Positive Influence of Organisational Politics on Job Performance in Indian Higher Education Context: A Qualitative Inquiry

The job performance of academics in the higher education context has transcended from the prime focus of teaching to the concurrence of learning facilitation, research and publication. These reforms address a central research question: What are the emerging factors influencing job performance in the Indian higher education context? This study adopts a qualitative research design to explore the emerging factors affecting job performance. Thirteen academic researchers from Indian universities participated in the focus group discussions. The results of focus group discussions unravel five themes: demographics, behaviours, motivation, context and skills. The focus group discussions foregrounded the debate on knowledge-sharing behaviours, organisational politics and networking skills. However, what remains unknown is whether the organisational actors’ political characteristics influence their knowledge sharing, affecting their job performance. In this regard, the authors propose a new model that binds organisational politics to knowledge sharing and its impact on job performance. This novel approach to examining job performance contributes to theory by providing insights into the emerging themes that affect job performance and emphasising the role of political characteristics in understanding the job performance of academic researchers.