Explaining Strategic Flirtation

Abstract

In many organisations or institutions, several degrees of opportunities exist for which members (workers or students) have to work hard at achieving. While some work hard legitimately, others may not be willing to undergo the rigour required to attain the desired goals and so would strategically flirt in order to attain some undeserved benefits. Based on the theory of planned behaviour, an extension of the theory of reasoned action, this paper proposes the concepts of resource scarcity and resource acquisition difficulty to explain the rationale for strategic flirtation. Data were collected from university students as well as workers in the corporate world in Ghana to solicit their views on strategic flirtation which was explained to them as part of the data collection procedures. It was observed that resource scarcity was more pronounced in the work environment while the resource acquisition difficulty was more pronounced in the academic setting as reasons to engage in strategic flirtation. Implications of these for organisations are further discussed.