Examination of the relationship between organizational gossip and commitment in schools according to teacher views

In this study, teachers ' views on organizational gossip and organizational commitment were examined. Organizational gossip can be defined as positive or negative evaluative conversations between at least two people about those who are not in the environment; organizational commitment can be defined as employees continuing to stay in the organization, adhering to the goals of the organization, and working decisively to reflect their good feelings for their and work, the organization. The aim of this research is to examine the relationship between teachers ' views on the functions of organizational gossip and their level of organizational commitment. This research is quantitative research patterned as a relational survey model. The population of the study consists of preschool, primary, secondary and high school teachers working in Siirt province, and the sample is 384 teachers working at the specified school levels. Data from the study was obtained by using the "Organizational Gossip Scale" developed by Han and Dağ lı (2018) and the "Organizational Commitment Scale" adapted by Dağlı, Elçiçek and Han (2018). It was found that the mean of teachers ' views in the dimension of having information of organizational gossip was "medium", the mean of their views on the dimension of developing relations was "low", and the mean of their views on the dimension of organizational harm was "high". No significant differences were found between teachers ' views on organizational gossip according to gender, marital status, school grade, education status, task, professional seniority, and school size variables. A significant difference was found in favor of teachers aged 27-31 in the dimension of having information and developing relations according to the age variable, and teachers who said that they use social media a lot in the dimension of having information compared to the frequency of social media use .It was found that the mean of teachers 'views on the dimension of emotional commitment of organizational commitment was "high", the mean of their views on the dimension of continuance commitment was "moderate", and the mean of their views on the dimension of normative commitment was also "moderate". There was no significant difference between teachers ' views on organizational commitment according to the school size variable. Significant difference was found in the dimension of emotional commitment according to the gender variable, ( male teachers),in the dimension of the continuance commitment and normative commitment according to the age variable, (teachers aged 37 and over), in the dimension of the the continuance commitment and emotional commitment according to the marital status variable (married teachers), in the dimension of continuance commitment according to the school grade worked variable (against teachers working in secondary school), in normative commitment according to the level of education variable, (education status of undergraduate teachers), in the dimension of the variable of emotional commitment and continuance commitment according to the task variable, (teachers whose duties are administrators), in the dimension of continuance commitment and emotional commitment according to the professional seniority variable, (in favor of teachers with professional seniority of 11 years and above.) A negative, low-level, meaningful relation was found between teachers- ' views on the function of having information of organizational gossip and their commitment. It has been found that organizational gossip in school is a meaningful predictor of the level of organizational commitment of teachers. As the harmful functions of organizational gossip increase, teachers- ' commitment decreases.