earticle

영어

When two or more people get together, political relations and hierarchies are formed. Despite this, people are still hesitant to discuss about "politics." Perhaps that is why researches on political actions of individuals have been largely ignored even by recent studies on entrepreneurship as well as business management in general in Korea. Indeed, it is also the case that political actions of entrepreneurs have hardly drawn academic attention. In fact, many entrepreneurs try to avoid any discussions on politics even though they are very political themselves. Indeed, moderating opinions, convincing others and becoming an influential individual are all clearly "political."Unlike Korea, political actions and skills have been studied rigorously in most advanced countries, for they acknowledge how influential such researches can be. Therefore, this study will attempt to benchmark the previous studies on political skills and then provide a theoretical model and analytical tools. Hopefully, this research will not only let the topic of political skills become accessible to the public but also deepen the understanding of the field. This paper also focuses on the concept of social network - which is largely influenced by political skills - which is a popular topic in managements studies today. Social network is a crucial element for organizational performance, and numerous studies have proven this point. Indeed, there are many evidences for such networking activities contributing to organizational productivity by letting individuals and organizations draw resources and capitals that are lacking within themselves. However, studies on social networks have only addressed the fact that such networks can be a contributing factor. That is, details on the process of social networks being such contributing factors have not been addressed. Venture businesses, which are more vulnerable to unstable economy, learn how to solve problems, get information and resources through social networks; they prepare themselves for unpredictable circumstances by such means. That is why entrepreneurs spend so much time and effort on forming and maintaining social networks, and they also rely upon such networks for decision making. Still, researches on the process of forming such social networks are not available for them. Therefore, this research will take social network as the primary variable and try to connect it to political skills which is a part of the process of forming such networks. Based upon such research structure, this study will take political skills as the independent variable and social network as the dependent variable and attempt to analyze the relationship between the two. The variables of political skills and social network are organized as a second order. This will provide a foundation for further research on the relation between subordinate variables. This research will also attempt to develop and analyze a cause-and-effect-model of political skills and social networks. A survey has been designed and conducted among entrepreneurs who are members of the Korean Venture Business Association. Out of the one thousand survey sheets distributed, only 234 have been collected, and because of some of the unthoughtful responses to the survey, only 211 were used for the analysis. After thoroughly assessing reliability and validity, the hypothesis has been verified by using the structural equation modeling analysis. Both reliability and validity have been verified, and subordinate variables have successfully accounted for political skills and social networks. Besides, the analysis model has satisfied the standard appropriateness by showing that χ²=199.643, df=128, p=.000, GFI=.906, AGFI=.874, RMR=.063, NFI=.906 TLI=.957, CFI=.964, RMSEA=.052. Thus, the assessment tool for this research was shown to meet the standard of accuracy for proving the hypothesis. Testing the hypothesis has resulted in political skills strongly influencing social networks by .498(C.R.=4.599, P=.000). This indicates that political skills of entrepreneurs are indeed useful for securing social networks that are helpful for organizational productivity. This is also notable because it can change the prejudice on political topics and encourage further studies on political skills. Also, the result which indicates that political skills are helpful for securing social networks tells us that, unlike the bias against the subject, it is necessary to train entrepreneurs in political skills. The idea that such training will prove to be more helpful to management will now be more convincing. Finally, the result of this research is unique in that it has used a second order of political skills and social network as variables for analysis. This means that the result has considered all of the errors of observed variables, which means that it has gone through a very strict process. Thus, further research on subordinate variables of political skills and social network are now possible, and this certainly has academic and practical implications.