The structural relationship between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behavior in university faculty in China: the mediating effect of organizational commitment

Asia Pacific Education Review - The present study focuses on the relationship between university faculty members’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), affective organizational...     

The key to organizational performance improvement: A perspective of organizational knowledge creation

The primary purpose of this research is to explore the impacts of knowledge creation practices on organizational performance improvement. Research has been empirically assessed on the basis of the collected data from three Korean private organizations. The concept of knowledge creation theory was adapted as the theoretical framework of this research (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). Structural equation modeling has been used in order to assess the fit of the hypothesized model with the collected data. The result of the confirmatory factor analysis suggests that the hypothesized measurement model is a reliable and valid construct in the Korean context; multiple regression analysis reveals that knowledge creation practices have a positive and strong influence on performance improvement. Conclusions, limitations, and implications for human resource development are discussed.     

Predicting organizational commitment from organizational culture in Turkish primary schools

This study aims to describe organizational culture and commitment and to predict organizational commitment from organizational culture in Turkish primary schools. Organizational Culture Scale (İpek 1999) and Organizational Commitment Scale (Balay 2000) were used in the data gathering process. The data were collected from 415 primary teachers and analyzed to describe their organizational culture and organizational commitment perceptions by computing arithmetic means for each dimension constituting these scales. Moreover, the relationships between organizational culture and commitment perceptions were tried to be investigated through the regression analyses to predict the organizational commitment perceptions of primary teachers from their organizational culture perceptions. The study results revealed that primary school teachers perceived all four organizational culture dimensions at moderate levels, but they particularly perceived organizational commitment at internalization and identification levels. They rarely perceived organizational commitment at compliance level. The results revealed that organizational commitment at compliance level was predicted from power and role cultures, while organizational commitment at identification and internalization levels was predicted from achievement and support cultures.     

The role of organizational learning in transformational leadership and organizational innovation

Leadership is an important factor affecting organizational innovation. Many studies show that transformational leadership has positive and significant influence on organizational innovation. Based on a literature review and previous work, this study aims to investigate the influence of transformational leadership on organizational innovation and to examine whether organizational learning is a mediator between their relationships. Structural equation modeling was used to test the model. The research sample consisted of 330 teachers in charge of administration in postsecondary schools. The findings of this study provide evidence that transformational leadership and organizational learning have significant positive relationship influence on organizational innovation. The research also demonstrates that there is significant effect on the role of mediation in organizational learning on the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational innovation. The study suggests that if school principals use the strategies of transformational leadership and organizational learning at the same time, organizational learning was highly effectiveness to achieve organizational innovation in the postsecondary schools.     

Jewish education in Dublin: organizational development and conflicts

The aim of this paper is to dwell on the trends in the development of Jewish education in Dublin. The discussion is based on books written about the Jewish community and central figures in it, on interviews with people who were involved in shaping the Jewish education and with others who were familiar with it, on community magazines and documents found in the community and in the Jewish school.

The findings show that the Chief Rabbis were always the initiators and the driving force behind the founding of the Jewish educational institutions and in determining their educational policies. They were always assisted by the Education Ministry of Ireland, by the State of Israel and by members of the local community.

The Jewish elementary school in Dublin was founded in 1934 by Rabbi Herzog. At the initiative of Rabbi Jakobovitz they founded the Jewish secondary school in the early 1950s, together with an additional Jewish elementary school.

The problem of the Jewish schools was always the limited enrollment figures. Because of this, the Rabbis Cohen and Rosen unified the schools into a single educational institution where students studied from the age of three until the final year of secondary school.

The principals and teachers of secular subjects at the school were always non-Jews. In contrast, in most cases, the directors of the Jewish studies were emissaries from Israel. The teachers of Jewish subjects were residents of Dublin and rabbis who supplemented their rabbinical positions with teaching jobs. Good work relations always prevailed between the Jewish and non-Jewish staff, but the relations of the Israeli emissaries with the teachers of Jewish subjects and the rabbis were characterized by conflict.     

Dual identities: organizational negotiation in STEM-focused Catholic schools

In the last decade, STEM-focused schools have opened their doors nationally in the hope of meeting students’ contemporary educational needs. Despite the growth of these STEM-focused institutions, minimal research exists that follows how schools make a transition toward a STEM focus and what organizational structures are most conducive to a successful transition. The adoption of a STEM focus has clear implications for a school’s organizational identity. For Catholic schools, the negotiation of a new STEM focus is especially complex, as Catholic schools have been shown to generally possess a distinct religious and cultural organizational identity. The adoption of a second, STEM-focused identity raises questions about whether and how these identities can coexist. Framed by perspectives on organizational identity and existing conceptualizations of the cultural and religious hallmarks of Catholic schools, this study utilizes a multiple-case study design to explore the organizational transition of four Catholic K-8 institutions to Catholic STEM-focused schools. These cases demonstrate the particular challenges of negotiating multiple organizational identities. While variation existed in how the four schools accommodated these identities, the most promising environments for successful transition drew upon an aggregative model of identity negotiation, that is, when schools attended to both identities, but ensured that the original Catholic identity of the school remained foundational to all decisions. The least successful identity negotiations occurred when there was a lack of common understanding about what comprised a STEM-focused school, leading to minimal buy-in from stakeholders or when a school sought to make the transition for recruitment or marketing rather than mission-driven reasons. Discussion of the more successful identity aggregation provides a framework for schools within and beyond the religious sector that desire to adopt an additional STEM-focused identity.     

