The contribution of perceived fit between job demands and abilities to teachers’ commitment and job satisfaction

Abstract

The current study aims at exploring the common means that may improve organizational effectiveness by focusing on two main facets of organizational qualities: teacher commitment and job satisfaction. Data were collected from 841 randomly sampled teachers employed in 118 elementary schools in Israel. A quantitative questionnaire, which included scales measuring organizational and professional commitment, extrinsic and intrinsic satisfaction and organizational and job-related characteristics, was employed. Multiple regression analyses revealed that the single variable that predicted both types of commitment (organizational and professional) and both types of satisfaction (intrinsic and extrinsic) was teachers’ perceptions of the fit between one's job demands and abilities. The second most influential predictor was principals’ interaction with the teachers. Job-related characteristics had the least impact on teacher’s professional commitment and extrinsic satisfaction. The finding, that perceived job fit predicted both commitment and job satisfaction, reinforces the importance of the assumption about the significance of best practice in recruitment and placement processes, which has long been known to be significant in determining professional conduct. Other implications of the findings are discussed, and recommendations are provided to school principals.

Keywords

Management organizational effectiveness principals Israel teacher commitment job satisfaction

Introduction

Despite the plethora of studies on both teacher commitment and job satisfaction and the antecedents of each, the examination of the relative contribution of each of the common antecedents remains unexplored. The present study aimed at addressing this matter by adopting a strategy that looks at the factors explaining these organizational qualities leading to the improvement of organizational effectiveness.

The literature demonstrates a positive relationship between teacher commitment and school effectiveness (Aranya and Ferris, 1984; Firestone and Pennell, 1993) as well as between teacher job satisfaction and school effectiveness (Shann, 1998). School effectiveness is defined as the characteristics that affect the degree to which schools achieve their goals, such as cognitive output measures in the basic disciplines (e.g. mother tongue, mathematics, or reading) (De Maeyer et al., 2010). Thus, teacher professional commitment was found to have a positive relationship with students’ academic achievements (Kushman, 1992). This relationship is reciprocal (Firestone and Rosenblum, 1988), as teachers of students who are motivated and with a high ability to achieve showed greater commitment to the profession than their peers (Kushman, 1992).

In previous studies, professional commitment was predicted by job-related variables (Michael et al., 2009) while organizational commitment was predicted by school-related ones (Nir, 2002a; Somech and Bogler, 2002). Other studies investigated the impact of the principal’s relationship with the teachers on both satisfaction and commitment (Price, 2012).

In recent years, as budget cuts continue to put a severe burden on principals’ functioning, their need to improve organizational effectiveness has become more critical and difficult than ever before (Picus and Odden, 2011). One may succeed in improving organizational effectiveness by studying its facets, such as commitment and job satisfaction (e.g. Dee et al., 2006). Organizational commitment is widely known as a major attribute in the employee–employer relationship (Papinczak, 2012). It has been studied greatly throughout the years because of its impact on central work variables such as turnover, organizational citizenship behavior, and job performance (Kell and Motowidlo, 2012; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990). Investigating the impact of teacher job satisfaction may contribute significantly to school effectiveness through its impact on teacher turnover as dissatisfied teachers leave their profession (Shen et al., 2012). Throughout the years, research has demonstrated that teachers’ commitment to their profession and to school as well as their satisfaction from the job (both intrinsic and extrinsic) are predicted by a number of antecedents, among them teachers’ perceived fit between job demands and the employee’s abilities, factors related to the principal’s relationship to teachers, and job and organization-related factors (Michael et al., 2009; Price, 2012; Singh and Billingsley, 1998). Our goal in the current study is, therefore, to identify the antecedents that mostly affect teachers’ commitment and job satisfaction, thus assisting policy-makers in their decision where to invest the limited resources toward improving school effectiveness.

Theoretical background

In the general research literature, both teacher commitment and job satisfaction are found to be linked to organizational effectiveness (e.g. job satisfaction: Fisher, 1980; Judge et al., 2001; and organizational commitment: Steers, 1977). More recently, Hulpia et al. (2010) indicated that teachers’ organizational commitment is a key factor in improving school processes. Referring to teachers’ working setting, some researchers view commitment as one construct (e.g. Reames and Spencer, 1998), while others (Collie et al., 2011; Firestone and Pennell, 1993; Ross and Gray, 2006) consider it as composed of two constructs, organizational commitment (OC) and professional commitment (PC), or more constructs, including such as professional association—union—commitment (Bergmann et al., 2011), commitment to the students (Firestone and Rosenblum, 1988) or commitment to the school’s academic goals (Louis, 1998). In the current study, we examine the professional and organizational types of teachers’ commitment since they are found to be the most prevailing forms of commitment in the research literature affecting teachers’ performance and, consequently, a school’s outcomes and goals.

Below, we describe each of the study variables and show the relationships between the two types of commitment and job satisfaction with the predictors: perceived fit between job demands and abilities and job/organizational-related factors.

Teacher organizational commitment

Organizational commitment is a multidimensional construct that refers to “the relative strength of an individual’s identification with and involvement in a particular organization” (Mowday et al., 1979: 226). Alternatively, Meyer and Allen (1991: 67) indicated that it is “the employee’s emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organization”. They proposed the three-factor model, which reflects the desire (affective commitment), the need (continuance commitment), and the obligation to remain with an organization (normative commitment).

