In this paper, we conceptualize and integrate a measure of political knowledge into the broader literatures on political behaviour, proactivity, and followership. Political knowledge refers to an individual's perceived understanding of the relationships, demands, resources, and preferences of an influential target, such as their leader. We examine political knowledge in the follower–leader context with two studies of employees (Ns = 301 & 492) and two studies of follower–leader pairs (Ns = 187 & 130 dyads). Findings generally support the convergent and discriminant validity of our political knowledge measure. In addition, we find consistent evidence for the mediating role of political knowledge of one's leader in the relationship between follower political skill and political will with self‐reported follower proactive behaviours. Taken together, the results contribute to the political influence framework and offer insight into the importance of ‘knowing your leader’ in enabling followers to engage in politically risky proactivity.

中文翻译：

---

工作中的政治知识：概念化，度量和对追随者主动性的应用

在本文中，我们将一种政治知识的概念化并整合到有关政治行为，积极性和追随者的更广泛的文献中。政治知识是指个人对有影响力的目标（例如，领导者）的关系，需求，资源和偏好的感知理解。我们通过对雇员的两项研究（N s = 301和492）和对跟随者-领导者对的两项研究（Ns = 187＆130 dyads）。调查结果通常支持我们的政治知识测度方法具有收敛性和区别性。此外，我们发现一致的证据表明，领导者的政治知识在追随者政治技巧与政治意愿与自我报告的追随者积极行为之间的关系中起着中介作用。两者合计，结果有助于建立政治影响力框架，并深入了解“了解领导者”在使追随者能够从事具有政治风险的主动性方面的重要性。