- Ambiguous Goals
When the goals of a department or the entire organization are ambiguous then there is more room available for playing politics. Some people may use the ambiguity to manipulate the situation for their benefit.
- Scarce Resources
When resources are scarce, people have the tendency to use political behavior to make sure that they get the biggest possible share of the resource.
- Changes in Technology and Environment
Organizational effectiveness is largely a function of the organization‘s ability to appropriately respond to external environment which is highly dynamic and generally unpredictable as well as adequately adopt to complex technological developments. Thus, political behavior is increased when the internal technology is complex and when external environment is highly volatile.
- Non-Programmed Decisions
Sometimes, the companies have to make a lot of non-Programmed decisions on certain issues. These decisions are not based on clear standards and precedents, because such issues involve many factors and variables that are complex in nature. Hence decisions are taken on intuition, bunch and guesses and all these subjective feelings can be affected by political behavior.
- Organizational Change
Whenever there are changes in the organizational structure and policies, peoples in powerful positions have the opportunity to play politics. These changes may include restructuring of a division or creating a division, personnel changes, introducing a new product line and all these changes influence political behavior when various individuals and groups try to control the given situation.
