into the environmental aspects of public sector organizations. It also establishes employees as autonomous members of the organization who make political choices by taking into account their organizational contexts, a concept much newer to highly formalized and codified public sector organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of centralization and formalization on the frequency of political tactics (FPT) used by employees. It also examines political will as the underlying variable that mediates the relationship between the focal variables.

The study uses data (n = 234) collected from a large public sector organization in India. The interrelationships are tested empirically using structural equation modeling.

The findings suggest that both centralization and formalization significantly influence the FPT used by employees. Also, political will partially mediate the relationship between centralization, formalization and FPT.

The study provides evidence of the influence of centralization and formalization as two organizational realities that lead to employee engagement in political tactics. It also elucidates the importance of political will and the need to develop social astuteness to maneuver through the maze of organizational politics. The study is conducted in a public sector organization in India and uses cross-sectional data. Therefore, generalizations must be made with caution.

The study establishes political will as an important mediator between centralization, formalization and political behavior, fostering in-depth research into the structural aspects of public sector organizations. It also establishes political will as an important individual disposition of employees that augments the engagement of employees in political behavior in highly centralized and formalized organizations.

This study theorizes about the development of dominant tactics within social movements, as certain tactics within a tactical repertoire are used frequently and imbued with ideological significance. Little research has been done on hierarchies within tactical repertoires, assuming that all tactics within a repertoire are equal. Between 1974 and 2008, the US Religious Right attempted over 200 anti-gay referendums and initiatives to retract or prevent gay rights laws. This research examines how the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement developed campaign tactics to fight these direct democracy measures. This research expands the existing literature on tactical repertoires by theorizing about the mechanisms by which tactics become dominant, namely, their affirmation by victories, responsiveness to countermovement escalation, and involvement of institutionalized social movement organizations to disseminate tactics. This research contradicts existing movement–countermovement literature that suggests that movements do not develop dominant tactics when mobilizing in opposition to a countermovement.

They say Eve tempted Adam with an apple. But man I ain’t going for that. Pink Cadillac – Bruce SpringsteenAll through history, individuals have spent considerable effort attempting to influence the behaviors and beliefs of others. As a principal issue in psychology (Forgas & Williams, 2001), social influence processes have been the subject of inquiry for a considerable length of time (Sherif, 1936) while Peterson (2001) argued that the manner in which individuals manipulate others represents the very core of social psychology. Extensive reviews of the social influence literature (e.g. Cialdini & Trost, 1998; Forgas & Williams, 2001) elucidate its powerful role in virtually all work and non-work domains.

We examine how a firm’s market-oriented capabilities (in areas such as R&D or marketing) and consumer focus (business-to-business or business-to-consumer) foster its effectiveness in pursuing corporate political activities. We then explore the sustainability of any advantage that firms may gain from their political activities. We develop a conceptual framework to propose that a firm’s political capabilities to implement different political tactics, such as information provision and constituency building, are a product of how related these tactics are to different market-oriented capabilities and to the skills needed to serve different types of customers. Finally, we propose that the integration of market strategies and political strategies provides new insight into the sustainability of the advantages that a firm might gain through political activities.

Hostile countermobilization is a crucial, yet relatively understudied, factor in radicalizing movement tactics and generating political violence. This chapter focuses on the movement–countermovement interactions between the Civil Rights Movement and the Loyalist movement in Northern Ireland to clarify the emergence and intensification of political violence in the 1968–1969 years. The interactions between the civil rights mobilization and the loyalist countermobilization created the conditions to fuel both protest-based and sectarian violence, setting the terrain for the eruption of the Troubles. Relying on quantitative data on the actors participating to contentious collective events, as well as original archival research, this chapter shows how the loyalist countermobilization activated mechanisms of object shift and tactical codependency that facilitated the emergence of radicalization in Northern Ireland.

Hunger strikes have a long history in efforts to achieve social change but scholars have made few comparative, empirical, or theoretical contributions to understanding their dynamics and connections in the social movement and nonviolent action literature. We examine hunger strikes from 1906 to 2004 with a comparative perspective, elaborating on its use as a tactic of nonviolent change. Using data assembled from the New York Times, Keesing's Worldwide Online, and The Economist we analyze how, when, where, and why hunger strikes occur, and by whom they have been utilized to seek change. In general, findings reveal that hunger strikes over the last century have been widespread phenomena that are typically small, brief, and relatively successful tactics against the state. Several themes emerge regarding hunger strikes including their appeal to the powerless and emergence when few political opportunities exist, their significance for third-party mobilization, and the role of emotions in the protest dynamics. Taken together, the power struggle involving the hunger strike is an important example and extension of “political jiu-jitsu” as presented by Sharp (1973).

Prior research has examined the sociopolitical force as simply a part of all types of environmental pressures, yet we argue that this force calls for a unique examination of marketing's role in firm responses to sociopolitical pressures. Understanding the degree to which firms attempt to manage forces and pressures in the external business environment is key to understanding marketing's role in impeding vs aiding public policy initiatives, and is the problem this research investigates.

Using structural equation modeling, data from 71 firms demonstrate that managing the sociopolitical force is, in fact, distinct from managing the other four market-based forces – consumer demand, supplier power, competition and technological shifts. Managing the sociopolitical force is shown to require fundamentally different skills and resources.

Results suggest that firm sociopolitical receptivity drives attempts to influence this unique external business environmental force, in turn limiting marketplace sociopolitical receptivity. Furthermore, attempts to influence such a unique force relies on resource-light marketing resources, which limits resource-heavy marketing.

Managing a political force with marketplace ramifications involves strategy that utilizes marketing, but is driven by relationships with social and political agents. This is truly an environmental management concept distinct from the management of the other four market-based forces. The analysis in this study demonstrates that managing another environmental force (i.e. competition force) involves different receptivity influences and marketing tactic outcomes.

Activists make strategic decisions about how to pursue their claims, but strategy is hard to study and the topic is underdeveloped theoretically. Here, we contribute to the developing academic literature on social movement strategy by offering a theoretical framework that emphasizes three distinct, albeit interrelated, movement choices: arenas of action, advocacy tactics, and demands. This framework allows us to infer strategy at the movement level through the analysis of events data. Using events data from the New York Times from 1959 to 1996, in conjunction with historical accounts of abortion politics in the United States, we analyze the development of the strategies of the anti-abortion and abortion rights movements. We demonstrate the utility of this framework, and show how movement strategies are affected by both political opportunities and the actions of countermovements, whose activists respond to the same political opportunities. We conclude with a discussion of the complications of assessing movement strategy and call for more research on the topic.