Political Skills 2.0

An Analysis of Success-oriented Strategic Behavior in Online Business Networks

Henning Staar

, Pia Keysers

, Fabian Storch

, Christian Kempny

and Monique Janneck

BiTS Business and Information Technology School, Iserlohn, Germany

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Applied Sciences, Luebeck, Germany

Keywords: Political Skills, Media Competencies, Social Networks, XING.

Abstract: This study investigated media competencies and political skills of users of a Business Network–namely

XING–and their relation with successful use of the online platform by means of an online survey (N=182).

Subjective as well as objective criteria for professional success were used. Results show that besides general

media competencies, individual abilities to exert social influence are highly relevant to take advantage of

Social Networks: Participants with both high media competencies and political skills enjoyed more

opportunities for personal training and development and received more business offers.

1 INTRODUCTION

Influencing other people is an important success

factor in most business contexts (Blickle et al., 2008;

Ferris et al., 2007). This includes e.g. impression

management behavior in application processes or

negotiations, building profitable networks as well as

the acquisition of relevant work-related information.

High levels of interpersonal social skills are seen as

helpful for successful influence attempts in

organizations (Ferris et al., 2002; Ferris et al., 2012)

and for promoting one’s own career (Perrewé and

Nelson, 2004; Todd et al., 2009).

Besides such ‘political skills’, further key

competencies are becoming more and more

important for work-related success and career

development. An increasing virtualization of

business and work processes has led to a

significantly higher usage of information and

communication technology (ICT). To be visible on

the market and to exchange business-related

information the skilled usage of web-based services

has become an essential business matter (Janneck

and Staar, 2011).

This implies not only technical skills of how to

handle different media, but sophisticated knowledge

on how to communicate virtually and achieve

desired effects in online communication. The

knowledge of media-specific impacts on the quality

of communication and, building on that, the ability

to exert influence on others via electronic media is

an important part of media competencies (Elron and

Vigoda, 2003; Elron and Vigoda-Gadot, 2006). As

such, above-mentioned examples of career

facilitating influence behavior like business-related

impression management and strategic networking

have to be virtually reproduced and require both

persuasive social skills as well as competent

handling of different media formats (McKenna et al.,

2002).

A predominant form of virtualized business and

work processes are Online Business Networks such

as LinkedIn–which is the currently leading

international career platform–or XING in Germany.

The central function of such platforms is the

possibility to present oneself with an online profile

and to get in touch with other users on the platform.

By visualizing one’s network of contacts, companies

as well as employees provide possibilities for tying

business contacts, making acquisitions, self-

marketing as well as exchanging information.

The present study explores media-related and

influence-related skills of users of Online Business

Networks, which are relevant to successfully use

such platforms. Specifically, we investigated the use

of XING, which is the leading online career network

in Germany and other parts of Europe with currently

more than seven million members. The paper is

structured as follows: In the next section, the

theoretical background and related work regarding

media competencies and political skills will be

introduced. In the third section the study design and

670

Staar H., Keysers P., Storch F., Kempny C. and Janneck M..

Political Skills 2.0 - An Analysis of Success-oriented Strategic Behavior in Online Business Networks.

DOI: 10.5220/0005530006700676

In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies (STDIS-2015), pages 670-676

ISBN: 978-989-758-106-9

 2015 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

methods are presented, followed by the results of our

study. The paper concludes with a discussion and

suggestions for further research.

2 MEDIA COMPETENCIES AND

POLITICAL SKILLS AS

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS

IN ONLINE NETWORKS

In a virtualized world, media competencies enable

individuals to take advantage of the possibilities that

different media formats offer instead of simply using

them (Martins et al., 2004; Greer and Jehn, 2009).

Based on this perspective media competencies in

general comprise the ability to use media in a

critical, responsible and self-determined way and to

understand as well as evaluate and design electronic

media (Lievrouw and Livingstone, 2002).

Media usage includes the receptive skill to

encode content and integrate it into existing thought

and memory structures (Abele, 2011). This

comprises practical technical mastery as well as the

ability to use interactive content sensibly and

appropriately (Janneck and Staar, 2011; Staar et al.,

2013).

