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Where there is people there is politics. Office politics is the particular politics which exist in an office relating to that organization. It is a term for both the productive and counterproductive competitive human factors present between coworkers, in any office environment.

Office politics differs from office gossip in that people participating in office politics do so with the objective of gaining advantage, whereas gossip can be a purely social activity.

• Alliances often form between colleagues in section of an organization or sometimes with similar interests, who then team up against other perceived competitors where generally they fight for either for more efficiency and/or power of that section over other sections.
• Many different personal factors may divide the groups as well e.g age, gender, individual dislikes or ethnic background.
• High officials in organizations sometimes encourage office politics are it costs them little but gives them more control as they can play underlings off who are fighting between themselves. Sometimes they are players in the game too as competition for power between executives striving for the top may create cliques or teams deep within the organization.
• Office politics generally involves information e.g giving information, restriction of services or information and sometimes suppling mis-information. Often it involves delays in doing a particular task and changes to work procedures.

One of the concepts found in corporate executive office politics is called being "kicked upstairs". This is when a disliked or under performing executive in charge of some portion of a corporation, is said to have been promoted (and might report then to the person his current boss is reporting to), yet is given only a small amount of responsibility, if any. This may be viewed as either punishment or damage control.

This practice however is controversial because it is seen as too lenient, and a waste of the shareholder's money. Often executives stay within the corporation for years not doing very much work (see the Peter principle), but also they are often finally allowed to have real duties when someone else is disliked or fails. This whole process is very hard to discern from an outsider's, or analyst's standpoint. It is often revealed only later in famous cases in business biographies.

Following the formula information plus authority permits the exercise of power the Kicked upstairs phenomenon can be explained. People with excellent lines of communication tend to be better able to manage the productive use of authority than, for example, very competent people who are loners. Therefore if you have to promote someone it is wiser to promote the person who is well keyed into the organization with many people looking out for them, even if they are less competent, in favor of the highly competent person who does not have a network to protect their interests.