Perceived organizational politics and employees' innovative behavior: a cross-level joint moderation model

Although prior research has linked perception of organizational politics (POP) to employees' innovative behavior (EIB), the cross-level boundary conditions under which political skill and environmental uncertainty jointly shape this relationship remain underexplored. This study investigates the impact of POP on EIB, and introduces political skill (at the individual level) and environmental uncertainty (at the organizational level) to further examine the cross-level boundary conditions, i.e., the interactive effects of individual-level and organizational-level factors. Based on an empirical study of 402 samples from 39 Chinese companies, the results indicated that the POP was negatively related to EIB, and political skill negatively moderated the relations between POP and EIB. Moreover, political skill better reduced the negative impact of POP on EIB in organizations with higher environmental uncertainty. Our findings uncover the constraining mechanism of POP on EIB from a cross-level perspective, focusing specifically on how political skill and environmental uncertainty jointly moderate this relationship. The aim is to uncover the interaction pattern between individual and organizational factors within a behavioral science framework, rather than offering prescriptive managerial guidelines. This study accordingly extends the theoretical scope of research on organizational politics and environmental uncertainty.