Administrators in higher education: organizational expansion in a transforming institution

Recent European research has revealed growth in the number of administrators and professionals across different sections of universities—a long established trend in US universities. We build on this research by investigating the factors associated with variation in the proportion of administrators across 761 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in 11 European countries. We argue that the enactment of expanded and diversified missions of HE is one of the main factors nurturing universities’ profesional and administrative bodies. Our findings support such an assertion; regardless of geographical and institutional differences, HEIs with high levels of “entrepreneurialism” (e.g. in service provision and external engagement) are characterized by a larger proportion of administrative staff. However, we find no empirical support for arguments citing structural pressures and demands on HEIs due to higher student enrolments, budget cuts or deregulation as engines driving such change. Instead, our results point towards, as argued by neo-institutionalists, the diffusion of formal organization as a model of institutional identity and purpose, which is especially prevalent at high levels of external connectedness.     

Learning and organizational effectiveness: A systems perspective

The challenge for leaders today is to create and develop the capability of their organization. Leaders must perceive and manage their organization as a dynamic, open system where learning is the core competence underlying innovation, growth, and sustainability. Creating a culture of learning is the first work of leadership. This article presents a practical framework in which to consider organizational effectiveness, emphasizing the critical role of systems thinking and learning theory in organizational development.     

Importing organizational reform: The case of lay boards in Hungary

Hungary initiated a major higher education reform program inthe early 1990s that included the establishment of boards at boththe national and institutional levels. This article exploresHungarians' engagement of the idea of boards, adaptations of theAmerican model, adoption of their own model and earlyimplementation. Importing an organizational reform like boardsoccurs within existing cultural and political norms. Thetraditional socialist norms, surrounding nature of the socialisteconomy and the concept of a civil society in countries likeHungary loom large in introducing new structures and values.Structurally, boards at both the national and institutionallevels challenge not only the remnants of the Soviet model ofhigher education but also the classic continental model, uponwhich Hungarian universities were built, of a bimodaldistribution of power between the state and the professorate. Boards fall between the state and professorate and challengethese power centers. The decentralization that boards representruns counter to bureaucratic ministry control and threatens thenewly found power of institutional senates. In a larger,societal sense they also occupy that intermediate space betweenthe government and the individual or what many writers refer toas civil society that by most observers' accounts isunderdeveloped in countries like Hungary. Underdevelopment ofcivil society generally raises questions of societal readinessfor institutions like boards.Politically, the introduction of boards demonstrates thecomplex nature of support for and opposition to change as well asthe personalized politics in reform movements in smallercountries. The changes that have occurred in governments alsoreveal how difficult institutionalization of reform can beespecially when combined with strong cultural norms that mitigateagainst change. While it is too early to tell whether boardswill flourish or wither, they have encountered rocky soil at thenational level and neglect at the institutional level in Hungary.     

Academic staff job change: Winning characteristics in organizational musical chairs

This study examined predictors of job change for academic staff administrators. Analyses of questionnaire data from 143 administrators who had been employed from 1971 through 1978 indicated that predictors of job mobility differ for diverse kinds of moves with two exceptions—age and gender. The four most important predictors for internal institutional change were age, mentor, president of a professional organization, and marital status (married). Planning to move, gender, and editorship, contributed most to external institutional change, whereas age, mentor, gender, and planning to move contributed most significantly to overall job change (adjustedR ²=.439).     

Distributed leadership and organizational change: Reviewing the evidence

This article explores the relationship between distributed leadership and organizational change. It draws upon the existing literature to consider whether distributed forms of leadership influence development and change in schools. The article examines the research base relating to distributed leadership and organizational outcomes. It focuses on how different patterns or configurations of distributed leadership contribute to organizational development. The article concludes by highlighting issues that require further study and more empirical confirmation. This article is based on a literature review commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills as part of a research project currently being undertaken by Leithwood, K., Day, C., Sammons, P., Harris, A., and Hopkins, D. (2006) ‘Leadership and student outcomes’ and Leithwood, K., Day, C., Sammons, P., Harris, A., and Hopkins, D. (2006) ‘Successful school leadership: What it is and how it influences pupil learning’. London, DFES.     

Student LMS use and satisfaction in academic institutions: The organizational perspective

The present paper examines student use of and satisfaction with the Learning Management System (LMS), and how these dependent variables are correlated with organizational variables at one Israeli university. Data on 1212 course websites was gathered in 2007 from the LMS warehouse, the student-management database, the instructor–management database, and satisfaction questionnaires. The findings indicate varied use of LMS, a high level of satisfaction, and low significant correlation between use and satisfaction. As for the organizational variables, course content was found to significantly correlate with use and satisfaction; course size, instructor status and forum existence showed significant correlation with LMS use; and course discipline had low correlation with satisfaction. Further studies and practical implications are discussed.