Despite growing research on the impact of organizational politics on work outcomes, our study addresses a critical need for a deeper understanding of how individuals cope with stress in these environments. We integrate perceptions of organizational politics (POPs), envy, and enactment theories in a novel way to offer a unique explanation of when and which strategies effectively help individuals mitigate the adverse effects of POPs on work outcomes. Our multisource, three-wave field study with a sample of 206 subordinate-supervisor dyads evaluates a hypothesized three-way interaction model involving POPs, envy, and enactment in predicting work-related outcomes. In highly political situations, employees with elevated levels of envy who do not engage in enactment experience poorer work outcomes, including lower job satisfaction, reduced work vigor, and diminished task performance. Conversely, we discovered that enactment serves as a helpful strategy for high-envy employees to mitigate the adverse effects of their envy in such contexts. However, our results also indicated that enactment is not the most effective coping strategy for low-envy employees dealing with stress and seeking to improve their task performance in high-political environments. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings, noting their limitations, and suggesting directions for future research. This research contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the complex dynamics between organizational politics and work outcomes engagingly and insightfully.
