Does Organizational Politics in Public Sector Mediate the Impact of Recruitment and Selection on Employee Performance?

The presence of nepotism and favoritism during recruitment and selection has become a major concern for developed and developing countries. Based on the social exchange theory, a framework was developed to evaluate contextual performance, adaptive performance, and task performance due to recruitment and selection practices in an organization. The study also investigated nepotism and favoritism as mediating variables between recruitment and selection, contextual performance, adaptive performance, and task performance. Moreover, data from 384 respondents working in tertiary care hospitals in Pakistan was collected and analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The study found that recruitment and selection substantially impact contextual performance, adaptive performance, and task performance. The study also found that nepotism and favoritism have a mediating effect on job performance. Furthermore, the current study is of significance for hospital managers to formulate strategies to overcome this phenomenon, particularly in the recruitment and selection process, which affects the healthcare employee’s performance.


Introduction
Human resource management practices are an important function of an organization. It helps in increasing employee motivation and enhancing performance (Brunetto & Beattie, 2019). Globalization, technological advancement, and economic recession have made firms highly competitive (Niles, 2013). Given this dynamic business environment, it has become difficult for firms globally to have a pool of loyal employees. Thus, the human resource department can develop policies and procedures aligned with the firms' core values (Hee et al., 2018). Such policies and procedures can help firms to enhance performance and achieve organizational goals.
Extant literature suggests that human resource practices are an important constituent for all types of businesses, including the manufacturing sector (Hee et al., 2018;public sector (Brunetto & Beattie, 2019) the health care sector (Pillai, Senthilraj & Swaminathan, 2019); and the private sector (Mangi, Jhatial, Shah, & Ghumro, 2012). Organizational politics has different facets, including nepotism and favoritism (Chukwuma, Agbaeze, Madu, Nwakoby & Icha-Ituma, 2019; Shneikat, Abubakar & Ilkan, 2016). Safina (2015), in a study on organizational politics, found that many firms across the world face the dilemma of nepotism and favoritism. Thus, researchers recommend that firms need to address this issue adequately. Wan (2010) also suggests that the continuous practice of nepotism and favoritism in an organization adversely affects employees' morale and performance.
favoritism and nepotism in many small and large organizations have adversely affected employee attitude towards organizational performance. Ferris, Ellen, McAllister & Maher (2019) argue that firms must understand how organizational politics and organizational culture affect their organizational performance. Moreover, Ferris, Ellen, McAllister & Maher (2019) suggest a need to examine how organizational politics manifest in different cultures & contexts. Similarly, Loffeld & Stoffers (2017) have suggested that while examining the link between human resource practices and employee outcomes, the HR manager should not ignore the employees' perspective.
For instance, nepotism and favoritism have become a grave issue in Pakistan, which affects employee performance and execution of HR practices (Ali & Brandl, 2017;Bartram & Dowling, 2013;Suhail & Azhar, 2016;Tabassum, 2017). Therefore, in the current study, organizational politics dimensions, i.e., nepotism and favoritism, are used as cultural factors in the relationship between recruitment and selection and employee performance. It is important to understand that hospitals manage patients in stressful environments (Nallamothu & Battu, 2019;Townsend & Wilkinson, 2010). Also, HRM practices can enhance employees' contextual, adaptive, and task performance (Tabiu, Pangil & Othman, 2016). Similarly, Chen et al. (2019) argue that a hospital can improve employees' adaptability and contextual performance by implementing HR practices effectively.
Therefore, the study investigates the influence of recruitment and selection on contextual performance, adaptive performance, and task performance of employees and the mediating role of nepotism and favoritism in public sector hospitals of Karachi, Pakistan. This study has extended the theory of social exchange. The theory suggests that employees' perception of the management's favorable attitude positively influences their attitude and behavior (Blau, 1964). Similarly, when a manager favors an employee, his/her performance increases significantly (Fletcher, 2001;Javidmehr & Ebrahimpour, 2015). departments take to accomplish desired outcomes. Organizational politics exists both at the individual and firm-level. At the individual level, employees use political activities and skills to achieve their goals. An organization uses soft, formal, and informal power at a firm level for achieving its goals (Jarrett, 2017). Ferris, Ellen, McAllister & Maher (2019) argue that authority, relationships, and norms also help achieve organizational goals. Labrague et al. (2017) suggest that most organizations face varied forms of politics. For example, Zaleznik (1970) indicates that scarcity and competition, constituents and clients, power, and conflict of interest are forms of organizational politics. Also, Gandz & Murray (1980) argue that friendship with coworkers is also a form of organizational politics. Moreover, behavior including superseding others in terms of pay and promotion is also a form of politics (Kacmar & Ferris, 1991). Jarrett (2017) suggests that "informal networks, strong ties, formal authority with organizational procedures, and safety for people are also facets of politics. " Many researchers suggest that nepotism and favoritism are the worst facets of organizational politics, which adversely affect employees and organizational performance (Aydogan, 2012;Ozler & Buyukarslan, 2011;Ahmed, 2018;Shneikat et al., 2016;Al-Shawawreh, 2016;Ladebo,2005).
Organizational politics is now an essential part of any business enterprise. It adversely affects organizations and employee performance because it promotes self-interest at employees' cost and organizational benefits (Gull & Zaidi, 2012;Kacmar & Baron, 1999). Cacciattolo (2015) has documented that organizational politics promotes the interests of preferred members over others. In many public sector organizations, top management promotes beneficial projects (Kacmar & Baron, 1999). In the private sector, top management gives preferential favors to those employees whose family members are in bureaucracy and politics (Hasan & Sultana, 2014;Ahmed et al., 2019).
Studies have found inconsistent results on the effect of organizational politics and job-related consequences. For example, Labrague et al. (2017) found a negative link between perceived organizational politics and job satisfaction and a positive association between job stress, burnout, and turnover intentions. However, due to organizational politics, employees who receive preferential treatment at work tend to be more motivated, enhancing their performance (Nadeem, Ahmad, Ahmad, Batool & Shafique, 2015). The cultural values of a society have an association with nepotism and favoritism. For example, nepotism and favoritism are more common in a collective society than in an individualistic society. Thus, in a collective society, nepotism and favoritism affect an organization's internal and external aspects (Wated & Sanchez, 2015;Wankel, 2008).

