Study On The Influence Of Female Managers Political Skill On Career Success In Enterprises

Under the background of Chinese culture, career women undertake the dual roleof the work and family. It is very important to balance the relationship between thework and family for each career female if they want to enjoy a happy life and obtainthe career success. Existing researches show that the political skill directly orindirectly influences the career success (Brickle et al.,2011; Liu jun,2010; Liyanping&Tu yidong,2011). From the perspective of gender, there are littleresearches discussing on the influence and the relationship path about the politicalskill of female managers on career success, which is still worth study for the scholars.Compared with foreign scholars, Chinese scholars don’t pay more attention to theconstruct of “workplace friendship”, and seldom study on it. Some scholars discussedthe individuals with higher political skill have controlled the external environmentwell, found the social cues rapidly, and had good at developing workplace friendshipon-the-job field (Wei et al.,2010). Workplace friendships improved employees’ healthof social psychology, produced satisfaction and happiness at the same time,effectively promoted the development of organization and the career success ofemployees (Blass,2003; Morrison,2007). Compared with men, women hope thatthey can obtain the understanding and support from colleagues through workplacefriendship to satisfy the needs of their emotions and communication (Morrison,2009).Until now, only fewer scholars take workplace friendship as the mediating variableand focus on its functional mechanism between the political skill and career success.Ng et al.(2005) found that organizational support played the important role in thecareer success of female manager. In other words, different POS (perceived oforganizational support) might play contingency role between the political skill and career success. But related researches are very limited about the moderate function ofPOS between the political skill and career success. Therefore, it is necessary to deeplyexplore the theory and test the empirical about the relationship among those variables.In order to solve the problems and gaps of the existing studies, basing on theperspective of the political skill, this paper reviews and summarizes the previousliteratures, then constructs the functional mechanism and theory model of femalemanagers career success in enterprises. It discusses the moderating role of POS on thepolitical skill and career success in the Chinese context.Firstly, the paper constructs the basic theoretical framework basing onsemi-structured interviewing with ten female managers in different enterprises.Secondly, the paper corrects and tests the theoretical framework and researchhypothesis through questionnaire survey and data collection from590femalemanagers who work in different industries and enterprises. Finally, the followingimportant conclusions are drawn by using the method of statistical analysis under thecondition of controlling the related demographic variables.(1) The political skill of the enterprise female managers significantly influencesthe career success. In particularly, interpersonal influence and the network abilityhave significant and positive effect on the career success. Social astuteness andapparent sincerity have no effect on career success(2) The political skill of the enterprise female managers significantly influencesthe workplace friendship. Specifically, the interpersonal influence and the networkability have significant and positive effect on the workplace friendship, together withapparent sincerity. Out of this, interpersonal influence and network ability havestronger influence on the workplace friendship, followed by apparent sincerity. Socialastuteness has no effect on the workplace friendship.(3) The workplace friendship of the enterprise female managers has significantand positive effect on the career success. Concretely speaking, enterprise femalemanagers with the workplace friendship would not only get the support of theemotional and morality from others, but also obtain more information and resourcesabout the organization, which contribute to their career success. (4)The workplace friendship of the enterprise female managers plays anmediating role between the political skill and career success. In this regard, theworkplace friendship is a kind of media and means which promoting the positiveinfluence of the political skill on career success. That is to say, driven by workplacefriendship, individuals who have high political skill would have solved the problemmore confidently, and increased the commitment to work, as well as improved the jobsatisfaction and achieved the career success.(5) The POS of enterprise female managers has play the positive moderating roleon the relationship between the political skill and career success. In other words, thestronger POS the enterprise female managers have, the more significant and positiveinfluence of the political skill on career success, and vice versa.The contribution of this paper is as below:(1) It expands the theoretical perspective about the political skill. From theperspective of gender, the paper discusses the process and influence about thepolitical skill of enterprise female managers on career success. It finds eachdimension of the political skill has different influence on career success of enterprisefemale manager, which expanding the research perspective about the political skill inthe future.(2) It enriches the theory of the career success. Influenced by Chinese traditionalculture, working women have been weak and in the passive position. Therefore, basedon considering the measurement dimension of the subjective and objective careersuccess by existing scholars (Heslin,2005; Arthur et al.,2005; Zhou wenxia&Sunjianmin,2010), the paper adopts the dimension of the work-family balance to measurethe female career success. Through analyzing the reliability and validity of scale, themeasurement index of enterprise female managers career success has certain practicalvalue.(3) It builds relationship model about the political skill, career success,workplace friendship and POS. The paper constructs the model between the politicalskill and career success, and identifies the mediating function of workplace friendship.Through exploratory research it finds POS is contingency variable and plays moderating effect on the political skill and career success.Under the context ofChinese culture, the paper not only enriches the related research of the political skill,career success, workplace friendship, but also provides the theory and experienceabout how to accelerate the growth of female managers from the aspect oforganization.At last, this paper gives the organization some managemental advices as follows:(1) Organization should improve the female manager political skills. It shouldestablish the curriculum which aiming to improve female manager political skill byspending time and energy, as well as providing necessary resources. At the same time,the organization should pay more attention to strengthen their practical skill.(2) Organization should create a good organizational atmosphere which isbeneficial to build workplace friendship. It should take effective action to buildpositive and inclusive organization atmosphere, and create opportunities to increasethe communication between the employees, then ask the female employees to takepart in. In particularly, female employees obtain the high career satisfaction and jobsatisfaction by establishing workplace friendship, and then promote the careerdevelopment and success.(3) Organization should support female manager’s career development. In orderto select the excellent female managers to create the value for the organization, it isnecessary to specifically provide education and training opportunities for them, andestablish the scientific and effective system of the performance appraisal andpromotion.