Designing a Model of Causal Relationships between Political Behavior with Job Performance and the Role of Ethical Leadership and Social Exchange Perceptions as Mediators in Employees of Sports Organizations

The purpose of this research is to design a model of causal relationships between political behavior with job performance and the role of ethical leadership and social exchange perceptions as mediators in employees of sport organizations. The present research is correlational with structural equation modeling approach, which has been done in a survey form. The statistical population was employees of sports organizations in the northwest of the country(699). By the Cochran's formula, the statistical sample size with an error rate of 0.05 and by stratified random samplying was 248 people. Four questionnaire were ued for measuring variables.Validity and reliability of instruments reported successful. The results showed political behavior with job performance (t.value= 9.01, effect coefficient= 0.36); Ethical leadership (t. value = 32.78, effect coefficient = 0.71) and perceptions of social exchange (t. value = 29.04, effect coefficient= 0.67) have a positive and significant relationship. Also, the results of Sobel test showed that the variable of political behavior through moral leadership as well as perceptions of social exchange has a significant relationship with job performance and both variables were confirmed as mediators. Due to the importance of political behavior and its undeniable nature in sports organizations, managers should act in a way that by ethical leadership and creating perceptions of social exchange among employees to guide their job performance in a desirable way.