Communities like XING require specific

behaviors and rules–adapted to the target group–as

well as related communication habits among users,

so-called implicit ‘codes of conduct’. Furthermore,

like all Web 2.0 applications using platforms like

XING require design competencies: Users develop

and shape their own profiles and add or change

content (e.g. blog or forum posts). Therefore, for an

effective use members of Social Networks should

know how their own actions affect other users (Van

Dijck, 2013).

Meanwhile, practical literature and guidebooks

on how to use online platforms for building business

networks abound (e.g. Abele, 2011; Okdie and

Guadagno, 2008; Wilson, 2003), usually focusing on

technical settings and simple communication

guidelines. However, social competencies and

political skills of users have been largely

unconsidered with relation to the successful use of

business networks. As strategic networking and

impression management behavior are core issues of

such platforms, concepts of social influence or

political skills should constitute important elements

of successful online networking behavior.

In general, political skills can be described as

informal strategies of how to successfully influence

others at work in order to realize one’s own goals

and plans without relying on formal hierarchical

power (Janneck and Staar, 2011; Sussman et al.,

2002). Individuals with pronounced political skills

possess „the ability to effectively understand others

at work, and to use such knowledge to influence

others to act in ways that enhance one’s personal

and/or organizational objectives.“ (Ferris et al.,

2005, p. 127).

Ferris and colleagues identify four central

dimensions of political skills (Ferris et al., 2005):

- Networking Ability: the ability to build resilient

friendships and alliances quickly and easily,

- Interpersonal Influence: the ability to closely

observe social interactions,

- Social Astuteness: the ability to adjust one’s own

behavior to the respective situation in a flexible

and instrumental way,

- Apparent Sincerity: being perceived as an

upright, trustworthy, and authentic interaction

partner.

A number of studies have shown that political skills

constitute a key factor for professional success and

career development (Blickle et al., 2008; Ferris et

al., 2002; Zinko et al., 2012). Individuals with

pronounced political skills are more likely to get

promoted and enjoy a higher reputation among

supervisors, colleagues, and employees. Different

studies have shown a positive correlation between a

person’s political skills and his/her hierarchical

position, income, and career satisfaction (for an

overview see Ferris et al., 2012) Besides, social

skills as well as a modestly self-confident

appearance promote a positive image and contribute

to positive career development (Perrewé and Nelson,

2004).

However, political skills have mainly been

investigated within traditional organizations. Only

few studies investigate influence behavior in

computer-mediated communication or within web-

based business networks (e.g., Janneck and Staar,

2011; Staar et al., 2013). Nevertheless, it is feasible

to assume that specific ‘virtual political skills’ and a

repertoire of strategic online behaviors are an

important prerequisite for successful online

interactions (Spears and Lea, 1992; Weisband and

Atwater, 1999).

Therefore, we hypothesize that successful use of

Business Networks (e.g. in terms of successful

business transactions, orders and acquisitions,

successful hiring or job-seeking and so forth) is

associated with the users’ political skills (see Figure

1). In addition, we wanted to explore whether

politically skilled persons will use XING more

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effectively so that their engagement at work will not

be negatively affected.

In the following part the hypotheses are

formulated and the methods are introduced.

Figure 1: Relations between media competence, political

skill and the XING-users’ success.

3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND

METHODS

3.1 Hypotheses

Based on the theoretical considerations depicted in

section 2, the following hypotheses are framed:

H1: There is a positive correlation between XING

users’ media competencies and their success on the

platform.

H2: Political skills moderate the association between

media competencies and success.

H3: Users of XING with high values regarding

political skills use XING in a more strategic way

than users with low values, in the sense that they a)

use XING for more career-oriented reasons, b) show

different frequencies of usage and c) choose contacts

in a more strategic way.

H4: Users with high political skills will use XING

more effectively when compared to users low in

political skill, in the sense that the use of XING will

have a different effect on the users’ engagement at

work.