Recruitment & Selection and Employee Performance
An HR department's key functions in any organization, which include recruitment and selection, training and development, performance appraisal, and compensation. All these functions, directly and indirectly, affect employee performance. These HR functions cater to employees' personal and professional needs (Niles, 2013). In the present era of global competition, the HR department focuses on merit-based recruitment & selection, performance appraisal, compensation, and training & development to meet present and future needs. The HR department also needs to develop policies and procedures aligned with the external environment, organizational values, and demands (Burma, 2014;Manimaran & Kumar, 2016;Necochea, Badlani & Bossemeyer, 2013;Richman, 2015).
Rosiek, Rosiek-Kryszewska, Leksowski, Kornatowski & Leksowski (2016) argue that globally, the health care sector has become highly competitive. Therefore, its survival depends on employee efficiency, effectiveness, and adapting to changes related to new drugs and technology (Thimbleby, 2013). Besides, employees in an organization need to develop a positive attitude and behavior towards work. All these are only possible when an organization implements management practices efficiently (Kolade, Oluseye & Omotayo, 2014;Niles, 2013).
When an employee completes his/her delegated tasks efficiently and changes his/ her attitude in achieving organizational goals, he/she contributes toward organizational performance. Alipoor, Ahmadi, Pouya, Ahmadi & Mowlaie (2017) suggest that individual performance depends on a host of factors, including individual abilities to learn new skills and applying them to achieve organizational goals. Organizational policies and practices related to human resources also stimulate employee performance (Anitha, 2014;Jena & Pradhan, 2014). Thus, employee performance, human resources, and organizational policies and practices are correlated. Vanitha (2018) argued that in the present era, HRM has become more people-centric. This people-focused approach enhances employee involvement and performance. Human resource practices positively stimulate contextual performance, i.e., "volunteering, persisting with extra effort, helping and cooperating, following organizational rules and procedures, and endorsing organizational objectives" (Punnett, 2017). Human resource practices individually affect all the five facets of contextual performance. Tripathi & Srivastava (2017) and Khattak, Khan, Khan & Ali (2018) found that the recruitment and selection procedures in the health care sector have motivated employees to adapt, perform, and develop positive behavior. Similarly, Begum, Zehou & Sarker (2014) suggest that recruitment and selection practices promote employees' contextual performance. Research focusing on the impact of recruitment and selection on three dimensions of employee performance, including task, adaptive, and contextual performance, is limited. Consequently, we have formulated the following hypotheses based on current literature: H1a: Recruitment and selection influence the contextual performance of healthcare employees. H1b: Recruitment and selection influence the adaptive performance of healthcare employees. H1c: Recruitment and selection influence the task performance of healthcare employees.

