Session Information
32 SES 09, Organizational Culture and Organizational Learning. Studies on Companies and Schools
Paper Session
Contribution
In teacher performance, evaluation accountability is a prominent component. Accountability is influenced by cultural factors, and understanding the cultural source of accountability may advance school leaders' fairness in evaluating teachers. The present paper therefore focused on two cultural values - individualism and collectivism - as predictors of teacher accountability, as well as on the degree school support enhanced these predictive relations.
Teacher accountability refers to relations between teachers and diverse “audiences,” where teachers report on the process and outcomes of their work, while the respective audiences offer feedback in the form of work assessment, rewards or sanctions (Frink & Ferris, 1998). While external accountability applies to audiences such as principals and parents, internal accountability relates to teachers' inner values, molded by professional and ethical codes (Firestone & Shipps, 2005).
In contrast to responsibility, accountability is a social construct as it consists of an interaction between two parties: the employee (teacher) and some audience. Accountability as a dispositional trait, then, only exists within a social arena. Because individuals are enculturated through socialization in their particular sociocultural context, the nature of accountability is culture-specific, therefore might be understood from cultural characteristics (Gelfand, Lim & Raver, 2004). In an overview of culture in organizational behavior, Gelfand, Erez and Aycan (2007) showed that cultural values affected a wide range of employee attitudes and behaviors, including motivation, citizenship behavior, organizational commitment, etc. The studies reviewed by these authors imply that the perception of accountability may be contingent on cultural values and practices. A cultural perspective of the accountability interaction will highlight the unique nuances of this phenomenon in different social environments, where different norms, values and behavioral codes prevail. In particular, individualism and collectivism (Ralston et al., 2014), characterizing individuals' cultural make-up (Erez & Earley, 1993), have often been found to explain attitudinal and behavioral differences among social groups and individuals (Singelis, Triandis, Bhawuk & Gelfand, 1995).
Individualism. Individualism implies that individuals are autonomous, independent and achievement-oriented (Triandis, 1995). For individualist teachers, being accountable to superiors and other school stakeholders will be consistent with their motivation to be competitive and to achieve personal goals through pleasing relevant stakeholders in their environment. Hence our first hypothesis (H1): Teacher Individualism will be positively related to teacher accountability disposition.
Collectivism. In collectivist societies, the individual is defined in terms of interdependence and relationship with a group. Collectivist individuals see themselves as part of an encompassing social relationship, and their behavior, thoughts and feelings are determined by the group norms (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Their personal goals and attitudes may be consistent with those of the group, but if not, the group norms will prevail. In education, collectivist teachers will see themselves more as part of the teacher body than as independent individuals. Accountability will then be perceived in terms of team's formal goals. Collectivist teachers will tend to be accountable based on their motivation to conform to norms of relevant work teams. Hence our second hypothesis (H2): Teacher collectivism will be positively related to teacher dispositional accountability.
We expect school support to moderate the relation between both cultural values – individualism and collectivism – to accountability disposition. School support, (Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison & Sowa, 1986) is a powerful explicator of teachers' behavior and performance. School support may particularly enhance the tendency of collectivist teachers to show accountability because for these teachers organizational support is consistent with community orientation, typical of collectivists. Hence our third hypothesis (H3): School support will moderate the relations stated in H1 and H2. When school support is high, the relation between individualism/collectivism and dispositional accountability will be greater than when school support is low.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
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