3.2 Study Design and Sample

Data collection was carried out by means of an

online survey. The survey was announced in

different XING groups and distributed virally. To

create a higher motivation to participate, a raffle for

XING guidebooks was conducted. Furthermore, the

participants were able to obtain the results of the

study.

Overall, 182 persons (108 men, 58 women and

16 participants without gender information)

participated in the online survey. Age ranged from

19 to 87 years. The sample consists of 69

employees, 34 self-employed persons, 15 CEOs and

19 division or project managers. Participants were

mainly from the consulting sector (n = 38), followed

by IT (n = 27), media (n = 15) and industry (n = 13).

3.3 Instruments

Media competencies were measured by a three-item

inventory using a 5-point Likert scale (sample item:

"I am good at exploiting the technical opportunities

of XING"), which had already been used in earlier

studies (Staar et al., 2013). To measure political

skills of XING users the Political Skill Inventory

(PSI) was used, which includes 18 items (Ferris et

al., 2005; Ferris et al., 2007). The PSI is based on

four dimensions: networking ability (e.g., “I spend a

lot of time and effort at work networking with

others”), interpersonal influence (e.g., “I am able to

communicate easily and effectively with others”),

social astuteness (e.g., “I am particularly good at

sensing the motivations and hidden agendas of

others”) and apparent sincerity (e.g., “It is important

that people believe I am sincere in what I say and

do”).

To measure successful XING use a four-item

scale covering job-oriented development (cf.

Welbourne et al., 1998) was used (e.g., “I gain

necessary skills for my personal career by using

XING”). Furthermore, a five-item scale to measure

interpersonal facilitation (ibid.) was included (e.g.,

“I interact with other persons on XING by

exchanging information openly”). In addition, we

assessed the users’ engagement at work as a

criterion for work success with five items (e.g., “I

carefully check my own work results”).

Moreover, the number of transactions and offers

generated through XING as well as the number of

contact requests were used as an objective indicator

for successful XING use.

Furthermore, we investigated the purpose of

using XING (e.g., maintaining contact with friends,

widening or strengthening contacts), the frequency

of use of certain XING features as well as the

number of contacts, the possession of premium

membership or being a group moderator.

Also, socio-demographic data (age, gender,

branch, professional position) were collected.

4 RESULTS

Data analysis showed a high correlation between

political skills and the subjective degree of success

in the dimensions of interpersonal facilitation (r =

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.39, p ≤ .001) and job-oriented development (r = .32,

p ≤ .001). There was no significant intercorrelation

regarding media competencies and the frequency of

use. Interestingly, significant positive correlations

were found between the age of the participants and

the frequency of logins (r = .19, p ≤ .05) as well as

the frequency of business transactions on XING (r =

.23, p ≤ .01). However, age did not function as a

proxy for position since no significant correlations

were found between these variables.

4.1 Media Competencies and

Successful XING Use

To examine the first hypothesis a linear regression

was calculated to investigate whether media

competencies predict successful XING use (in terms

of job-oriented development, interpersonal

facilitation as well as the number of actual business

offers and transactions via XING). Additionally the

overall frequency of use (“How often do you login

to XING?”) and the number of contacts were

included in the analysis. As stated in Table 1, results

show that media competencies predict subjective

success in XING use as well as the quantity of

business transactions. Thus, hypothesis 1 can be

accepted. Interestingly, the frequency of use and the

number of XING contacts also serve as predictors of

both, subjective and objective success: Especially

the positive correlation between the number of

contacts and business transactions (r = .19, p ≤ .05)

demonstrates the relevance of a broad network.

Table 1: Results of the regression analysis (N=139-147).

Job-oriented

development

Interpersonal

facilitation

Number of

transactions

Number o

offers

Predictors

Media

competence

 = .32***  = .31***  = .07  = .30***

Frequency o

usage

 = .25**  = .23**  = .15  = .18*

umber of

contacts

 = .22*  = .31***  = .19*  = .49***

Predictors in consideration of the control variables age and

gender ;  = Beta-weights; * p ≤ .05; ** p ≤ .01; *** p ≤ .001.

