ARE POLITICALLY SKILLED EMPLOYEES HAPPIER? A RESEARCH STUDY FROM A GENDER PERSPECTIVE

Political skill is defined as the ability to understand others at work and to use this information in order to influence people in a way to leverage personal or organizational goals. In the highly politicized atmosphere of the contemporary business organizations, employees are not only expected to develop a set of political skills for survival, but they are also supposed to integrate their those skills into daily work practices. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between political skill and job satisfaction, and to test for the moderating role of gender. To that end, data was collected on a sample of 248 white collar bank employees in Ankara, ？zmir and Manisa provinces through survey method. According to the findings of the study, there are significantly positive correlations between political skill subscales and job satisfaction. There are also statistically significant differences between men and women in terms of the relationship between social astuteness and job satisfaction as well as between networking ability and job satisfaction. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed