MODELLING THE INFLUENCE OF ORGANISATIONAL POLITICS ON EMPLOYEE JOB STRESS ON SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES IN GAUTENG PROVINCE: SOUTH AFRICA

Organisational politics has gained the attention of management researchers and organisational psychologists in the past two decades. Politics in organisations is an element of existence. Individual experiences, ideas and circumstantial proof have maintained the common belief that behaviour within the work environment is frequently political. Against this background, this paper examines the influence of organisational politics on job stress among small and medium enterprises employees in Gauteng Province of South Africa. A quantitative approach was applied with the use of a cross sectional survey (questionnaire) to gather information on organisational politics and job stress from 230 participants. Data analysis was conducted using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, version 28.0 and the Analysis of Moment Structures version 28.0. A confirmatory factor analysis was applied in examining and testing the relationships between observed constructs and their causal latent constructs, while structural equation modelling was used to test the hypothesised relationships between the constructs. The results of the study revealed that there is a positive and significant relationship between organisational politics and job stress. The findings also emphasised that organisational politics is considered a hindrance-related stressor that hampers the proper functioning of individual employees. The management of small enterprises should concede that organisational politics is part of the organisational environment, therefore, policies and procedures must be in place to control such political behaviour.