4.2 Political Skill as a Moderator

between Media Competencies and

Successful XING Use

Four moderated regression analyses were calculated

to examine a potential interaction effect between

media competencies and the successful XING use,

moderated by the users’ political skills. Since all

four dimensions of political skill showed

considerable intercorrelations (r = .31 to r = .75) we

calculated an overall index. This is a common

procedure used by other scholars (cf. e.g.,

Kolodinsky et al., 2007). Again, the following

criteria were used to measure success: opportunities

for job-oriented development, interpersonal

facilitation and the number of business transactions

and offers via XING.

Figure 2: Interaction effects with political skill as a

moderator.

Table 2: Results of the moderated regression (N=129).

Variables B SE



ΔR

Criterion:

Number of business offers

Model 3

Media

competence (P)

.463 .267 .236* .086

Political skill

(MO)

.669 .291 .250** .017

Media competence (P) x

Political skill (MO)

1.25 .301 .341*** .104

R =.476*** R

= .226 adjusted R

.207

Criterion:

Job-oriented development

Model 3

Media

competence (P)

.322 .152 .217* .074

Political skill

(MO)

.464 .168 .277** .031

Media competence (P) x

Political skill (MO)

.389 .144 .241** .043

R =.410** R

= .168 adjusted R

= .148

r (P, MO) .57***

r = Product-moment correlation; B = unstandardized regression

coefficient; SE = Standard error;  = Beta-weights; ΔR

= additional

explained variance per model step (Model 1 = (P); Model 2 = (P),

(MO); Model 3 = (P), (MO), (P) x (MO); * p ≤ .05; ** p ≤ .01; *** p

≤ .001.

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The moderator analyses were calculated with

centered predictor and moderator variables, as

proposed in the literature (Aiken and West, 1991).

All significant interaction effects are listed in Table

2. Results show that beta-weights for the products

(media competence) x (political skill) with job-

oriented development opportunities as the dependent

variable are highly significant with more than ten

per cent explained variance. Significant beta-weights

can also be found for the criterion of business offers.

Significant interactions between predictor and

moderator indicate that the regression of the

criterion varies in relation to the moderator (see

Figure 2). Thus, the connection is moderated.

Taken together, the second hypothesis is partly

accepted: With regard to the criteria of job-oriented

development and the number of business offers,

political skills enhance the success of media-

competent users. However, this does not apply to the

criteria of completed business transactions and

interpersonal facilitation.

4.3 Political Skills and Strategic XING

Use

Three analyses were made to evaluate whether

XING users with a higher level of political skills use

the network more strategically than users with a

lower level (hypothesis 3): Firstly we examined

whether the first group uses XING for career-

oriented reasons, secondly we tested if persons with

a high level of political skills show different use

patterns, and thirdly we examined whether they

choose their contacts more purposefully.

Political Skills and Use Purposes. T-tests were

computed to compare users with high and low levels

of political skills, respectively. Results show that

participants who used XING for building business

relationships revealed significantly higher levels of

political skills (p < .05). The same is true for

members who used XING as a strategic tool for

client acquisition (p < .05).

No significant differences regarding political

skills were found with respect to the use of XING

for the exchange of information or to stay in contact

with friends, respectively.

Political Skills and Use Patterns. The question

arises whether persons with good political skills

have different use patterns on XING than persons

with fewer skills. This can be assumed from a

strategic point of view.

In the present study use patterns referred to the

following activities: frequency of using XING in

general, contacting other users, writing or reading

posts as well as using applications on events, jobs

and projects.

For the analysis correlations between political

skills and use patterns were calculated. However, no

significant correlations were found. Thus, this part

of hypothesis 3 cannot be accepted.

Political Skills and Strategic Selection of

Contacts. We assume that users with high levels of

political skills strive to enlarge their range of

influence and to acquire new areas by choosing

contacts in a more strategic way. To examine this

assumption correlations were calculated to

determine the connection between political skills

and the use of different criteria for choosing contacts

(hierarchical position, social position, sphere of

influence, affiliation to the same sector,

opportunities for information exchange, future

collaboration and transactions). All seven criteria

revealed significant positive correlations with

political skills. The highest correlation was found for

the new contact’s sphere of influence (r = .39; p <

.001), whereas affiliation to the same sector showed

the lowest correlation (r = .18; p < .05).

