Citizens' Perceptions of Politics and Ethics in Public Administration: A Five-Year National Study of Their Relationship to Satisfaction with Services, Trust in Governance, and Voice Orientations

In recent decades organizational politics (OP) has become agrowing field of interest in managerial studies. To date, themajor scholarly effort has been dedicated to the explorationof intraorganizational politics based on employees' perceptions.However, one of the important aspects of this phenomenon isthe way in which it is viewed by the external organizationalenvironment—by customers, clients, and as far as governmentalagencies are concerned, by the general public as well. Thisarticle examines citizens' perceptions of organizational politicsand ethics in public administration systems. It focuses on therelationship between these perceptions and several key outcomesof modern bureaucracy such as satisfaction with services, trustin governmental institutions, and the resulting voice orientationsand actions by the public (i.e., political efficacy, politicalparticipation). The data for the study were gathered from ahalf decade's worth of national surveys in Israel. The resultspoint to meaningful direct and indirect relationships betweenorganizational politics and ethics in the public sector, satisfaction,trust, and voice orientation. The article ends with a discussionof the theoretical and practical implications of the findingsand suggestions for future studies.