The impact of top managers' personality characteristics, power bases and political behaviors on organizational politics perception

In this study, it is aimed to determine the impact of top managers' personality characteristics, power bases and the frequency of their political behaviors on organizational politics perception. The field study is conducted on middle and big sized manufacturing firms operating in TR62 Çukurova Region. All the data related to both dependent and independent variables are collected from middle managers since they know much more about the company and work with the top managers more closely when compared to the other organization members.According to the research results, it is found that top managers' neuroticism levels, legitimate power and the frequency of their political behaviors affect organizational politics perception positively. Top managers' neither coercive power nor non-agreebleness levels have a statistically significant effect on perceived organizational politics. On the other hand, it is found that reward, reference and expert power affect organizational politics perception negatively.The results of the analyses also indicate that there exists a significant relationship between top managers' personality caharacteristics and the preference of power bases they exert and the frequency of influence tactics they use. Beside this, research findings reveal that middle managers' organizational politics perceptions differentiate according to personal and organizational factors.