DOES THE MARKET OR CLAN CONTROL CONFIGURATION BEST MOTIVATE TEACHERS TO DEMONSTRATE ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOR?

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine teacher motivating factors in urban settings that influence their ability to go above and beyond the normal call or duty without concern for reward or merit. The research defines these motivational factors within the context of the current school governance policy debate. One side of the debate argues that teachers are motivated to demonstrate behaviors beyond their contractual agreement through monetary rewards, where teachers are paid incentives for performing noncompulsory tasks. This practice is currently manifested in pay-for-performance practices. The counter governing argument believes teachers are motivated through normative control where teachers collaborate together to develop common goals and norms. These districts utilize professional learning communities as their normative model. These two governing practices are framed theoretically by the control theories of market and clan control, respectively. This study is significant because it closes the research gap between the debate of school governing practices and their effects on teacher altruistic behaviors. Specifically, the research answers the question: Which control configuration best motivates teachers to demonstrate organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)? This study assessed motivating factors through a survey that looked at teacher perception of their colleagues to demonstrate behaviors that extend beyond the normal call of duty. Two districts, one pay-for-performance and one professional learning community district, participated in this small sample study. Teachers in the pay-for-performance district could earn up to ten thousand dollars each in bonus pay. Unlike many other models of pay-for-performance programs, where teachers compete against each other and are rewarded for outperforming their colleagues, this district utilized a federal grant that removed the competition among coworkers. Each teacher could earn the same amount of reward by performing specifically defined tasks that extended beyond their contractual agreement. Conversely, the professional learning community district scheduled regular time each week for teachers to collaborate on student behavior, data, upcoming lessons and objectives, and school goals. Here, teachers were motivated through school norms and collegial accountability to collectively reach the school's desired outcomes. A total of 223 teachers participated in the online survey, answering five-point Likert scale questions on the two constructs within the study, altruistic behaviors, or OCB, and teacher collaboration. Within the survey, participants responded to twenty-two OCB questions that stemmed from previously developed surveys that incorporated the five characteristics that define citizenship - altruism, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, civic virtue, and courtesy. All respondents also answered questions regarding teacher attitudes towards professional learning communities. These fifteen questions stemmed from previously developed surveys on the PLC concept. In essence, the survey assessed teacher motivation to perform the dependent variable of citizenship behavior, or altruistic acts. The findings of this study confirmed its hypothesis. Teachers within the professional learning community district believed that their colleagues manifested altruistic behaviors at .370 units more than the average pay-for-performance teachers assessed the altruistic levels of their colleagues. In simple terms, this basically means that teachers in professional learning communities exhibit more altruistic behaviors than their counterparts in pay-for-performance communities. This concludes that teachers are motivated through normative controls to perform OCB more than merit pay practices within the context of the current governing policy debate.