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The current paper seeks to bring the political perspective to gender differences in promotion decisions, a phenomenon with great longevity in research and practice. Specifically, the degree to which gender role‐congruent and counterstereotypical influence behavior is related to liking as moderated by political skill.

Using a sample of n=136, these hypotheses were tested in retail organizations in the Northeast and Southwest.

Political skill significantly moderates the relationship between ingratiation and liking, such that use of ingratiation was positively related to liking when women were high in political skill. However, the relationship between assertiveness and liking was unchanged by political skill level and was unrelated to liking. Liking was consistently found to be positively related to promotability ratings.

Questionnaire data collection is used exclusively; however, the subordinate and supervisor data were collected at two different times.

The results are relevant for employees in that they imply a need for them to be cognizant of their behavior as it relates to social role expectations and for supervisors to understand the factors that could contribute to lower ratings.

The current results suggest that gender role‐congruent influence behavior is positively related to socially relevant evaluations (i.e. liking); thus, women whose behavior is consistent with social expectations may be more positively evaluated.

This study provides a political explanation for differences in women's promotability and also investigates mechanisms that may be related to reducing promotability disparity.

Examines the connection between influencing and negotiation. Using data collected from self‐assessment instruments developed by them, the authors argue that it is useful to see negotiation as one type of influencing. Effective negotiation can be seen in terms of the use of particular influencing strategies. The article is in two parts. Part I examined influencing strategies and styles. This second part considers negotiating skills and highlights the relationship between them and influencing styles. The findings raise questions about training in these areas and have implications for how this is undertaken. They also raise questions about what constitutes managerial effectiveness in these areas.

Using social influence theory, this study examines the relationship between self-initiated expatriates' (SIE) political skill, as a measure of their social effectiveness, and cross-cultural adjustment (CCA). It also tests whether the host employer's psychological contract (PC) fulfillment mediates this relationship.

Partial least square structural equation modeling (covariance-based SEM) technique is employed to analyze a sample of 209 SIEs.

The study finds SIEs' political skill positively and significantly associated with SIEs' work-related adjustment. The relationship with interactional adjustment is only marginally significant. It also finds that SIEs' PC fulfillment mediates the relationship between SIEs' political skill and work-related adjustment. The mediation is marginally significant for the relationship between SIEs' political skill and general living adjustment.

The study adds to the literature on expatriates' skills and CCA by theorizing and testing the hitherto unexplored role of SIEs' political skill in their work and non-work CCA. It also theorizes and examines the host employer's PC fulfillment as a mediating mechanism, through which SIEs' political skill facilitates their CCA. Finally, it advances the literature on political skill by testing the construct's application in the cross-cultural and non-work domain.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and develop a model which examines the effects of political skill on an individual’s intent to deceive.

Data were obtained through a survey research design (n=273). The sample consisted of college students. A covariance-based structural equation modeling approach was used to analyze the data.

Individual’s with high levels of political skill had more deception confidence and less deception guilt. Increased deception confidence was shown to be positively related to perceptions of deception success which is turn is positively associated with deception intent. The factors duping delight and deception guilt were also found to be related to deception intent.

This research furthers deception research by using a strong behavioral framework to determine the motivational influences on an individual’s politically motivated intent to deceive. In doing so, this research identifies factors which contribute to the general understanding of politically motivated deception intent. However, caution must be applied when making external generalizations outside of the sample of college students.

There are practical applications to this research as well. In general those who are highly politically skilled seem to have a stronger intention to deceive. At best, these findings can begin to contribute to the understanding of who we can trust and who we should be wary of. At worst, these findings can help us know who we should turn to when we need to deceive and manipulate others without them catching on. Perhaps this is why we love the rock-star politicians on the side of the isle but loathe the rock-star politicians on the other side of the isle. If we are able to assess the level of political skill in our friends, co-workers, bosses, politicians, etc., we may be keener in picking up on the signals of deception.

