A Sociopolitical Perspective on Employee Innovativeness and Job Performance: The Role of Political Skill and Network Structure

Abstract

We adopt a sociopolitical perspective to examine how an employee’s political skill works in conjunction with social network structure to relate to the employee’s innovation involvement and job performance. We find that employee innovation involvement mediates the relationship between political skill and job performance and that the number of structural holes employees have in their social network strengthens the positive relationship between political skill and employee innovation involvement. Hypotheses were tested in a large microprocessor manufacturing firm using a sample of 113 employees responsible for generating technological innovations in support of the development of computer microchips. The results of a constructive replication study among medical professionals provide substantial support for our model. This study’s contribution is in showing that political skill both leads to innovation involvement and enables employees to take advantage of the innovation-enhancing potential of certain social network positions.