Individual and organizational value congruence of elementary school teachers (Ankara sample)

There are many research findings in the field of person-organization fitsuggesting that while individual and organizational value congruence increases jobsatisfaction, organizational commitment and performance of employees, and helpsworkers demonstrate organizational citizenship behaviors and extra effort foracquiring objectives, it decreases the level of leaving the job, role ambiguities, andnegative factors causing stress in organization. Therefore, the congruence betweenteachers? individual values and organizational values of schools can be regarded as atool for increasing job satisfaction level and organizational commitment of teachersand improving education quality.The aim of this study was to examine the perceptions of elementary schoolteachers about individual and organizational value congruence according to somevariables, and to provide several implications for person-organization valuecongruence at schools. For this aim, firstly, a general conceptual analysis on theimportance of person-organization fit, and individual and organizational valuecongruence was presented. Then, considering the unique characteristics of schools,consequences of person-organization value congruence in terms of job satisfaction,organizational commitment and performance were discussed.As a descriptive study, dependent variables of this research were theperceptions of elementary school teachers on person-organization value congruence.Demographic variables of the teachers such as gender, branch, years in currentschool, years in profession, age, educational status, the last graduated school, jobsatisfaction level, feeling himself/herself as an important and valuable member ofschool, attitude towards school were independent variables. However, teachersranked some values in the order of importance for themselves and schools. Inaddition, teachers made several suggestions for managerial, technical and social(interpersonal relationships) aspects of school to improve individual andorganizational value congruence.In this study, a total of 575 teachers working in 40 elementary schools fromcentral counties of Ankara (Altındağ, Çankaya, Etimesgut, Gölbaşı, Keçiören,Mamak, Sincan, and Yenimahalle) were selected as the study sample by usingcluster-sampling method. A self-developed questionnaire was used to gather data. Inivorder to analyze the data, Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient,Independent Samples t-Test, One-Way Anova (ANOVA), Tukey-HSD MultipleComparison Test, Kruskal Wallis H-Test, Mann Whitney U-Test, Spearman (rho)Correlation Coefficient, and content analysis were used.Results from this study indicated that a moderately significant positivecorrelation between teachers? perceptions of individual values and organizationalvalues was found. The results also showed that there were no statistically significantdifferences in perceptions of teachers? on person-organization value congruence interms of gender, branch, years in current school, age, educational level, the lastgraduated school, and job satisfaction level. However, results demonstrated thatteachers? perceptions on person-organization value congruence varied significantlydepending on the years in profession, feeling himself/herself as an important memberof school, and attitude towards the schools in which they work.According to the results, teachers with high job satisfaction, feelingthemselves as important members of schools, and having a strong commitment toschools had more positive person-organization value congruence perceptions than theothers. In addition to this, results showed that although teachers gave top priority tosome values such as honesty, trust, and respect, their perceptions of risk taking,participation and responsibility were in the later ranks of the scale.Elementary school teachers reported that in managerial aspects of school,allowing teachers to participate in the processes of decision-making, assessing theiractivities by objective criteria, and providing them with opportunities for supportingtheir individual and professional development were necessary in order to increaseperson-organization value congruence. In technical areas, they suggested that thephysical and technological conditions of schools should be improved, and the use ofinformation technology should be seen as a more important subject. In addition,elementary school teachers recommended that multi-dimensional communicationsamong students, teachers, school managers, and parents should be developed, socialand cultural activities should be organized at schools, and more attention should begiven to such values as cooperation, collaboration, team working, and responsibilityto improve interpersonal relationships in school settings.