Abstract
The present study aims to investigate the interpretive structural modeling of political behavior management based on citizenship behavior. The method of this research is applicable in terms of purpose, and qualitative in terms of method type. The statistical population of the research consists of 15 experts, including professors of the faculty of public administration and senior managers of Yazd Municipality, who were selected using a non-probability purposive and chain sampling method. The research collection tool is a semi-structured interview. For data analysis, structural and interpretive modeling (ISM) was first used, and MICMAC software was used for influence and impact. The results showed that the first level of individual factors is stabilization and freezing; the second level of education and development processes is the voice of construction; the third level of organizational factors and the fourth level of cultural factors of citizenship and development and productivity. The results also showed that individual factors are influential on education and development processes. Training and development, along with the voice of construction, have an impact on organizational factors. The organizational factors variable acts as a bridge between training and development processes and organizational factors, and organizational culture, by affecting internal communications, values ​​and beliefs, responsibility, and commitment to development, consciously or unconsciously affects the behaviors and actions of individuals.
Introduction
Since the emergence of the concept of human resource management, employee behavior has been the focus of researchers as one of the most important categories of human resource management (Izadi et al, 2024). Regardless of the factors affecting employee behavior, it is of great importance that just as positive employee behaviors can significantly improve the overall productivity of the organization, their destructive and negative behaviors can also significantly decrease the performance and productivity of the organization (Ranjit, 2022). Among the behaviors that have received special attention from human resource specialists is the political behavior of employees (Vojdani Tabatabaie et al., 2023). Political behaviors are behaviors that are not foreseen in the individual's job description and an individual tries to influence and affect others by relying on them. In political behaviors, the goal of influencing is to use others or organizational decisions to advance personal interests (Enders et al., 2024). In contrast to political behaviors, which are considered a negative phenomenon, especially in government organizations, is organizational citizenship behavior, which can significantly improve organizational climate and ultimately improve human resource productivity and performance (Bani-Melhem et al., 2023). Organizational citizenship behavior has been proposed as an important component in both organizational branding and improving the overall performance of the organization. Organizational citizenship behavior is an individual behavior that is not considered for any reward in the formal reward system; but its combination with the same type of behavior in the group leads to effectiveness (Organ, 2018).
Human resources in today's world are considered the best competitive advantage of any organization, and humans have become more important than ever in organizational theory. Human resources, as much as they can help organizations compete, may be a serious obstacle to the organization. Anti-citizenship behaviors such as work avoidance, sabotage, etc. are behaviors that directly or indirectly cause serious damage to the organization (Kazemzadeh et al., 2021). Political behavior is more noteworthy from this perspective that the organization's people, who are the most important assets of an organization, can also be the most important eroders of the organization's assets, so that if, instead of adopting organizational citizenship behaviors, anti-citizenship behaviors are prevalent in the organization, the organization will erode and fail instead of strengthening and growing (Ghafari et al., 2025).
Therefore, this research seeks to answer the question: what is the interpretative structural fashioning of political behavior management based on citizenship behavior?
Theoretical Framework
Political Behavior Management
Organizational political behaviors are those activities that are not required as part of a formal role in the organization; but they influence the distribution of benefits and disadvantages within the organization; in other words, negative or positive actions that are not part of the job and that the organization does not officially authorize (unapproved behaviors) and may be detrimental to the goals of the organization or the interests of others in the organization are called political behaviors (Sanaie et al., 2022).
Organizational Citizenship Behavior
Organ et al. (1988) first used the term organizational citizenship behavior and defined it as: conscious and insightful individual behavior that is not directly and explicitly recognized by the formal reward system and that generally improves the functions of the organization. Researchers have found that many factors affect organizational citizenship behavior; factors such as commitment, satisfaction, organizational justice, leadership style, personality traits, job characteristics, and organizational characteristics (Mousavifard, 2024).
Namjofared et al. (2025) studied the design of a political behavior management model based on organizational citizenship behavior. The results showed that the extracted concepts related to the design pattern of a political behavior management model based on organizational citizenship behavior in the municipalities of Yazd province included 47 primary codes, 16 basic themes, and 7 organizing themes. The basic themes included: management factors, organizational structure, collectivist values, policies and attention to ethics, participatory voice, knowledge management, perceptual error, communication pollution, lack of information transparency, contradiction and conflict, personality traits, monitoring and control and valuation, delearning, educational planning, development of governance, convergence, and organizational cohesion. Ali Nisar et al. (2024) studied the cost of organizational citizenship behaviors: a mediation model of citizenship fatigue. The results showed that when employees are forced to perform out-of-role actions, they often experience work-life conflict, which leads to citizenship fatigue. The older the employee and the lower the level of education, the lower his/her citizenship fatigue. On the other hand, the findings showed that the personality aspects of the worker tend to reduce the strength of the relationship between work-life conflict and citizenship fatigue.
Research Methodology
The method of this research is applicable in terms of purpose, and qualitative in terms of method type. The statistical population of the research consists of 15 experts, including professors of the public administration faculty and senior managers of Yazd Municipality, selected through a non-probability purposive and chain sampling method. The research collection tool is a semi-structured interview.
Research Findings
For data analysis, structural and interpretive modeling (ISM) was first used, and MICMAC software was used for influence and impact. The results showed that the first level of individual factors is stabilization and freezing; the second level of training and development processes is the voice of construction; the third level is organizational factors and the fourth level is cultural factors of citizenship and development and productivity. The results also showed that individual factors are influential on training and development processes. Training and development, along with the voice of construction, are influential on organizational factors. The organizational factors variable is a bridge between training and development processes and organizational factors, and organizational culture, by affecting internal communications, values ​​and beliefs, responsibility, and commitment to development, consciously or unconsciously affects the behaviors and actions of individuals.
Conclusion
The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the interpretive structural modeling of political behavior management based on citizenship behavior. The results of this study are consistent with the results of Abdullah & AL-Abrrow (2023), Kumari et al. (2022), Khan et al. (2019), Mokhtari et al. (2019), Sharma et al. (2022), Arnetz et al. (2022), and Sanaie et al. (2023). Abdullah & AL-Abrrow (2023) showed that positive perceptions and attitudes are good predictors of negative behavior, while negative perceptions and attitudes also predict positive behavior. This indicates that achieving the best behavioral outcomes in the workplace should be through strengthening the package of positive variables and reducing the package of negative variables. Based on the results, this study discussed a number of theoretical and practical concepts and presented a set of recommendations.
According to the results obtained, the following suggestion is made:
It is suggested that serious measures be taken to increase information transparency, resolve perceptual errors, improve communication, and manage conflicts because they can help stabilize the organization and improve the performance of Yazd Municipality.
It is suggested that training programs be developed and implemented to increase transparency in the municipality's internal and external communications.