Leadership style, occupational perception and organizational citizenship behavior in the Arab education system in Israel
| Date | 11 February 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-08-2017-0094 |
| Published date | 11 February 2019 |
| Pages | 85-100 |
| Author | Khalid Arar,Muhammed Abu Nasra |
| Subject Matter | Education,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy,Educational administration,Leadership in education |
Leadership style, occupational
perception and organizational
citizenship behavior in the Arab
education system in Israel
Khalid Arar
Al-Qasemi Academic College of Education, Baqa Elgarbiya, Israel, and
Muhammed Abu Nasra
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
Abstract
Purpose –The field of educational systems has witnessed an increase in studies of organizational citizenship
behavior (OCB) as it contributes to the effectiveness and success of schools and achieving their objectives and
goals. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between principals’leadership style,
occupational perceptions and OCB.
Design/methodology/approach –The research hypothesis holds that the leadership style
(transformational or transactional) have a direct and indirect effect on OCB (through occupation
perception). These hypotheses have been tested on data collected from 620 Arab Israeli teachers.
Findings –The results reveal that: transformational and transactional leadership have no direct effect on
OCB, an indirect effect of occupational perception on the relationship between transformational leadership
and OCB, occupational perception did not mediate the effect between transactional leadership and OCB.
Originality/value –The results of the study contribute to the understanding of the way leadership style and
OCB interact in schools, and the importance of teachers’occupational perception in explaining this
relationship. Future research should further investigate the teachers’occupational perceptions and its effect
on their performance as little research has been conducted to date.
Keywords Teachers, Transformational leadership, Arab, Organizational citizenship behaviour,
Transactional leadership, Occupational perception
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The study of school effectiveness within educational research has witnessed an increase in
studies of organizational citizenshipbehavior (OCB) as it contributes to the effectiveness and
success of schoolsand achieving their objectives and goals (Abu Nasra and Heilbrunn, 2016;
Bogler and Somech, 2004). Organ defined OCB (Organ, 1988, p. 4) as “individual behaviour
that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and
that in the aggregatepromotes the effective functioning of the organization.”In the education
context, Somech andDrach-Zahavy (2000) distinguished theoretically between three levels of
OCB: the individual level (e.g.donating behaviors), the teamlevel (e.g. sharing and cooperative
behaviors) and the organizational level (e.g. volunteering for unpaid tasks).
Many studies on OCB have dealt with the question of which factors foster OCB. One
finding of many of these studies is that leadership has a positive influence on OCB among
workers (Abu Nasra and Heilbrunn, 2016; MacKenzie et al., 2001; Nguni et al., 2006).
Leadership is the ability of a person or group to influence people, to lead them to a common
goal and motivate them to perform tasks that are often beyond initial expectations and a
high level of commitment, without using coercion (Fullan, 2005; Li et al., 2016). The
importance of leadership stems from its ability to promote the educational and pedagogical
process (Fullan, 2005), increase school effectiveness (Li et al., 2016), be a source of inspiration
for the school staff, generate organizational propulsion to achieve educational goals, develop
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 57 No. 1, 2019
pp. 85-100
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-08-2017-0094
Received 30 August 2017
Revised 30 November 2018
Accepted 1 December 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
85
Arab
education
system in
Israel
staff communication, create a positive school climate and create organizational cohesion and
stability (Fullan, 2005).
The researchers indicate that transformational leadershipis one of the most prominent of
contemporaryapproaches to leadership (Abu Nasraand Heilbrunn, 2016). There is unanimity
among the researchers that transformational leadership has a positive effect on employee
motivationand occupational perceptionleading to extra investmentand effort required forthe
organization’s development, efficiency and effectiveness (Bogler, 2001; Coyne et al., 2013).
Additionally, in contrast to transformational leadership, transactional leadership has less
influence on themotivation and occupationalperception of the employee (Bogler, 2001;Coyne
et al., 2013). Higher levels of positive occupational perception increase employees’motivation
and organizational commitment; they even invest more effort in their occupation, which
increases organizational effectiveness and realization of organizational goals.
A number of research studies have investigated the potential mediation between
principals’leadership style, and OCB, including job satisfaction, organizational commitment
(Nguni et al., 2006), trust in the supervisor ( Jung and Avolio, 2000) and procedural justice
(Ngodo, 2008), and finds a positive influence between these variables. However, a crucial
factor has not been incorporated into these investigations, namely, the perceptions of the
teachers regarding their occupation. Teachers’occupational perceptions entail a number of
aspects that relate to the concept of teaching as a profession: professional prestige,
professional identification and status, sense of self-fulfillment, scope for self-expression and
personal development, job autonomy and centrality of the vocation (Bogler, 2001).
The present study aims to examine the effects of principals’leadership style
(transformational leadership and transactional leadership) together with teachers’
occupational perceptions on OCB. Exploring the link between leadership style,
occupational perception and OCB has great importance due to their effect on educational
and pedagogical process, school effectiveness, teacher’s motivation, school climate,
organizational commitment, organizational cohesion, stability and achieving the
organizational goals (Bogler, 2001; Fullan, 2005; Li et al., 2016; Optalka, 2007).
Most studies on transformational and transactional leadership have been confined to
western societies rather than non-western societies (Bass, 1997; Nguni et al., 2006).
Regarding minority societies, these studies exemplify their limits and highlight the
importance of examining organizational phenomena in different socio-cultural backgrounds,
due to the influence of the cultural context on the organizational behavior of employees. It is
therefore appropriate to confirm the effects of transformational and transactional
leadership, in ethnic educational contexts and specifically in the Arab education system.
In the present study, the influence of transformational and transactional leadership on
teachers’occupational perception and OCB in schools in the Arab education system in Israel
is studied. The uniqueness of Arab society is its social, cultural and economic structure, and
its influence on the organizational culture of Arab schools. Arab schools adopted the
authoritarian and collectivist social structure of Arab society, which according to the studies
undermined the motivation and performance of the teachers (Arar and Massry-Herzallah,
2016). The next section relates in detail to the uniqueness of the case of the Arab education
system in Israel.
The context: the Arab education system in Israel
The Arab population in Israel is a national minority that constitutes about 20 percent of the
population in Israel (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2016). Arab society is mainly a traditional
patriarchal, male dominated, collectivist and less egalitarian culture (Arar et al., 2013). Arab
citizens do not enjoy fullequal civilian rights and face obstacles in attaining access to public
resources,and their nation is still embroiledin conflict with Israel.Consequently, 49 percent of
the Arab population lives below the poverty line (NationalInsurance Institute of Israel, 2016).
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