Organizational behavior of employees of Tehran University of Medical Sciences

Organizational behaviors are commonly acknowledged as fundamentals of organizational life that strongly influence both formal and informal organizational processes, interpersonal relationships, work environments, and pay and promotion policies. The current study aims to investigate political behavior tendencies among employees of Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS). This cross-sectional, descriptive and analytical study was conducted on 810 TUMS employees at the headquarters of the Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran during 2010–2011. The research tool for data collection was a researcher-tailored questionnaire on political behaviors. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by seven management professors, and its reliability was tested by a pilot study using test-retest method which yielded a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.71. The respondents were asked to fill the questionnaire and express their perceptions and tendencies to engage in organizational behaviors. The collected data was read to and analyzed by IBM SPSS environment and correlation analytical methods. Overall, 729 respondents filled and returned the questionnaire yielding a response rate of 90%. Most of the respondents indicated that they had no tendency to engage in political behavior. Moreover, we found that there was a significant correlation between sex, higher education degrees, tenure and the employees’ tendency to engage in political behavior. The participants were not overtly political because of their personal belief, ethical values, and personal characters. Non-political and overtly political employees are both prejudicial for all organizations. Therefore, it seems that the medium rate of good political behavior is vital and prevalent in Iranian organizations.