Teacher OC is highly related to school effectiveness as it is negatively associated with turnover and absenteeism and positively correlated with job performance, all of which are linked to organizational effectiveness (Dee et al., 2006). Teacher OC has been studied thoroughly throughout the years because of its effect on a number of significant organizational outputs, such as intention to leave and absenteeism (negative effect), retention, performance and person–organization fit (positive effect) (e.g. Khasawneh et al., 2012; Nir, 2002a, 2002b; Sezgin, 2009).

Following Mowday et al.’s notion (1979), OC implies that the members of an organization wish to be active players in the organization, have an impact on what is going on in it, have a high status within it, are ready to contribute beyond what is expected of them, remain with the organization and support its mission. They feel that they cannot leave the organization because of their high attachment and identification with the organization and the advantages that they attach to the organization rather than to themselves (Michael et al., 2009). Increased OC is found to be positively correlated with organizational outcomes, such as increased job performance, decreased intent to leave work and reduced turnover (e.g. Bergmann et al., 2011). Regarding teacher organizational commitment, Reyes (1992) found a few organizational factors (conditions and processes) that affect OC, such as administrative support, collaborative climate and malleable school environment. Inadequate inducement to attract teachers to stay in the job (Darling-Hammond, 1984) and lack of educational direction in the school (Corcoran, 1985) were found to be associated with lesser OC for teachers. Consistent with previous research findings, we aimed at examining factors that relate to school management practices, such as the perceived fit between job demands and teachers’ abilities, and job/organizational conditions concerning collaborative climate and job characteristics.

Teacher professional commitment

Professional commitment is subject to a wide range of definitions. According to Lodahl and Kejner (1965), the strength of PC relates to the degree to which one’s self-esteem is influenced by work-related accomplishments. It is expressed in the sense of obligation one feels to the job itself and to co-workers, in addition to the importance one attaches to the organization as a whole. Referring to teacher’s PC, Coladarci (1992: 326) mentions the ‘psychological attachment’ that a teacher develops toward the teaching profession. In their comprehensive review on teacher commitment, Firestone and Pennell (1993) found that the common denominator of all teacher commitment definitions is the psychological connection and identification s/he has toward an object to which s/he attaches importance. Chan et al. (2008: 599) provide a literature review of the positive consequences of teacher commitment on various aspects of teachers’ work life in school, such as job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior, and reading achievements. Employees who report on high commitment to their profession attribute a vital role to work in their lives.

Teachers’ voluntary PC is essential for effective instruction as schools cannot observe teachers, assess their performance or enforce specific practices on a day-to-day basis (Firestone and Pennell, 1993). The voluntary character of teacher commitment results in a situation where teachers depend on internal motivation, in which their rewards come from the profession itself and from its fortuitous outcomes, rather than from circumstances controlled by others (Deci and Ryan, 1985). We propose to examine teacher PC by both the internal and external circumstances related to the teacher’s job.

Teacher job satisfaction

Teacher job satisfaction, which describes one’s feelings toward the job, has been found to predict teacher retention (Shann, 1998) and absenteeism (Skaalvik and Skaalvik, 2011), which are determinants of teacher commitment—a contributor to school effectiveness. Job satisfaction among teachers has been studied as a predictor of commitment (e.g. Shin and Reyes, 1995), but it has been frequently examined as an organizational output as well (e.g. Price, 2012). Teachers who were found to be highly satisfied with their job reported a positive and supportive organizational climate in school, maintaining a good relationship with their principals (Price, 2012), thus having a positive effect on the quality of education (Cerit, 2009). Consequently, in the current study, we adopt the line of research that advocates examining job satisfaction as an organizational output.

Much attention has been granted to the issue of measuring teacher job satisfaction (Skaalvik and Skaalvik, 2009, 2011). Teacher job satisfaction is viewed as one construct (Skaalvik and Skaalvik, 2011; Zigarelli, 1996) and as multifaceted (Dinham and Scott, 1998). Looking at the multifaceted concept, job satisfaction is often studied as two-faceted construct, composed of intrinsic vs. extrinsic satisfaction from the job (Bhal and Ansari, 1996). Intrinsic satisfaction captures the notion of self-fulfillment and accomplishments, whereas extrinsic satisfaction stresses job conditions (job security and social aspects of work).

In their research on the teacher role, Snyder and Spreitzer (1984) rely on Deci’s work (1973), who asserted that the main motivation in teaching is intrinsic, and it involves satisfaction and joy from the work. Support for this notion was also found by others (e.g. Bredeson et al., 1983). Job satisfaction is perceived as high levels of work performance that are a result of feelings of self-fulfillment from daily activities and commitment to work (Judge et al., 2001). In the educational context, teachers’ job satisfaction is conceived as a critical element that affects the attitudes and performance of the teachers (Caprara et al., 2006), or as defined by Skaalvik and Skaalvik (2011: 1030), “teachers’ affective reactions to their work or to their teaching role”. Teachers who are satisfied with their job seem to show high levels of motivation and outcomes and low levels of stress, tension and burnout (Caprara et al., 2006). Teacher satisfaction is conceived as a crucial factor in improving school performance because of its impact on school effectiveness and outcomes (Reyes and Shin, 1995; Thompson et al., 1997). As reviewed by Moè et al. (2010), job satisfaction is an evaluative judgment of one’s job that has a number of beneficial effects on organizational outcomes. Teachers’ satisfaction is mostly vital because of its impact on students’ autonomy, competence and feeling of belonging. Highly satisfied teachers show higher levels of motivation that, in the domino effect, positively affects students’ motivation and induces them to improve and stand out (Moè et al., 2010). These aspects of teachers’ satisfaction refer to the intrinsic facets of their well-being at work and may have a direct effect on their commitment to the teaching profession.

Both teacher commitment and job satisfaction are crucial factors to organizational success as well as to its survival in harsh times. We now present the antecedents of both OC and job satisfaction, and discuss the potential contributions of each to the dependent variables.

Antecedents of organizational commitment and satisfaction

When referring to OC, researchers look at workplace factors that may affect the employees’ attachment to the organization and their unwillingness to leave it (Nir, 2002a; Somech and Bogler, 2002). In the current study, we aim at identifying the antecedents of teacher commitment and job satisfaction that may explain to a large extent the variance of each of these outcomes. We first present the organizational followed by the job-related factors affecting both commitment and satisfaction. Among the organizational factors, we examine one managerial characteristic of the principals that refers to the recruitment and placement process of teachers, namely the perceived fit between job demands and employee's abilities, and another aspect that is associated with the principal–teacher relationship—quality of interaction between the principal and the teachers and principal’s support. Among the job-related factors, we examine a number of variables that the literature shows their effect on organizational outcomes: job tension, role overload and certainty in the job.

Perceived fit between job demands and employee's abilities

One of the crucial roles of school principals is the recruitment of teachers, their professional development and retention (Harris et al., 2010). The policies related to recruitment and retention have a direct effect on the school’s ability to fill the slots for teaching and on teachers’ decisions to remain in the profession (Guarino et al., 2006). It is, therefore, highly important that school principals pay a great deal of attention to teachers’ placement in the job via the fit between the organization’s needs and demands and the abilities of individual teachers.

The research on person–environment fit includes the investigation of person–job fit, (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005: 327). The person–environment fit assumption is that a match between the individual and the environment is beneficial to the individual’s mental and physical well-being, while a mismatch implies stress and results in mental and physical tension (Edwards and Rothbard, 1999). A narrower concept of person–environment fit is the person–job fit (Edwards, 1991; Kristof-Brown et al., 2005) or demand–ability job fit (Chi and Pan, 2012), which refers to the “demands–abilities fit, in which employees’ knowledge, skills, and abilities are commensurate with what the job requires” (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005: 284). Since the early 1990s, research has shown that individuals’ perceived demand–ability job fit positively affects task performance (Caldwell and O’Reilly, 1990; Chi and Pan, 2012; Edwards, 1991).

With regard to commitment, Cable and DeRue (2002) expected that when there is no congruence between employees’ skills and their jobs’ demands, they will be less attracted to stay in their occupations. Their expectation was derived from the assumption that individuals who feel that they do not possess the abilities to meet the job demands will seek to play down their role or leave the job. On the contrary, when individuals sense that their abilities and competence are far above the demands posed by the job, they may feel one of the two contradictory possibilities: either detached from the job or eager to fill it as well as they can. This line of assumptions led to the expectation that individuals with perceived low demands–abilities fit will be less committed to their occupation (Cable and DeRue, 2002). In their study of a few hundred workers in a small telecommunications company, the researchers found that perceived demands–abilities fit did not predict any of the organizational outcomes, including the occupational commitment. These results were contrary to the research findings that dominated the literature in the past 20 years, which support the connection between perceived demands–abilities fit and task performance. It is, therefore, one of our main goals to examine the inconsistent findings of past large-scale studies that investigated the effects of perceived fit between job demands and employees’ abilities on organizational outcomes.

Referring to job satisfaction, Price (2012) has recently found that the congruency between employees’ expectations about their job tasks and their actual organizational roles has an effect on job satisfaction. It is interesting to note, that although employees’ placement and fit between job demands and their abilities have long been recognized as crucial factors in determining effectiveness in various types of organizational settings, this issue surprisingly has been neglected in the educational administration literature. One possible reason may be that in public education, teacher placement is often a top-down process, especially in educational systems where school principals have no authority to recruit or dismiss teachers. Examining the perceived fit between job demands and employees’ abilities within the educational systems might add new insights to the existing body of research that has been conducted mainly within for-profit organizations. This may be of value especially in the public education realm, where in many national educational systems, teachers’ placement in schools follows legal and bureaucratic considerations and is less influenced by the particular features and the unique circumstances of each individual school.

Principal–teacher relationship

The impact of principals on teachers is known to be significant in a number of ways that refer to the former striving to fulfill school goals (Bryk et al., 2010; Goldring and Pasternack, 1994), and to their choice to involve teachers in decision-making relating to administrative and academic issues (Bogler and Somech, 2004; Somech and Bogler, 2002). Teachers who perceive their principal as practicing a transformational type of leadership, which contains the aspect of personal consideration toward them, reported that the principal affected their job satisfaction directly and indirectly—a relationship that is mediated through teachers’ perceived occupation (Bogler, 2001). Practically, the informal relationships and interactions between the principals and the teachers explain the effects of leadership on school organizational climates (Ogawa and Bossert, 1995; Price, 2012). Price’s theoretical background (2012) suggests that a principal’s relationships with the staff and interpersonal interactions are significant predictors of outcomes such as satisfaction and commitment among faculty. These relationships also affect students’ academic achievements by the supportive and cohesive behavior of the leaders (i.e. principals), which influences teacher commitment (Firestone and Wilson, 1985; Hulpia et al., 2009; Price, 2012). Improving learning in schools can be achieved through enhancing the principal–staff relationships that produce teachers who are more satisfied and committed, and thus contribute to school effectiveness (Price, 2012). The principal’s favorable interaction with the teacher and his/her support of the teacher’s work is, thus, expected to affect both types of commitment and satisfaction. It would be interesting to compare the impact of the principal–teacher relationship on teacher commitment and job satisfaction to that of the perceived fit between job demands and employees’ abilities. Each of these predictors represents a different premise: the principal–teacher relationship represents the process characteristic of the interactions, while the perceived fit may be considered an input feature that is essential to the successful functioning of a school.

Job-related antecedents of commitment and satisfaction

Professional commitment (or teacher commitment, cf. Choi and Fan Tang, 2009) is perceived as a psychological attachment to the profession; consequently, it is assumed that job-related factors will influence teachers’ commitment to the profession. Nevertheless, the literature demonstrates that a number of job-related characteristics affect one’s identification with the organization as well (Billingsley and Cross, 1992; Mowday et al., 1982). Job tension is known to play a critical role in affecting work and performance in the organization. Employees who report on job tension are unable to foresee the results of their actions—a situation that may have a negative impact on their performances in the organization (Koslowsky, 1998).

Beehr et al., (1976) refer to role overload as one of the role stresses affecting an individual’s work in the organization, in addition to role ambiguity and to nonparticipation. The feeling of role overload produces adverse consequences for employees, mainly regarding their motivation at work. Teachers are found to view job dissatisfaction as primarily associated with work overload (Papanastasiou and Zembylas, 2005). This finding was supported by Liu and Ramsey’s large-scale research (2008), in which they analyzed national surveys conducted in the USA. One of their main conclusions was that teachers were dissatisfied with work conditions, mainly because of a heavy teaching workload. Nevertheless, if the work load is experienced by the individual as challenging, the role overload might increase one’s motivation to work since challenging work provides intrinsic rewards to one’s successful accomplishments. Skaalvik and Skaalvik (2011: 1031) view job stress/tension and work load as ‘time pressure’ that has been causing a significant decline in teachers’ overall job satisfaction. Role overload, as in the case of job tension, is expected to negatively affect teachers’ commitment to the profession and to the organization and teachers’ intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction.

Another job-related aspect is certainty in the job (Jenkins et al., 1975). How certain do teachers feel in their job? Munthe (2003) refers to certainty in the job as ‘professional certainty’. She claims that some assume that teaching is “a profession characterized by inherent uncertainty, and learning to cope with uncertainty is a major part of developing professionally…Teachers who are able to deal with this uncertainty in a reflective or professional way are believed to be more certain about the decisions they make and actions they carry out” (Munthe, 2003: 801). Being certain in the profession has implications for one’s feeling of commitment and satisfaction, as the literature demonstrates that perceived professional certainty is expected to be positively related to teacher collaboration and job satisfaction (Munthe, 2003), and collaboration is strongly related to commitment to teaching (Weiss, 1999). Rosenholtz (1991) argues that when ambiguity about the job is low, one’s satisfaction is high.

In line with the theoretical background, we offer four simple and specific hypotheses (Hulley et al., 2001) that demonstrate in a parsimonious way the relationships among the study variables:

Hypothesis 1: Commitment (professional and organizational) will be mostly affected by organizational factors—teachers’ perceptions of demands–abilities fit and principal–teacher interaction—followed by job-related factors.

Hypothesis 2: Job satisfaction (intrinsic and extrinsic) will be mostly affected by organizational factors—teachers’ perceptions of demands–abilities fit and principal–teachers’ interaction—followed by job-related factors.

Hypothesis 3: Among the job-related factors, job tension and role overload will negatively affect teachers’ commitment and job satisfaction.

Hypothesis 4: Among the job-related factors, teachers’ certainty in the job will positively affect teachers’ commitment and job satisfaction.

Before moving to the research method section, we provide a description of the Israeli public educational system, where the current study was conducted, to acquaint the readers with the Israeli educational context.

The Israeli educational context

Israel has a strong centralized bureaucracy, located in Jerusalem and headed by the Minister of Education and a Director General who control the Israeli educational system. The Ministry of Education sets national goals, tightly controls inputs and the allocation of budgets, oversees student achievements through national performance evaluation tests, determines the national curriculum, and is responsible for employing teachers and for the construction of new schools (Glasman, 1986). Although Israel is a small country, the educational system is divided geographically into seven districts which supervise and monitor the educational processes conducted by schools to ensure the compatibility of these processes with central policies (Zucker, 1985).

The Israeli educational system faces constant growth. The number of students enrolled in the educational system has multiplied by more than 20 over a period of 63 years, from 108,131 pupils in 1948 to 2,233,000 pupils in 2011. National expenditure on education is about 8.2% of Israel’s GNP, placing Israel among the high-investing countries in public education in comparison with OECD countries (Ministry of Education, 2011).

The 4300 schools (including schools for children with special needs) in the Israeli educational system are divided into three main stages, following the reform implemented in the entire school system in 1968: (a) Elementary school, grades 1 through 6; (b) Intermediate school, grades 7 through 9; and (c) Upper secondary school, grades 10 through 12. Upper secondary schools are run either by local education authorities (LEAs) or by semi-public/private non-profit organizations. However, the academic standards of these schools are controlled through national matriculation examinations conducted by the Ministry of Education.

The official Hebrew State school system consists of two categories: (a) State schools that serve the non-religious sector and (b) religious State schools serving the population that seeks greater emphasis on religion in the curriculum (Gaziel, 1996). Two additional sectors whose schools belong to the official school system are Druze (4% of Israel’s population) (Falah, 2000) and Arab Israelis (19% of Israel’s population) (Ministry of Education, 2011), who regard themselves as part of the Arab world. The educational expression for this perception is manifested in the existence of separate institutions, teachers and curricula to serve this sector. These schools are centrally supervised and controlled by the Director of the Department of Arabic Education and Culture within the Ministry of Education.

A relatively new trend, although rather heterogeneous, consists of schools serving various social groups in Israeli society seeking educational services characterized by a particular educational, ideological and pedagogical emphasis. These groups are served mostly by non-formal and recognized schools supervised by the Ministry of Education. Christian Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews are two additional sectors receiving educational services in exempted schools outside the State school system. This group of schools consists of Arab Mission schools supervised and controlled by various churches and Jewish traditional Talmud Torahs supervised by ultra-Orthodox political parties and the rabbis of the ultra-Orthodox community. This relatively wide range of educational trends may indicate the dialectical tension that exists between the egalitarian perspective that traditionally dominated Israeli education leading to the foundation of State schools, and the particularistic perspective, which is evident in the demand for religious education, privatization and parental choice (Nir and Inbar, 2003).

Elementary school teachers are the employees of the Ministry of Education and are civil servants. They receive their tenure based on the recommendations of school principals and superintendents at the district level responsible for teachers’ placement in schools. In recent years, the Israeli Ministry of Education has invested significant efforts to promote teachers’ satisfaction and commitment. This led to a new reform called the ‘New Horizon’, which was introduced in collaboration with the Elementary Teachers’ Union, offering teachers increased pay as means to promote their job satisfaction. Although this reform was introduced comprehensively, so far, there is no empirical evidence that testifies to its implications. Moreover, since it was introduced in all the elementary schools, there is no reason to assume that its effects will significantly vary among schools and teachers.

Methods

Sample

The teachers’ sample was chosen from the Israeli Ministry of Education teacher database. It consisted of 841 randomly sampled teachers employed in 118 elementary schools. Of these, 96% were women; the mean age of the teachers was 42.5 years (sd=8.2); the average number of years of teaching in the current school was 11 years (sd=7.5), and the average number of years as teachers was 17.8 (sd=8.8). With regard to educational background, 34% of the respondents were accredited senior teachers, 43% had a Bachelor’s degree, 13% had a Master’s degree and 10% had the equivalent of a junior college diploma with teaching credentials.

The current study is based on the responses of Jewish educators working in elementary State and religious State schools. Arab schools were excluded from the sample due to the fact that teacher placement procedures in this sector are different from the ones applied in the Jewish sector. Specifically, these procedures are affected in some cases by local considerations that are idiosyncratic to this group, putting greater emphasis on political and personal considerations than on pedagogical and professional ones (Al-Haj, 1996; Vorgan, 2007).

Data collection and analysis

With the permission of the central office of the Israel Ministry of Education and the principal of each sampled school, research assistants administered the surveys within a single academic year in 118 Jewish elementary schools located in all seven educational districts in Israel. They represent the two main trends of education: the State-supported secular schools that are attended by the majority of the students and the State-supported religious schools, which emphasize Jewish studies, tradition and observance. In the Israeli system, schools’ socio-economic status (SES) is represented on a 10-level scale, where ‘1’ indicates a high SES environment. Schools in the current sample represented the entire range of SES in the Israeli system. The research assistants contacted each school principal and coordinated the date and time for the distribution of the questionnaire. The questionnaires were handed out during teachers’ meetings and were collected immediately thereafter. Teachers who were absent at that time received the questionnaire from the research assistant at a later date in order to reach all the potential respondents in the targeted sample. Teachers were informed that the completion of the questionnaire is voluntary, and that they are free to discontinue its completion at any time. The questionnaire did not include any sensitive or offensive statements. The response rate was 78%.

Research instrument

A quantitative questionnaire using 7-point Likert scales (from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree) was employed. The respondents were asked to refer to their current school, and to answer a range of questions about their teaching role and school. The scales referred to a list of organizational and job-related characteristics.

Organizational commitment was measured using Mowday et al.’s (1979) Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) scale after adjusting it to suit the educational setting context. This scale consists of 15 items and refers to the strength of the individual’s identification with and involvement in a particular organization. The reliability level of alpha was .87. Example item: “I talk about this school to my friends as a great school to work for”.

Teachers’ professional commitment was measured by a three-item scale developed by Riehl and Sipple (1996). Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was .54. Example item: “Sometimes I feel it is a waste of time to try and do my best as a teacher” (reversed score).

Perceived fit between job demands and job holder’s ability was measured by a five-item scale developed by Xie and Johns (1995). Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was .74. Example item: “I feel competent and fully able to handle my job”.

Principal–teachers’ relationship was examined in the current study by referring to the quality of interaction between the principal and the teachers and by principal’s support of teachers’ work.

Quality of interaction between the principal and the teachers was based on Bhal and Ansari’s measurement of quality of interaction between leaders and members (1996). In the current study, we used the five-item scale. Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was .94. Example item: “How much do you discuss your personal matters with your principal?”

Principal’s support was measured by an eight-item subset developed by Riehl and Sipple (1996). Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was .83. Example item: “Teachers are recognized for good work”.

Certainty in the job was measured by a five-item scale developed by Jenkins et al. (1975). Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was .88. Example item: “The job requires the individual to be prepared to handle surprising and unpredictable situations”.

Intrinsic job satisfaction was measured by Bhal and Ansari’s scale (1996). Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was .85. Example item: “I feel a worthwhile accomplishment when doing my job”.

Extrinsic job satisfaction was measured by Bhal and Ansari’s scale (1996). Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was .67. Example item: “The amount of job security I have”.

Role overload was measured by three-item scale developed by Beehr et al. (1976). Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was .56. Example item: “I am given enough time to do what is expected of me on my job” (reversed score).

Job tension was measured by Kahn et al.’s six-item scale (1964). The Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was .64. Example item: “I feel that I have too heavy load that I can’t possibly finish during an ordinary workday”.

Two scholars translated the questionnaire independently, after which 25 graduate students filled it out. The students were also instructed to point out items that were unclear or confusing. After incorporating the changes, the questionnaire was redistributed to two additional independent groups (each had over 40 students). Based on the responses of the 80 students, we calculated the internal reliability of the items comprising each variable and found that all Cronbach’s alpha values were above .85. The questionnaire was then distributed to the teachers in the sampled schools.

Results

The teachers reported a high level of both organizational and professional commitment (M = 5.58, SD = 1.23; M = 5.14, SD = 1.51, respectively), and of internal and external satisfaction (M = 5.43, SD = .98; M = 6.18, SD = .68, respectively). Means, standard deviations and intercorrelations for the research variables are shown in Table 1.

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations matrix for research variables (N = 841).

Variable	M	SD	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1. Organizational commitment	5.58	1.23	.26	.42	.28	.40	.51	.46	–.19	–.13	.31
2. Professional commitment	5.14	1.51		.45	.26	.44	.30	.23	–.53	–.45	.22
3. Intrinsic satisfaction	5.43	.98			.39	.58	.58	.60	–.30	–.19	.31
4. Extrinsic satisfaction	6.18	.68				.46	.39	.34	–.33	–.12	.27
5. Perceived fit between job demands and ability	6.02	.73					.51	.43	–.34	–.21	.33
6. Principal support	6.03	.96						.76	–.26	–.19	.35
7. Principal–teacher quality interaction	5.56	1.13							–.20	–.13	.29
8. Job tension	3.28	1.06								.61	–.17
9. Role overload	4.44	1.39									–.10
10. Certainty in the job	5.00	1.04

Notes: All variables range from 1 to 7; All correlations are statistically significant, p < .001.

The Pearson correlation matrix revealed that all scales were significantly (p < .001) correlated with OC (ranging from -.19, attributed to job tension, to .51, ascribed to principal’s support); PC (ranging from -.53 attributed to job tension, to .44 attributed to perceived fit between job demands and ability); intrinsic satisfaction (ranging from -.30 to job tension, to .60 ascribed to principal–teacher quality interaction), and extrinsic satisfaction (ranging from -.33 to job tension, to .46 to perceived fit between job demands and ability). Thus, the more the teachers perceive job tension, the less they felt committed to the school, to the teaching profession, and the less they felt intrinsically and extrinsically satisfied with their job. On the other hand, the highest correlations were ascribed to the organizational attribute of teachers’ fitting to the job demands, a characteristic that has been scrutinized in the organization literature for many years (e.g. French and Kahn, 1962), and to principal–teacher interactions (quality and support) that the wide range of leadership literature supports (e.g. Bogler, 2001; Chi and Pan, 2012).

Multiple regression analyses were employed to identify the common antecedents of the organizational outcomes: teachers’ OC, PC, intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction. The first multiple regression analysis (Table 2) revealed that four variables—principal’s support, perceived fit between job demands and job holder’s ability, quality of interaction between the principal and the teachers, and certainty in the job—were statistically significant predictors of OC, explaining 29% of its variance. Perceived fit was found to be the main predictor of commitment to the school.

Table 2.

Multiple regression analysis for teachers’ organizational commitment (N = 676).

Variable	R ²(Adjusted)	Coeff.	Std. Error	Beta	t-value
Perceived fit between job demands and job holder’s ability	.165	.283	.069	.165	4.098**
Principal's support	.272	.342	.071	.253	4.850**
Principal–teacher quality interaction	.282	.166	.054	.148	3.044*
Job tension	.281	−.021	.051	−.018	−.425
Role overload	.280	.014	.039	.015	.362
Certainty in the job	.293	.147	.041	.126	3.600**

Notes: *p < .01; **p < .001; R ² = .29; F(6,670) = 47.59**

The second regression analysis (see Table 3) revealed three variables that predicted teachers’ PC: perceived fit between job demands and one’s ability, job tension and role overload, explaining 40% of the variance. Again, perceived fit was found to explain most variance of commitment to the teaching profession.

Table 3.

Multiple regression analysis for teachers’ professional commitment (N = 447).

Variable	R ²(Adjusted)	Coeff.	Std. Error	Beta	t-value
Perceived fit between job demands and job holder’s ability	.222	.603	.093	.294	6.493**
Principal's support	.224	.022	.106	−.013	−.208
Principal–teacher quality interaction	.222	.043	.075	.032	.573
Job tension	.375	−.433	.070	−.304	−6.163**
Role overload	.392	−.203	.053	−.183	−3.826**
Certainty in the job	.395	.092	.051	.071	1.804

Notes: *p < .01; **p < .001; R ² = .40; F(6,441) = 49.72**

The third regression analysis (see Table 4) revealed four predictors of teachers’ intrinsic satisfaction: principal–teacher quality interaction, perceived fit between job demands and one’s ability, principal’s support and job tension, explaining 49% of the variance, where perceived fit played a critical role in explaining intrinsic satisfaction.

Table 4.

Multiple regression analysis for teachers’ intrinsic satisfaction (N = 675).

Variable	R ²(Adjusted)	Coeff.	Std. Error	Beta	t-value
Perceived fit between job demands and job holder’s ability	.336	.443	.045	.337	9.812**
Principal's support	.427	.091	.046	.089	2.002*
Principal–teacher quality interaction	.480	.294	.035	.348	8.357**
Job tension	.485	−.076	.033	−.084	−2.313*
Role overload	.485	.006	.025	.008	.238
Certainty in the job	.486	.045	.027	.051	1.692

Notes: *p < .05; **p < .001; R ² = .49; F(6,669) = 107.36**

The fourth regression analysis (see Table 5) revealed five predictors of teachers’ extrinsic satisfaction: perceived fit between job demands and job holder’s ability, job tension, principal’s support, work overload and certainty in the job, explaining 30% of the variance, where perceived fit explained 22% of the variance, thus exhibiting its critical impact on extrinsic satisfaction.

Table 5.

Multiple regression analysis for teachers’ extrinsic satisfaction (N = 682).

Variable	R ²(Adjusted)	Coeff.	Std. Error	Beta	t-value
Perceived fit between job demands and job holder’s ability	.224	.268	.037	.285	7.186**
Principal's support	.258	.143	.038	.194	3.762**
Principal–teacher quality interaction	.257	−.003	.029	−.004	−.090
Job tension	.289	−.177	.027	−.272	−6.459**
Role overload	.300	.070	.021	.135	3.336**
Certainty in the job	.304	.051	.022	.080	2.303*

Notes: *p < .05; **p < .001; R ² = .30; F (6,676) = 50.70**

As shown in the above regressions, the single variable that predicted both types of commitment and both types of satisfaction was teachers’ perceptions of the fit between one’s job demands and abilities—“a subjective indicator of person–environment fit” (Xie and Johns, 1995: 1292). Two other predictors, principal–teacher interaction and job tension, appeared in three of the four regression analyses, where their impact was only subsequent to that of the fit. The results underscore the importance of one’s fit to the job as a leading factor in affecting school effectiveness through the organizational qualities of commitment and job satisfaction.

Following these results, we conclude that the hypotheses were mostly confirmed. For the most part, the organizational-related factors appeared to be more influential in their impact on teachers’ commitment and job satisfaction than the job-related variables. In addition, job tension negatively affected the organizational outcomes, whereas role overload had a negative impact on PC but (low) positive effect on extrinsic satisfaction.

Discussion and educational importance of the study

The present study aimed at examining the factors explaining teacher commitment (Hypothesis 1) and job satisfaction (Hypothesis 2) by looking at the organizational qualities that lead to the improvement of organizational effectiveness. By doing so, we recognized the vital role of the organizational characteristic—perceived fit between job demands and one’s abilities at work—that seemed to affect both teacher commitment and satisfaction more than principal–teacher relationships or job attributes. Thus, the first hypothesis was confirmed, while the second hypothesis was only partially supported since principal’s support was not found to predict PC. With regard to the third hypothesis, which stated that among the job-related factors, job tension and role overload would negatively affect teachers’ commitment and job satisfaction, the data analysis showed that job tension had a negative impact on teachers’ commitment and intrinsic satisfaction. The fourth hypothesis, where we predicted that teachers’ certainty in the job will positively affect teachers’ commitment and job satisfaction, was fully supported.

One’s perceived fit to the job has been scrutinized in non-educational settings for many years (e.g. Cable and DeRue, 2002; Kristof-Brown et al., 2005), and was found to affect organizational outcomes, including occupational commitment (Chi and Pan, 2012). In the current study, perceived fit to the job was correlated to OC (r = .40) and to intrinsic satisfaction (r = .58). These findings provide support to previous research (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005: 299) which found very similar results (.47 and .56, respectively). The finding, that perceived fit predicted both types of teachers’ commitment and both types of job satisfaction, reinforces the importance of the assumption about the significance of best practice in recruitment and placement processes, which has long been known to be significant in determining professional conduct (French and Kahn, 1962; Greguras and Diefendorff, 2009). The importance of fit has been known not only to employers, but also to employees who seek to find similarities between their perceived values and those of the recruiting organizations (Cable and Judge, 1996).

Yet, when carefully observing the different sets of variables comprising each of the regression equations, it is evident that different predictors construct the two types of commitment studied, which is not the case with job satisfaction (intrinsic and extrinsic), where there are more commonalities between the two sets of antecedents. Referring to commitment, it appears that after taking into account one’s perceived fit between job demands and abilities, commitment to the profession is mostly influenced and explained by job-related aspects. More specifically, commitment to the profession is predicted by relaxed and tolerant professional circumstances, enabling individuals to control the rhythm of occurrences on the job. When operating under such professional circumstances, individuals will be more convinced that they have chosen the right profession and, therefore, will report a higher degree of PC. It is interesting to note that the principal–teacher relationship, measured by the principal’s support and quality of interaction, was found to affect both types of job satisfaction and OC, but not PC. This finding is not surprising, as PC expresses the rewarding feeling coming from the profession rather than from the outer circumstances controlled by others, inside or outside the organization (Deci and Ryan, 1985).

Organizational commitment, on the other hand, seems to be mostly influenced by the interaction that the individuals experience with their principal on the job. Though teachers’ perceived fit between the job demands and their ability affects their identification with the school, it is also evident that the interactions that the teachers maintain with their school principal and their perceived principal’s support are central components in explaining their OC. These findings are in line with the transformational leadership research that demonstrates a positive effect of the school leader on the teachers through the leader’s personal consideration behavior (Bogler, 2001). The principal–teacher interaction is perceived as based on dialogue and mutual respect, promoting teachers’ commitment to the school.

Teachers’ feeling of certainty in the job is another aspect that creates essential conditions for OC. Only after gaining professional certainty (Munthe, 2003) can the teachers feel free to devote more quality time and resources for the sake of the school. The data analyses showed that both job tension and role overload were not significant in their impact on OC. These findings support previous studies. For example, Michael et al. (2009) examined the impact of job tension, an aspect of role ambiguity, on OC using the three types of OC (affective, continuance and normative). Their data analyses revealed no significant relationship between job tension and any of the three types of commitment. One explanation of these findings was suggested by Bergmann et al. (2011), who asserted that the results may be related to the fact that as a job characteristic, job tension is expected to affect one’s PC to teaching rather than one’s acceptance of the organizational goals and values, i.e. OC.

As was indicated above, teacher satisfaction is perceived as a critical dimension in improving school performance because of its significant impact on school effectiveness and outcomes. In examining teacher job satisfaction (both intrinsic and extrinsic), perceived fit between job demands and one’s abilities was found to play a vital role. Teachers are more satisfied with the profession and the school once their placement at work is perceived as the right and suitable decision. As noted by Mitchell et al. (2001), the better an employee fits with the job demands (regarding knowledge, skills and abilities), the greater the odds that s/he would feel attached to the organization, professionally and personally. Employees with high fit are expected to perform at high levels because they can anticipate the behaviors of their co-workers, arrive at consensus about which behaviors are important, develop beneficial working relationships, and communicate with one another more effectively (Adkins et al., 1996).

Teachers’ satisfaction in the job affects their willingness to invest in improving the students’ success, academically and socially (Lee and Bryk, 1989). In the current study, the principal’s support affected teachers’ extrinsic satisfaction but not their intrinsic satisfaction, while the principal’s interaction with the teachers did affect teachers’ intrinsic satisfaction, implying that the principal–teacher relationship is vital to teachers’ intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction. It is interesting to note that all the job-related characteristics, job tension, role overload and certainty in the job, predicted teachers’ extrinsic satisfaction, thus implying that the less stress and work overload the teachers feel at work, and the more they are certain in their jobs, the more they will tend to be extrinsically satisfied in their job.

Moving from the theoretical to the practical implications, one major implication coming from our findings concerns the significance of teachers’ recruitment and placement processes in the organization. Evidently, principals and other policy-making staff have to take into account teachers’ aspirations and intentions, and not only teachers’ professional qualifications, when they consider the teachers’ placement in schools. The person–organization fit is a basic need for both the individual teacher and the school. This process is required and crucial for the sake of professional matters and for the best interests of the students and the school. Recruiting teachers and placing them according to other, non-professional criteria, may bring about the adverse reality of teachers’ turnover and leaving.

Referring to the Israeli context, the expectation to place teachers after examining the fit between their abilities and the job demands is not that apparent because of the centralized characteristic of the educational system, where school principals have no degrees of freedom in recruiting teachers (Nir and Inbar, 2003). Principals operate according to the Ministry of Education policies, which reinforce processes of bureaucratization and administrative procedures rather than professional considerations. Thus, principals may face difficulties in recruiting and socializing new teachers who were not chosen according to professional but rather administrative criteria. In addition, in systems where tenure is granted, the principals have limited autonomy to affect the placement of individual teachers after they were granted tenure—another bureaucratic obstacle that may impede their professional conduct within centralized systems. Future research should examine the views of principals on this subject. More specifically, we suggest conducting a comparative study between educational systems that allow the principals the autonomy to recruit and place teachers according to their understanding, and those that do not provide such autonomy. One would expect to discover differences in the principals’ views, stemming from the fact that principals in the first group are likely to be more inclined to recruit teachers based on their professional considerations and their school’s actual needs rather than comply with administrative top-down impositions. Moreover, studying principals’ views will attend to the need to collect data from several sources rather than rely on one single source, which was the case in the current research. The present analysis relied on a single-administration, self-report survey, where both the predictor and the criterion variables were obtained from the same respondent (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Yet, teachers’ commitment, job satisfaction, perceived fit between job demands and abilities and the job-related factors are in the eyes of the same beholders, thus, it might be difficult to obtain independent sources for both the predictors and the criteria. Conway and Lance (2010) dealt with the common method bias. They argue that there are some misconceptions regarding common method bias in organizational research, including individuals’ self-reports of job satisfaction and work behaviors. According to them, self-reports correspond well to job satisfaction and to other criteria. Hence, when examining people’s perceptions, it is expected that the data will be collected via self-reports.

The findings suggest that policy-makers may have a significant role in promoting high commitment to the profession among teachers even in centralized systems, such as the Israeli one. Based on the findings obtained, it is crucial that policy-makers define their expectations in a way that sets substantial challenges for the school-level educators and, at the same time, will make sure that these expectations are realistic so that they will not create superfluous tension and stress for teachers. These circumstances will increase the chances that teachers will develop a high level of PC and eventually will decrease their tendency to leave the profession.

As far as teachers’ commitment to school is concerned, the findings show that school principals play a major role in developing a work climate likely to foster this type of commitment. The current study supports previous research findings which revealed that a principal’s support affects teachers’ commitment (Nir, 2002a), and this is exhibited both directly and indirectly (through peer support) (Singh and Billingsley, 1998).

The present study carries an important message for school principals: in an era of continued budget cuts, principals need to be aware and appreciate the importance of the factors that mostly affect organizational qualities which improve organizational effectiveness. Where should school principals invest the limited resources for the sake of improving school performance? The answer lies in the organizational characteristic of fit between job demands and abilities, where there is a constant striving for the optimal placement process that will benefit both the individual teacher and the school’s stakeholders—students, parents—and the environment within which it operates.

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