Association of Organizational Learning with Leadership, Job Satisfaction and Engagement in an EFL Setting

  • Ahmet Erdost YASTIBAŞ Atilim University, Ankara, Turkey
  • Meltem Huri BATURAY Atılım University, Ankara, Turkey
Keywords: organizational learning, department leadership, teacher leadership, engagement, job satisfaction

Abstract

The present study investigated the relationship between organizational learning, department leadership, teacher leadership, job satisfaction and engagement in a higher education language institution. It was designed as a quantitative study. 96 Turkish English language instructors participated in the research. The data were collected in a Turkish higher education language institution. Four scales were used to collect data. The data were analyzed through samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson’s r correlation, and multiple regression analysis. The findings indicated that there were not statistically significant differences between participants in terms of their genders, Bachelor’s degrees, status of masters of art, and the departments they worked, but of their teaching experiences with regard to organizational learning, department leadership, teacher leadership, job satisfaction, and engagement. They also showed that there were statistically significant relationships among engagement, job satisfaction, teacher leadership, organization learning, and department leadership. Besides, they revealed that department leadership and job satisfaction could predict organizational learning positively and explain the 74% of the variance in organizational learning. Department leadership can have a central role in promoting organizational learning in a higher education language institution through creating a working environment which supports and values teacher leadership, so teachers/instructors can feel more engage and satisfied.

References

Argyris. C. (1999). On organizational learning (2nd ed.). Blackwell.

Boyce. M. E. (2003). Organizational learning is essential to achieving and sustaining change in higher education. Innovative Higher Education, 28(2), 119-136.

Boyd. D., Grossman. P., Ing, M., Lankford, H., Loeb, S., & Wyckoff, J. (2011). The influence of school administrators on teacher retention decisions. American Educational Research Journal, 48(2), 303-333.

Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. Harper and Row.

Chang, S. C., & Lee, M. S. (2007). A study on relationship among leadership, organizational culture, the operation of learning organization and employees' job satisfaction. The Learning Organization, 14(2), 155-185.

Coppieters, P. (2005). Turning schools into learning organizations. European Journal of Teacher Education, 28(2), 129-139.

Davis, R. C. (1951). The fundamentals of top management. Harper and Row.

Field, A. (2009). Discovering statistics using SPSS (3rd Edition). Sage Publications Ltd.

Fraenkel, R. J., & Wallen, E. N. (2000). How to design and evaluate research in education (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Freed, J. E. (2001). Why become a learning organization? About Campus, 5(6), 16–21.

Griffith, J. (2004). Relation of principal transformational leadership to school staff job satisfaction, staff turnover, and school performance. Journal of Educational Administration, 42(3), 333-356.

Hassan, A., & Ahmed, F. (2011). Authentic leadership, trust and work engagement. International Journal of Human and Social Sciences, 6(3), 164-170.

Heijden, K. (2004). Can internally generated futures accelerate organizational learning? Futures, 36(2), 145-59.

Holyoke, L. B., Sturko, P. A., Wood, N. B., & Wu, L. J. (2012). Are academic departments perceived as learning organizations? Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 40(4), 436-448.

Hoppock, R. (1935). Job satisfaction. Harper and Row.

Johnson, R. B., & Christensen, L. B. (2004). Educational Research: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Approaches. Allyn and Bacon.

Kasper, H. (2002). Culture and leadership in market-oriented service organizations. European Journal of Marketing, 36(9), 1047-57.

Kurland, H. & Hertz-Lazarowitz, R. (2006). Organizational learning as a lever for realizing an educational vision. Dapim, 41, 230-71.

Kurland, H., Peretz, H., & Hertz-Lazarowitz, R. (2010). Leadership style and organizational learning: the mediate effect of school vision. Journal of Educational Administration, 48(1), 7-30.

Lambert, L. (1998). How to build leadership capacity. Educational leadership. ASCD.

Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (1997) The truth about burnout. Jossey Bass.

Marks, H., Louis, K. S., & Printy, S. (2000). The capacity for organizational learning: Implications for pedagogical quality and student achievement. In K. Leithwood (ed.), Understanding schools as intelligent systems (pp. 239-266). JAI.

New Teacher Center, (2013). TELL (teaching, empowering, leading, and learning) Kentucky survey: Validity and reliability report. Retrieved from https://tellkentucky.org/uploads/File/KY13_val_rel.pdf

Pedler, M., Burgoyne, J., & Boydell, T. (1991). The learning company: A strategy for sustainable development. McGraw-Hill.

Schaufeli, W. B., Salanova, M., González-Romá, V., & Bakker, A. B. (2002). The measurement of engagement and burnout: A two sample confirmatory factor analytic approach. Journal of Happiness Studies, 3(1), 71-92.

Senge, P. M. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. Random House.

Silins, H. & Mulford, B. (2004). Schools as learning organisations - Effects on teacher leadership and student outcomes. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 15(3-4), 443-466.

Silins, H. C., Mulford, W. R. & Zarins, S. (2002). Organizational learning and school change. Educational Administration Quarterly, 38(5), 613-642.

Silman, F. (2014). Work-related basic need satisfaction as a predictor of work engagement among academic staff in Turkey. South African Journal of Education, 34(3), 1-5.

Watkins, K. E., & Marsick, V. J. (1996). In action: Creating the learning organization. American Society for Training and Development.

Published
2021-06-02