Session Information
26 SES 04.5 PS, General Poster Session
General Poster Session
Contribution
The aim of the author’s dissertation is to explore and examine the relationship between prosociality and educational leadership in international contexts. Prosociality, in which people are often motivated to engage in actions intended to benefit others, is well-known to influence the benefit of the others (Brief & Motowidlo, 1986; Grant, 2007, 2008; Grant & Sonnentag, 2010). Being prosocial plays an important part in approaching effective leadership in organizations and have attracted growing attention (Grant, 2008; Grant & Berg, 2011). Although such prosocial elements, for example servant leadership and organizational citizenship behavior, have been discussed in educational leadership contexts (e.g., Oplatka, 2006; Stewart, 2012), firstly the elements have not been systematically arranged, secondly there has been little discussion about prosociality itself, and thirdly there needs to probe how prosociality relates leadership in education. This report is about the study I: a systematic narrative review of prosocial elements in educational leadership contexts.
According to a study by Bolino and Grant (2016) about being prosocial in organizational contexts, the studies about prosociality have explored under three themes: prosocial motivation (the desire to benefit others or expand effort from concern for others), prosocial behaviors (acts that promote or protect the welfare of individuals, groups, or organizations), and prosocial impact (the experience of making a positive difference in the lives of others through one’s work).
Likewise in educational leadership contexts, some elements concerning being prosocial have been explored despite not being explicitly labelled as prosocial. Regarding prosocial motivation, for example, caring, servant leadership, and empathy seem to be related to prosocial motivation. Caring is characterized by motivational displacement or desire to help others (Noddings, 2006). The aim of servant leadership is to help others utilize their talents, skills, and knowledge effectively and reach their potential (Stewart, 2012). Empathy refers to an awareness of others’ feelings, needs and concerns (Aas & Vavik, 2015) and is related to one’s ability to appreciate reality or circumstances from another’s perspective (Stewart, 2012).
Organizational citizenship behavior, servant leadership, and mentoring are also likely to be considered as prosocial behavior. As Bolino and Grant (2016) mentioned, some of organizational citizenship behaviors have more fundamentally prosocial flavor than others. For instance, “helping” is essentially more prosocial than “compliance” that may or may not directly benefit others (Bolino & Grant, 2016). In addition to the motivational aspects, servant leadership has also been discussed in terms of leadership behavior or style (e.g., Cerit, 2009). Servant leaders focus on helping people work and develop, which is prosocial. Mentoring can be identified as prosocial because it has been described as a series of behavior for mentees’ professional development providing a number of supports, challenge, and vision the professional educators need (Boerema, 2011; Crippen & Wallin, 2008; Southworth, 1995).
Regarding prosocial impact, psychological empowerment may involve prosocial impact aspects. The impact aspect of psychological empowerment in educational settings refers to the degree to which teachers feel that their achievements make a difference at school and have influence on what happens at school (Shapira-Lishchinsky & Tsemach, 2014).
Despite the findings of the previous studies concerning being prosocial, they have not been arranged in terms of three prosocial aspects: motivation; behavior; and impact. In order to arrange the results of the previous studies and find the research gap, the first study of the dissertation conducts a systematic narrative review that enables to provide overview of previous studies (Collins & Fauser, 2005). The following studies will conduct a qualitative research by interview in Finland and a quantitative research in Japan in order to explore the relationship concerning being prosocial and fill the research gap found in the first study.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
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