An analysis of teachers' perceptions of organizational happiness, organizational cynicism and organizational justice

Considering the environment, scope and objectives of the teaching-learning activities, it can be stated that the findings of the research on organizational happiness will play a functional role both in preparing the people to shape the future of the nations, making the teachers and the school administrators work more qualitatively and the improvement of students more holistically. From this point of view, there is a need for research on organizational happiness in the context of educational organizations. The perceptions of organizational justice and organizational cynicism were also included in the study, as phenomena affecting or affected by the organizational happiness. In this research designed in descriptive and relational models, it was aimed to examine and explain the relations between organizational happiness, organizational cynicism and organizational justice based on the perceptions of primary school teachers. Primary school teachers working in the central districts (Battalgazi and Yeşilyurt) in Malatya, during the 2016-2017 academic year, constitute the population of this study. The sample was composed of 731 teachers working in state primary schools in Battalgazi and Yeşilyurt districts, determined by "disproportional cluster sampling". The data were collected through the Organizational Justice Scale, 'Organizational Cynicism Scale for Teachers' and 'Organizational Happiness Scale for Teachers' developed within the scope of this study. In the analysis of the data, the descriptive statistics, Independent Samples T-test, One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis H tests and Structural Equation Modeling were used. According to the findings, the organizational happiness and organizational justice perceptions of the teachers were found to be at the "Agree" level while their perceptions of organizational cynicism were found to be at the level of "Disagree". When the organizational happiness, organizational justice and organizational cynicism perceptions of the teachers are evaluated in terms of variables, it is observed that there is no significant difference in terms of gender in all three scales overall. In terms of the branch variable, there were no significant differences regarding organizational happiness and organizational cynicism overall, however; the perceptions of organizational justice differ significantly in favor of classroom teachers. Teachers' perceptions differ significantly in terms of marital status, professional seniority, education level and 'the number of teachers in a school' variables. While married teachers have higher scores of the organizational happiness and organizational justice, single teachers have higher scores of organizational cynicism. Teachers with seniority of 21+ years were found to have higher scores in organizational happiness and organizational justice and the lowest score in organizational cynicism. The happiest group are teachers who hold an Associate Degree. As the education level of teachers increases, organizational justice scores decrease and the level of organizational cynicism increases. The happiest schools were found to be schools with 16-30 teachers. Significant differences in terms of organizational justice and organizational cynicism are between 'the crowded schools [46+ teachers]' and other groups. Additionally, it was found a high level, positive and significant relationship between organizational happiness and organizational justice, and a significant negative correlation between organizational happiness and organizational cynicism. As regards the mediating role of organizational justice, the findings indicate that organizational justice has a mediating role on the impact of organizational cynicism on organizational happiness, but this mediating effect is a moderate effect.