Motivation for organizational citizenship behavior in the public sector: A study in educational institutions

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the motivation of public employees to exhibit organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Teachers, who play a crucial role in shaping the future individuals by working in educational institutions, can contribute significantly to the achievement of the institution's goals through the display of OCB. In this context, the sample of the research is composed of teachers working in public schools. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed in the study, where quantitative data was collected through a survey, and qualitative data was gathered through participant observation technique and interviews. Considering the complexity of the responses given by individuals to dynamic variables in the social field, participant observation and interviews were conducted alongside quantitative and experimental research, as it was deemed that quantitative and experimental research alone were insufficient (Baltacı, 2019). Through participant observation and interviews, the instances of teachers exhibiting OCB were examined, and differences between quantitative and qualitative data were identified. As a result of the analysis of quantitative data, it was found that teachers exhibited high levels of OCB in all dimensions (altruism, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, courtesy, civic virtue) with a mean of 4.17. On the other hand, based on the data collected through participant observation, it was concluded that teachers exhibited OCB, but the content analysis revealed that, unlike the quantitative data, teachers did not tend to display OCB behaviors when the themes of OCB dimensions were considered. Observations indicated that teachers particularly demonstrated opposing behaviors in the sportsmanship dimension, and they did not actively participate in organizational activities in the civic virtue dimension. The reason for the differences between quantitative and qualitative data was attributed to the tendency of participants not to provide honest and complete answers to some questions (Arıkan, 2018). Furthermore, it was found that the perception of organizational citizenship behavior varies across countries within the framework of cultural differences. In some cases, the healthy fulfillment of role behaviors was observed to be perceived as OCB, leading to the conclusion that the perception of OCB may vary across cultures (Hofstede, 1980). Keywords: Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Public sector, Social exchange