Comparison of academicians's perceived organizational support, organizational commitment levels and opinions about privatization in higher education at state and foundation universities

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the concept of privatization in-depth from the educational perspective and compare the academicians'working at state and foundation univesities perceived organizational support, organizational commitment levels and their opinions about privatization in Higher Education. The universe of this study which has a descriptive quality in a relational screening model was composed of academic staff working at 6 state universities and 8 foundation universities during the 2012-2013 academic year. The sample of the study included 2.246 academicians in total. The study was performed in three scales. These are Organizational Commitment Scale, Scale of Perceived Organizational Support and The Scale of Opinions Regarding Privatization in Higher Education. The data was processed using SPSS for Windows software package and AMOS program. During the analysis process frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, independent samples t-test, one- way ANOVA and LSD test was applied. To be able to detect the correlation for the relationship between two variables, the effect of the independent variable upon dependent variable regression tests were used. According to the findings of the study, in state and foundation universities, those of lecturers perceived organizational support levels vary according to the type of institution. The mean scores of perception of organizational support for academicians working at foundation universities was found at a higher level than the mean scores of academicians in public universities. Organizational commitment levels of the academicians in state and private universities were not significantly different according to the type of institution. According to gender variable no significant difference was observed on the scores of organizational commitment of the teaching staff both at the state universities and foundation universities. This study revealed that there is a significant difference among the opinions about privatization. The mean scores of privatization in Higher Education scale was hihger for academicians at foundation universities than the academicians at state universities. The academicians at foundation universities have more positive opinions towards privatization than their counterparts at public universities. However; the fact that the academicians in both state and foundation universites have an opinion on the level of undecided shows that privatization in higher education cannot be an effective solution solely to the problems in higher education system. The impact of organizational commitment and organizational support upon the opinions regarding privatization of higher education was tested by regression analysis. Regression analysis results have indicated that organizational support level at public universities has a very weak impact on the opinions regarding privatization in higher education. However, organizational support level at foundation universities has a positive significant impact on the opinions regarding privatization in higher education. The academicians' opinions regarding privatization in higher education in public universities are not affected by the organizational commitment. However, academicians' opinions regarding privatization in foundation universities are affected by their organizational commitment level.