Recruitment & Selection, Nepotism, Contextual, Adaptive, and Task Performance
Noor (2020) argues that many organizations, due to nepotism hire, promote their friends and family members, ignoring their competencies. Similarly, Firfiray, Cruz, Neacsu & Gomez-Mejia (2018) suggest that firms hire individuals who do not merit selection due to nepotism. Consequently, it hurts employees' contextual, adaptive, and task performance. Similarly, due to nepotism, promotions and salary increments are given to friends and family members while ignoring the deserving employees (Jaskiewicz & Luchak, 2013). Many firms have an explicit or implicit policy to give preferential treatment to friends and family members while hiring or promoting employees. Many family-owned businesses appoint family members on key positions (Laker & Williams, 2003). Employees in such organizations believe that they have to be related to the management for promotions and rewards.
Consequently, they develop a negative attitude towards work that adversely affects their performance (Elbaz, Haddoud & Shehawy, 2018). Contrarily, Abdalla, Maghrabi & Raggad (1998) believe that nepotism does not always negatively affect employee performance. For example, it promotes a positive culture in small family businesses, which increases employee morale and performance. Ishaq & Zulfiqar (2014) also emphasize that preferential treatment has become an indispensable practice and social custom, promoting positive feelings rather than negative ones. Many employees see nepotism in the recruitment and promotion process as a norm, which affects their performance (Gok & Ekmekci, 2015;Abbas et al. 2014). Therefore, we formulate the following hypotheses based on current literature: H2a: Nepotism mediates the relationship between recruitment and selection and contextual performance.
H2b: Nepotism mediates the relationship between recruitment and selection and adaptive performance.
H2c: Nepotism mediates the relationship between recruitment and selection and task performance.

Recruitment & Selection, Favoritism, Contextual, Adaptive and Task Performance
Favoritism is another issue in many organizations (Abubakar, Namin, Harazneh, Arasli & Tunç, 2017). Aydogan (2012) defined favoritism as a process that gives favorable treatment to an individual based on friendship, not on proficiency. Favoritism is common in the organization where employees believe that selection and hiring depend on social and family ties (Hudson & Claasen, 2017). On the other hand, it is uncommon in an organization where merit is the only criterion for success. Karadal & Arasli (2009) have demonstrated that favoritism politics at superior levels can negatively affect employee performance, commitment, and satisfaction. On the other hand, favoritism politics in recruitment and selection indirectly affect all performance aspects (Özkanan & Erdem, 2014). Likewise, Dağli & Akyol (2019) argue that a person who receives a favor in recruitment and selection reciprocates the favor in the form of respect, gratefulness, attachment, loyalty, and positive behavior. Thus, we propose the subsequent hypotheses based on the existing literature:

H3a: Favoritism mediates the relationship between recruitment and selection and contextual performance.
H3b: Favoritism mediates the relationship between recruitment and selection and adaptive performance.
H3c: Favoritism mediates the relationship between recruitment and selection and task performance.

Research Framework
Given the above theoretical discussions, we have formulated a research framework presented in Figure 1

Research Design, Participants, and Procedures
The study's research design is quantitative, and it collected data from respondents of various hospitals. The study has focused on the public sector tertiary care hospitals located in Karachi, Pakistan. Before data collection on a larger scale, we conducted a pilot test to examine the instrument's validity and reliability (Chaudhary & Israel, 2017). Pilot testing primarily helps in removing the scale's imperfection (Hassan, Schattner & Mazza, 2006;Teijlingen & Hundley, 2001). For the pilot test, we distributed 150 questionnaires and received 130 questionnaires. Based on the pilot test, we found that the latent variables used in the study have acceptable reliability and validity. For the main study, we distributed 600 questionnaires and received 384 filled-in questionnaires suggesting a response rate of 64%, which is appropriate (Babbie, 1998). Out of 384 respondents, 57% were males, and 43% were females.

Recruitment and Selection
Recruitment and selection is the process of attracting and choosing individuals based on their skills and capabilities from a pool of human capital. The study has taken five items from Demo, Neiva, Nunes & Rozzett (2012) to measure recruitment and selection. Respondents rated the statements on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree. " Cronbach's Alpha values of all the items of recruitment and selection are greater than 0.70. Cronbach's Alpha value of the construct is 0.819.

Contextual, Adaptive, and Task Performance
Contextual performance refers to the voluntary fulfillment of duties not mentioned in the job description. Adaptive performance is an employee's ability to adapt and support alterations in the work environment. Task performance is defined as the fulfillment of designated duties as mentioned in the job description. These constructs were measured using Pradhan & Jena (2017) scale. Respondents rated the statements on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree. " Cronbach's Alpha values for contextual, adaptive, and task performance are 0.913, 0.917, and 0.899, respectively.

