An investigation of the power sources used by primary school administrators in terms of their demographic characteristics

Management is a process of organizational structure. In this process, power is used as a motivation al source to maintain the sustainability and provide the efficacy of organisation within the desired direction to be able to reach the organizational goals. Not using the power types or failure to use power correctly and effectively, can create chaos and confusion. For this reason, in order to activate the organizational dynamics who have their own different nature of qualities, managers need to use their power resources in various and rich ways. There are various types of power that result from the personality traits of managers or their location. Reward, coercive and legitimate power are types of power acquired by the manager depending on his / her position and status within the organization. The types of power that they derive from individual characteristics are charismatic and expert power. The purpose of this study is to determine in which power source(s) that the principals handle most in the public primary schools, which are in the central districts (Osmangazi, Nilüfer, Yıldırım) of Bursa. Moreover the study examines the differences between the power sources and gender, subject area, age, seniority, education state variables. The study employed survey method and it is carried out with quantitative method. The universe of the study consists of primary school teachers working at schools in the central districts ( Osmangazi, Nilüfer, Yıldırım) of Bursa in 2019-2020 school year. In the sample of the study there are 404 public school teachers. Research data have been collected with Primary Manager Organizational Power Supplies Questionnaire developed by Zafer (2008). The gathered data was analyzed by using SPSS Program. In terms of gender variant, t-Test from parametric tests has been used in order to determine the differences related with gender and branch between the power sources used by the principals. In the study, in order to examine the sub problems and determine the differences related with professional seniority and education state between the power sources used by the principals One Way Anova method is used. Further, in the case of existing two or more subgroups ''the Scheffe test'' was used as a complementary post-hoc analysis in order to determine the subgroups of participants. As a result of the study, it is understood by the perception of the principals and teachers that principals generally handled the legitimate power sources higher in the school administration. According to the branch variable, it has been determined that there is a significant difference in organizational power, expertise, reward and charismatic power dimensions. It has been conducted that there isn't any significant difference between legitimate power and coercive power after all there is a significant difference between expert power, reward power and charismatic power according to the variable of education state. According to the teachers' opinions, there is a significant gender-based difference in terms of utilization of charismatic and coercive power sources. These findings were discussed in the light of relevant literature and necessary suggestions were developed.