An Exploration of the Employees’ Perceptions about Partisan Followership Using Zaltman’s Metaphor Elicitation Technique

The purpose of this study was exploring the perceptions of employees in a public organization about partisan followership using Zaltman’s metaphor elicitation technique (ZMET) to achieve a deeper understanding of it. To this end, 18 research participants were selected from among the employees of an organization using conceptual sampling. The data sources were images that the research participants had identified in relation to the phenomenon of interest. During the interview session, questions related to the images were posed according to the protocol and later the responses were analyzed to discover concepts and structures. In sum, 35 structures were extracted, out of which the blind followership of partisan follower from leader, Machiavellianism of partisan follower and his/her blind fanaticism for leader, the toxic behaviors of partisan follower, the dysfunctional consequences of partisan followership in organization, the partisan follower’s flattery of the leader, and the hypocrisy and incompetence of the leader met the threshold of choice for the consensus map. According to the consensus map, the Machiavellianism and hypocrisy of partisan follower and his/her blind fanaticism for leader were recognized as causal structures and the other constructs were effects, except for the blind followership of partisan follower from leader which played a mediating role in the model.