How and When Perception of Organizational Politics Triggers Workplace Deviance: A Moderated-Mediation Model of Authentic Leadership and Organizational Cynicism

This article explores the effect of perceived organizational politics on workplace deviance under the theoretical rationale of social exchanges and the job demand resource model. In addition, it investigates the mediating role of organizational cynicism and the moderating role of authentic leadership in this process. This moderated-mediation model of the study was tested using PLS-SEM technique on data of employees of six different public sector universities situated in the southern region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Results found that perceived organizational politics is directly and positively related to workplace deviance. We found partial support of the mediation of organizational cynicism between the direct perceived organizational politics-workplace deviance relationship. We further revealed that these direct and indirect relationships are not constant but vanish where employees work under a highly authentic leadership climate and vice versa. In this way, this study broadens the research on the perceived organizationalpolitics-workplace deviance relationship by introducing a novel mediator of organizational cynicism. This study further contributes to the literature by exploring authentic leadership as the bounder condition for both direct and indirect relationships. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed