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The aim of this paper is to refine the concept of work commitment by proposing a dissociation between self‐related work commitment (namely, employees' career commitment) and other‐related work commitment (pertaining more strongly to others such as team members or supervisors). The dissociation is demonstrated empirically through the differential predictive validity of Machiavellianism, which holds when the influence of broad personality dimensions is controlled for.

Personality characteristics (Machiavellianism and the six factors of the HEXACO model of personality) as well as organizational, supervisor, team, and career commitment of 154 employees were assessed via self‐reports.

Results support the hypotheses that Machiavellianism is related positively to self‐related work commitment (career commitment) and negatively to other‐related work commitment (organizational, supervisor, and team commitment), and explains unique variance in all criteria above the six broad dimensions of personality.

Although meta‐analyses have indicated strong overlaps between diverse work commitment foci, it is argued and shown that there are core differences between self‐related career commitment and other‐related commitment foci. Additionally, Machiavellianism as well as the HEXACO dimensions are investigated as predictors of work commitment foci for the first time.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether political skill is equally effective in its prediction of job performance for different job demands.

This paper uses self‐report sources of employee performance and self‐report of political skill after several weeks along with three ratings of target individuals' job demands.

Results support the hypothesis that Holland's enterprising category (i.e. because of its job demands and requisite job competencies to be effective) will moderate the relationship between political skill and job performance, demonstrating stronger predictability under high enterprising job demands.

The present results suggest that political skill is a better predictor of job performance under situations of high enterprising job demands than under conditions of low enterprising job demands. Furthermore, social and conventional job demands do not significantly moderate the political skill‐job performance relationships, implying that these job demands act as an important boundary condition.

Politically skilled individuals are more likely to succeed in environments (e.g. enterprising jobs) where they have the opportunity to exercise interpersonal influence, and where that interpersonal influence is directly related to their performance.

This paper makes several contributions to theory and practice in vocational achievement and political skill. Perhaps, most significant is the identification of job demands as a boundary condition in the political skill‐job performance relationship.

Political skill is measured with the political skill inventory (PSI), and the construct is composed of four distinct dimensions. Previous validation studies of the PSI found evidence in support of the four‐factor structure, but only using self‐reports. Furthermore, no efforts have been made to also identify a single, higher‐order factor solution through second‐order factor analysis. The present research aims to expand on prior work and report on a two‐study investigation of both the construct validity and antecedents and consequences of the political skill construct.

To test construct validity, Study 1 combined self‐ and other reports of political skill from 467 employees in a confirmatory factor analysis. Study 2 used longitudinal data from 202 employees to constructively replicate Study 1 results and to test hypotheses regarding the antecedents and consequences of political skill.

The results of Study 1 confirmed both a four‐factor and a single higher‐order factor solution of the political skill construct, thus supporting our hypothesis. Study 2 constructively replicated the Study 1 factorial validity results, and supported hypotheses regarding the dispositional and developmental experience antecedents, career‐related consequences, and mediation of these antecedents and outcomes by political skill.

These two studies test the construct validity of political skill using both self‐ and other‐reports. Further, this is the first research to test the Ferris et al. conceptualization of political skill, by examining its antecedents, consequences, and mediation of the antecedents‐consequences relationships.

Employee dishonesty is problematic for businesses in general, particularly for retailers. The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyse selected factors associated with the perceived likelihood of dishonest behaviour among retail employees. Specifically, the role of three negative work outcomes – insufficient pay, boredom, and perceived injustice – is investigated, as well as the effect of individual values and espoused organisational values.

The sample consisted of 784 retail employees from six retail organisations located in Estonia and Latvia. A survey questionnaire that used manipulated scenarios of work outcomes and organisational values was administered.

The study concludes that perceived injustice produces more dishonesty than other negative work outcomes (insufficient pay and boredom), whereas boredom was a surprisingly strong trigger for the perceived likelihood of dishonest behaviour. Individual ethical values determined the perceived likelihood of dishonest behaviour as hypothesised while sensation-seeking values did not. Espoused organisational values had no significant effect on the perceived likelihood of dishonest behaviour.

The results imply that the breach of distributional and procedural justice simultaneously associates most with employee dishonesty, and retail employee selection is the key to curbing dishonest behaviour in the workplace.

The paper makes a contribution to behavioural ethics literature by studying dishonest employee behaviour in the post-communist context while addressing various forms of dishonest behaviour, in addition to stealing. Also, the effect of espoused organisational values has been scarcely studied before.