Impact of Organisational Politics Perceptions on Doctoral Students’ Engagement and Performance: Exploring the Mediating Role of Supervisor Support

Abstract

The study investigates the possible linkage of organisational politics with the academic performance of doctoral students, mediated by work engagement and moderated by perceived supervisor support, based on the ‘Broaden-and-Build Theory’. The authors collected multisource data through structured questionnaires from 432 doctoral students and their supervisors, which was analysed using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique in SmartPLS 4. Analysis showed that organisational politics negatively impacts academic performance with the partial mediation of work engagement. However, perceived supervisor support buffered this association, thus, reducing the indirect effects on academic performance. The findings are useful for the management of Higher Education Institutes/Universities (HEIs) into how and why the perception of organisational politics could lead to poor academic performance of students enrolled in doctoral studies. The findings also direct university management to take necessary measures by which students’ academic performance could be enhanced through their work engagement and perceived supervisor support. JEL Classification Codes: I21