The main mission of today’s school is to train effective citizens who have knowledge, attitudes and skills compatible with information society. This important mission requires highly effective school management. The prime responsibility of the school management should operate school effectively and efficiently. Otherwise as Chester I. Barnard (1982) stated, like other organizations, schools can not survive too.  Barnard argues that the executive must meet two conditions: effectiveness and efficiency. The effectiveness can be considered as the degree to which the common purpose of the organization is achieved. The executive must also be aware of efficiency which is the satisfaction of “individual motives” of employees (Barnard, 1982). His major point is that an organization can operate and survive only when both the organization’s goals and the goals of the individuals working for it are kept in equilibrium. Katz and Kahn (1978) also recognize the linkage between organizational effectiveness and the employee’s acts of cooperation and willingness to go beyond the formal role requirements of the job.

Dennis Organ (1988) characterized this concept of employee behavior as organizational citizensphip behavior (Smith, Organ and Near, 1983). He and several colleagues began to study the concept of employee performance beyond the contractual duties in the private sector and found a link between organizational citizenship behaviors and job performance (Smith, Organ and Near, 1983). A meta analysis has identified significant relationships between organizational citizenship behaviors and job performance (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine & Bachrach, 2000). The definition used fort he purpose of this study defines organizational citizenship behaviors as “the performance that supports the social and psychological environment in wihch task performance takes place”(Organ, 1997, p.95). 

Organizational citizenship behavior is a relatively new concept in educational research. Only a handful of studies have tapped into this contextual constructs as a valuable facilitator of school effectiveness (DiPaola&Hoy, 2004; DiPaola&Tschannen-Moran, 2001; Los Angeles Unified School District, 2001). For this reason, the purpose of this study is to determine the expectations and perceptions of Turkish teachers towards the organizational citizenship behaviors of teachers. In order to achive this purpose tha following research questions have been developed: (1) What are the perceptions of teachers towards the organizational citizenship behaviors of teachers in their schools?, (2) Do this perceptions differ according to selected demographic and profesisional variables?, (3) How do teachers perceive the importance of organizational citizenship behaviors on school effectiveness? and (4) Do the teaacher perceptions towards the importance of organizational citizenship behaviors on school effectiveness differ according to selected demographic variables?

Barnard, C.I. (1982). The Functions of the Executive. London, England: Harvard University Pres. DiPaola, M.F. & Hoy, W.K. (2004). Organizational citizenship of faculty and achievement of high school students. The High School Journal. DiPaola, M.F. & Tschannen-Moran, M. (2001, September). Organizational citizenship behavior in schools and its relationship to school climate. Journal of School Leadership, 11, 424-447. Katz, D. and Kahn, R.L. (1978). The Social Psychology of Organizations. New York: Wiley. Organ, D.W. (1997). Organizational ciitizenship behavior: It’s construct clean-up time. Human Performance 10, 85-97. Podsakoff, P.M., MacKenzie, S.B., Paine, J.B. & Bachrach, D.G. (2000). Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: A Critical Review of the Theoretical and Empirical Literature and Suggestions for Future Research. Journal of Management, 26, 513-563.