Abstract:

Backgrund Teaching profession is becoming increasingly demanding extra effort and dedication from teachers. Meeting this demand mainly depends on building and maintaining organizational citizenship behaviors. However, schools encounter forces restricting their ability to motivate teachers to build organizational citizenship behaviors (Someck Bogler, 2002). Studies of organizational citizenship behaviors tend to focus on individual characteristics. Recently, some researchers have realized that these behaviors are better understood by examining their relationship with organizational characteristics (Dipaola and Hoy, 2005). Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of individual characteristics (dispositional variables of affectivity and employees' attitude), perceived superior support and organizational characteristics (organizational values of individualism vs. collectivism) on organizational citizenship behaviors in school settings. Method The sample consisted of 172 volunteer teachers working in the eight primary schools in the province of Ankara during the 2008-2009 school year. There instruments, namely Perceived Superior Support Scale (Kottke Sharafinski, 1988), Individualism-collectivism Scale (Hanges Dicken, 2004), and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors Scale (Dipaola,Tarter and Hoy, 2005) were adapted to Turkish with permission used for data gathering. The internal consistency coefficient of Cronbach's alpha for Perceived Superior Support Scale was .96, for Individualism-Collectivism Scale .78 and for Organizational Citizenship Behaviors Scale .89. To analyze the data, Pearson Moments Correlation Coefficient (r), and Multiple Regression Analysis techniques were used. Findings and Discussion Teachers' organizational citizenship behavior level (?=3.50) and perceived superior support level (?=3.43) were relatively high, while schools individualism-collectivism (?=3.21) was observed at moderate level. A relatively low positive and significant relationship between perceived superior support and organizational citizenship behavior were observed. Determination coefficient showed that 7% of the total variance in organizational citizenship behavior of teachers was explained by the perceived superior support. There was also a moderate positive and significant relationship between individualism-collectivism and organizational citizenship behavior (r=0.36; p<.01). Determination coefficient indicated that 13% of organizational citizenship behavior was explained by collectivism. As a result of multiple regression analyses, when partial correlations were examined, the correlation between perceived superior support and organizational citizenship behavior was calculated as 0.01. The partial correlation between individualism-collectivism and organizational citizenship behavior was computed as 0.25. A moderate significant relationship between both perceived superior support and individualism-collectivism, and organizational citizenship behavior was computed as 0.25. A moderate significant relationship between both perceived superior support and individualism-collectivism, and teachers' organizational citizenship behavior was found as (R=0.355, R2=0.126, p<.01). Results showed that both perceived superior support and collectivism improves teachers' organizational citizenship behavior. Examining these variables together, it was demonstrated that collectivism was the most effective predictor of organizational citizenship behavior. These findings were consistent with results of previous studies. Buluç's (2008) also stated that ‘there is a significant relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and managerial and technical support levels in an organization. Similarly, Buchanan (1974) found a positive relationship between emotional devotion and organizational support for employees. Finally, the results about individualism-collectivism support the idea that shared goals, and schools where there is a strong solidarity among teachers encourage teachers to behave in congruence with organizational citizenship behavior (Hofstede, 1993; Triandis, 1993). These findings demonstrated that, as stated by George and James (1997), organizations have an important affect on individual behaviors. Schools' organizational characteristics by presenting strong values and emphasizing the importance of social exchange may facilitate organizational citizenship behaviors.

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