Nepotism and Favoritism
Nepotism refers to giving preferential treatment to family members, whereas favoritism refers to giving good support to an employee, ignoring merit. We have taken five items from Büte (2011) scale to measure nepotism and favoritism. Respondents rated the statements on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree. " Cronbach's Alpha values nepotism and favoritism are 0.872 and 0.787, respectively.

Statistical Approach
The study has used two statistical tools to analyze the empirical data, namely, SPSS version 25 and AMOS version 22. SPSS was used to prepare and screen data, while AMOS was used for applying structural equation modeling (SEM). Table 1 illustrates the descriptive statistics of variables of the data. All the skewness and Kurtosis values fall within the range of ± 3.5, suggesting univariate normality of constructs.

Sampling Adequacy
We have used the Kaiser Meyer Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett's sphericity tests for assessing the sampling adequacy. The KMO value is 0.925 above the cutoff value of 0.60 (Hair, Black & Babin, 2010). The Bartlett test of sphericity p-value is .000, which is less than 0.05 (Hair et al., 2010;Yamane, 1967), suggesting adequacy of sample data and acceptable correlation between the items.

Common Method Bias
The study has collected responses related to independent and dependent variables from the same respondents. This approach can lead to common method bias (Kock & Lynn, 2012;Teare et., al, 2014). Thus, the study has used VIFs to address the issue. Under this method, we have regressed all variables against a common variable. The results illustrated in Table 2 suggest that VIFs are less than 5, suggesting no issues related to common method bias.

Measurement Model
There are two steps in structural equation modeling. Initially, the measurement model is tested and the structural model (Schumacker & Lomax, 2010). We have assessed the fitness of the measurement model based on five indices. The summary of the results is presented in Table 3. The results show that all the fit indices match the prescribed range, suggesting that the model fits adequately.  Table 4 illustrates that the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) is more than the Maximum Shared Squared Variance (MSV) for all constructs suggesting the constructs fulfill the requirements of discriminant validity (Hair et al., 2010). Moreover, the composite reliability (CR) of all constructs is more than the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) and above the cutoff value of 0.50, confirming convergent validity requirements (Hair, Black, Babin & Anderson, 2014). The composite reliability of all the constructs is greater than 0.7, suggesting the uni-dimensionality of the constructs (Gefen, Straub & Boudreau, 2000;Hair et al., 2010). Moreover, the factor loadings of all items were greater than 0.40, except the items that we dropped due to low factor loading (Cua, McKone & Schroeder, 2001;Dagnall, Denovan, Parker, Drinkwater & Walsh, 2018;Geisen et al., 2017).

Structural Equation Modeling
The study has used structural equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses. The results summarized in Table 5 suggest that recruitment and selection positively impact employees' contextual performance, adaptive performance, and task performance as the p-value is less than 0.005.  Table 6 indicates that the outcomes related to the mediating relationships between recruitment and selection, contextual, adaptive, and task performance. For this purpose, two mediators were incorporated. Besides, the bootstrapping method was used to test the mediating effects. Based on bootstrapping results, it becomes evident that zero does not exist between LLCI and ULCI; therefore, the proposed mediators mediate the relationship among recruitment and selection, contextual, adaptive, and task performance (Preacher & Hayes, 2008;Westen & Goore, 2006).

Discussion
The study has extended the theoretical literature on the concept of recruitment and selection by examining its influence on three important dimensions of employee performance (Tabiu et al., 2016). The study also examined the mediating effect of nepotism and favoritism on job performance in line with earlier studies (Ferris et al., 2019;Loffeld & Stoffers, 2017;Sarwar & Imran, 2019).
The results support a positive and significant relationship between recruitment and selection, contextual, adaptive, and task performance of healthcare employees. The study outcomes are in accord with the existing literature (Kolade et al., 2014;Thimbleby, 2013). Furthermore, the study has established that the variables (i.e., nepotism and favoritism) have a mediating effect on the relationship between recruitment and selection, contextual, adaptive, and task performance of healthcare employees.

Conclusion
The study has extended the social exchange theory to find the association between recruitment and selection and employee outcomes (i.e., contextual, adaptive, and task performance). Therefore, we conclude that a strong link exists between recruitment and selection, contextual performance, adaptive performance, and task performance. These findings depict that when organizations implement recruitment and selection practices, they need to be careful as it affects the performance of employees. Moreover, the literature suggests that nepotism and favoritism have an inconsistent relationship with employee performance. A few studies suggest that it adversely affect performance. But

Limitations
The current study also has limitations. First, only one HRM practice, i.e., recruitment and selection, is considered in the current study. Future researchers should consider other practices of HRM to broaden the horizon further. Second, the data was collected at one point in time. Future researchers should conduct a longitudinal study to expand the generalizability of the study.