A survey of the literature on organizational politics (OP) reveals a lack of consensus among authors on a definition of this term. This paper presents a review and discussion of the various OP definitions in an attempt to further clarify the nature of this intriguing and important field of study. The definition elements are discussed in terms of their implications for future research toward the understanding of OP in work organizations.

The purpose of this study was to examine the meaning of the concept 'organizational politics' (OP) as it is perceived by members of organizations. 156 employees completed a critical incident scale presenting various combinations of OP definition elements. The results suggest that OP is more highly associated with informal rather than formal or illegal bahaviour. The presence of other definition elements such as: power attainment, acting against the organization and concealment of motive, increases the likelihood of judging behaviours as political only when formal behavioural styles are employed. In the presence of informal and illegal behavioural styles the addition of the above elements has no effect. These results challenge the structure of most OP definitions offered in the literature by suggesting that employees perceive OP not as a rigid series of necessary conditions but as a set of variables which have complex and flexible inter-relationships.

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97The purpose of this study is to explore the differences in the meaning attached to organizational politics (OP) across cultures. A critical incidents scale was distributed to two samples of university faculty, one in Canada and one in Israel. Three aspects relevant to the perception of OP were investigated: (1) the role that elements previously identified in the literature play in the actual perception of OP by employees; (2) the extent to which OP is perceived as moral; and (3) the degree to which OP is perceived to be prevalent or likely to occur in the subjects' organization. The results showed that the Canadian sample perceived the various elements in the scale as generally more political, less moral, and less prevalent in their organization than the Israeli sample. Both samples considered informal influence attempts as more political than formal or illegal ones. The two samples also considered illegal influence attempts as less moral thanformal or informal ones. Elements defined in our study as circumstantial, i.e, "conflict," "power attainment," "concealment of motive," and "acting against the organization," were found to make a smaller contribution to the perception ofsituations as political than elements defined as behavioral, i.e., "formal," "informal," and "illegal," influence attempts.

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