One final area of future research which can build on the concepts presented in this study is the area of social and political power at the macro level. Though the focus of this study is the individual, it is possible that political skill and deceptive communications play an important part of power relationships in wide range of stable institutional systems. Future research should examine to what extent an individual’s political skill and deception abilities can influence society at large.

This research extends research on political skill as it explores the effect of political skill in a new context. This research identifies an important facet of why some individuals are better able than others to successfully deceive and may help explain some of the variability in the inability to consistently detect deception efforts.

Skilled migrants' careers are heterogeneous, with existing theories capturing only some of their diversity and dynamic development over time and circumstance. This paper aims to draw out the multilevel (macro, meso and micro levels) influences impacting skilled migrants' careers by using the lens of the intelligent career framework. Furthermore, structuration theory captures the agency of skilled migrants facing different social structures at and across levels and explains the idiosyncratic nature of skilled migrants' careers.

Following an abductive approach, this paper examines the career influences for a sample of 41 skilled migrants in three different host countries. Individual career stories were collected through qualitative interviews. Important career influences from these narratives are categorised across the intelligent career competencies (knowing why, how and whom) at the macro, meso and micro levels.

Findings illustrate the lived reality for skilled migrants of these interrelated multilevel career influences and go some way in elucidating the heterogeneity of skilled migrants' careers and outcomes. The interplay of individual agency in responding to both facilitating and challenging social structures across the multilevels further explains the idiosyncratic nature of skilled migrants' careers and how/whether they achieve satisfying career outcomes. Some potential policy implications and options arising from these findings are suggested.

By considering multilevel themes that influence skilled migrants' career capital, the authors were able to better explain the complex, relational and idiosyncratic shaping of their individual careers. As such, the framework informs and guides individuals, practitioners and organisations seeking to facilitate skilled migrants' careers.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the soft skill gap of graduate employees, as well as the factors influencing the skill gaps of real estate graduates in the employment of real estate firms in Nigeria.

Primary data were employed for the study. Close-ended questionnaire served on real estate employers in the two major property markets of Nigeria: Lagos and Abuja. From a total of 343 questionnaires administered, 172 (59.7%) questionnaires were retrieved. While data from the graduate employees were obtained via a web-based survey sent out to a total of 558 graduates, 119 (21.33%) responses were received. Descriptive and inferential statistical techniques were employed in the data analysis.

The findings showed that employers had high expectations for soft skillsets relating to responsibility, administrative, listening and communication skills. These have respective mean scores of 6.38, 6.33, 6.31 and 6.31 on a seven point scale. However, the results revealed significant skill gaps with skills such as logical thinking, business negotiation, responsibility and marketing. Further, the analysis revealed that factors influencing the skill gap, in decreasing order of influence, are training/professional mentors/remuneration, personal preferences/industry characteristics and curriculum/faculties.

Real estate graduate soft skills are investigated to uncover areas of emphasis and skill gaps. These outcomes could serve as important feedbacks for stakeholders towards improving real estate teaching and curriculum. The findings could also assist real estate graduates to know employers areas of emphasis in relation to graduate employability skills.

Extant studies have reiterated and evaluated the soft skills gaps based on the perceptions of employers, faculties and institutions of higher learning. However, there is the need to investigate the perception of graduate employees, being the recipient and major stakeholders in the training process.

Previous research on the factors influencing mentoring received has primarily focused on protégés' personalities and the similarity between protégés and mentors, whereas understanding on the role of protégés' skills is still limited. Drawing upon the social influence theory, this study investigated how newcomers' political skill influences newcomers' mentoring received and further affects newcomers' socialization outcomes (i.e. person-organization fit perception [P-O fit], performance proficiency and well-being).

Data were collected from 255 newcomers at a large Chinese information and technology (IT) company using a three-wave, time-lagged design.

The authors found that newcomers' political skill positively predicted mentoring received, which in turn positively affected newcomers' socialization outcomes.

These findings indicate that political skill enables newcomers to exert social influence on organizational insiders to achieve desirable socialization outcomes, enlarging both the mentoring and political skill literature.