4.4 Political Skills, XING Use and

Engagement at Work

Finally, we wanted to explore whether XING use

may have a different effect on the participants’

engagement at work depending on how politically

skilled the users are. The rationale behind this

hypothesis is that employees high in political skills

will have a clear and strategic agenda on what they

are doing at work. In other words, they will rather

not lose sight of their work tasks when using XING

because of their success- and career-oriented

perspective. Accordingly, besides their beneficial

activities on XING, these users are not likely to

allow that their engagement at XING will keep them

away from their duties at work, when compared to

low-skilled users. For the latter group, XING may

rather function as an amusing distraction.

Again, we used two groups of users with high

and low levels of political skills respectively. We

used a median split to turn this continuous variable

into a categorical one. To examine hypothesis 4 we

separately conducted correlations between the

frequency of use and work engagement for the two

groups (high and low in political skills). The results

are presented in Table 3.

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Table 3: Correlations between frequency of XING use and

work engagement.

High political skills

(n = 63)

Low political skills

(n = 65)

Work engagement

General frequency of

use

r = -.18 r = -.15

Frequency of writing

osts

r = .14 r = -.02

Frequency of reading

osts

r = .01 r = -.11

r = Product-moment correlation.

As can be seen from Table 3, political skills did

not have an effect on the strength of correlations

between work engagement and frequency of XING

use. For both groups no significant interactions

could be found for the variables of interest.

Accordingly, at least in our sample, XING use was

not a waste of work time regardless of the

employee’s political skills.

5 DISCUSSION

The present study investigated media competencies

and political skills of users of a Business Network–

namely XING–and their relation with successful use

of the online platform. In doing so, we provided first

insights into the impact of political skills and

strategic influence tactics on the usage of social

networks.

The results confirm that besides general media

competencies, individual abilities to exert social

influence are highly relevant to take advantage of

Social Networks: Participants with both high media

competencies and political skills enjoyed more

opportunities for personal training and development

and received more business offers.

While media competencies alone constitute an

important factor for successful Web 2.0 use, this

study shows that additionally, the users’ political

skills are decisive in performing successful online

activities.

Furthermore, while general use patterns did not

differ between users with high and low levels of

political skills, respectively, highly skilled

participants used XING more purposefully for

certain career-related issues. This points to the

conclusion that it is not the quantity of interactions

that is decisive for strategic usage, but rather the

quality. Future studies should investigate strategic

communication behavior in more detail.

In addition, we hypothesized that XING use at

work might have a negative effect on the employee’s

work engagement in the sense that the user’s duties

at work could suffer from frequent and time-

consuming XING use. Especially this should be true

for individuals being low in political skills.

However, in our sample this was not the case–

regardless of the person’s level of political skills.

Instead, work engagement and frequency of XING

use showed to be unrelated in our analyses.

Accordingly, one could take these results as good

news for employers who are afraid that spending

time in Online Business Networks will keep

employees from getting their job done. However, we

did not collect detailed information on the

proportion of XING use at work and at home

respectively. On that note, these results should be

taken carefully.

This study has several limitations. Especially the

cross-sectional design, the unbalanced gender

distribution, and the size of the subgroups can be

seen critically: For further investigations, it would

be interesting to include participants from specific

subgroups or professions for whom different levels

of political skills might be assumed (e.g. sales

representatives vs. people from social services).

Thus, sector-specific differences could be

investigated.

Further, we did not control for length of presence

in the network. This may have impact on objective

success criteria such as number of contacts or

number of offers received. Future studies should

integrate this information, too.

Taken together, the present study could broaden

the picture of the impact of political skill on career

success. Our results indicate that a virtualized

business world does not only require individual

media competencies. Moreover, the skilled

interpersonal influence have to be conveyed through

media in order to successfully build up business

networks and promote one’s own career.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to express their gratitude to Niklas

Dopheide, Karl Maximilian Boehm and Eva de

Schrevel for their helpful support on an earlier

version of this article.

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