This paper aims to present a model of the employability confidence of graduates using employability skills. The purpose of the study is twofold: to identify to what extent self-perceived employability skills (input employability) influence the employability confidence of students/graduates (output employability) and to identify if there are determinant relationships between categories of employability skills.

The researchers for this study built and tested an employability confidence model which included seven constructs. Six focussed on employability skills “professional skills, transferable individual skills, transferable social skills, personal qualities, job seeking skills and corporate work-related skills”, while the last one focussed on employability confidence, seen as the students’/graduates’ self-reliance for getting and maintaining a job. The model was refined using structural equation modelling (with SmartPLS 3 SEM software) and was tested by empirically, analysing a sample of participants studying business.

The results illustrated that four categories of skills (personal qualities, professional skills, job seeking skills and transferable social skills) have a positive and significant influence on students’/graduates’ employability confidence, while individual transferable skills and corporate-related skills do not have a significant influence on employability confidence.

The study contributed to the exiting literature by proposing a new model and measurement instrument that links input employability (individual employability skills) with output employability (employability confidence). The model emphasizes the complete range of individual employability skills, the types of skills that are in the control of the individual. It also contributed by collecting data from a less studied country and region, Romania, that can be considered relevant for Central and Eastern Europe due to similar economic, political, cultural and historical characteristics.

From a practical point of view, the results can be of interest to individuals, to universities and the teaching staff, to organizations and their human resource specialists, and to public administrators, as they all can act to support the development of individual employability skills, thereby helping to increase the employability confidence of individuals.

The study contributed to the exiting literature not only by proposing a new conceptual model to analyse employability confidence but also by collecting data from a less studied region, Romania, that can be considered relevant for Central and Eastern Europe due to similar economic, political, cultural and historical characteristics.

Political skill has emerged as a concept of interest within the information systems literature to explain individual performance outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to adapt political skill to technology-mediated contexts. Specifically, the authors seek to understand political skill's role in shaping microtask workers' opportunity recognition when utilizing online communities in microtask work environments.

The authors tested their research model using a survey of 348 Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers who participate in microtask-related online communities. MTurk is a large, popular microtasking platform used by thousands of microtask workers daily, with several online communities supporting microtask workers.

Technology-based political skill plays a critical role in shaping the resources microtasking workers rely upon from online communities, including opportunity recognition and knowledge sharing. The ability to develop opportunity recognition positively impacts a microtask worker's ability to leverage online communities for microtask worker performance. Tenure in the community acts as a moderator within the model.

The present study makes several contributions. First, the authors adapt political skill to an online community to account for how microtask workers understand a community's socio-technical environment. Second, the authors demonstrate the antecedent role of political skill for opportunity recognition and knowledge sharing. Third, the authors provide empirical validation of the link between online communities and microtask worker performance.

Political skill is measured with the political skill inventory (PSI), and the construct is composed of four distinct dimensions. Previous validation studies of the PSI found evidence in support of the four‐factor structure, but only using self‐reports. Furthermore, no efforts have been made to also identify a single, higher‐order factor solution through second‐order factor analysis. The present research aims to expand on prior work and report on a two‐study investigation of both the construct validity and antecedents and consequences of the political skill construct.

To test construct validity, Study 1 combined self‐ and other reports of political skill from 467 employees in a confirmatory factor analysis. Study 2 used longitudinal data from 202 employees to constructively replicate Study 1 results and to test hypotheses regarding the antecedents and consequences of political skill.

The results of Study 1 confirmed both a four‐factor and a single higher‐order factor solution of the political skill construct, thus supporting our hypothesis. Study 2 constructively replicated the Study 1 factorial validity results, and supported hypotheses regarding the dispositional and developmental experience antecedents, career‐related consequences, and mediation of these antecedents and outcomes by political skill.

These two studies test the construct validity of political skill using both self‐ and other‐reports. Further, this is the first research to test the Ferris et al. conceptualization of political skill, by examining its antecedents, consequences, and mediation of the antecedents‐consequences relationships.