Abstract:

Organizational commitment (OC) has been defined as a psychological state that connects the worker to the organization, which includes three distinct components:
(a) affective,
(b) continuance, and
(c) normative (Allen & Meyer, 1990).

The research interest in OC is due to the positive relationships between the OC and important variables of performance-related behavior, as employees who feel committed to their organizations have proved to work harder, have higher performance, productivity and work quality, as well as lower absenteeism turnover levels (Dalgic, 2014).

Teachers’ OC has been considered as closely connected to teachers’ work performance and indirectly linked to student achievement, as well as positively associated to school culture and to teachers’ perceptions of the fit between one's job demands and abilities. A recent study (Jo, 2014) has highlighted the relational and emotional dimensions of teacher commitment, by investigating the connections between teachers' relationships and teacher commitment, as well as the mediating role of teacher emotions. The author found a complex connection between favourable teacher -student relationships, positive emotions and teacher commitment, suggesting the need to further study this relationship.

Recently the teacher professional commitment has been linked to teacher responsibility (Lauermann et al, in press), showing that the willingness to assume personal responsibility for educational outcomes provide the foundation for a psychological bond to the teaching profession.

In the framework of the OC, the study of teachers’ personal sense of responsibility may be relevant as people who feel responsible are self-determined and willing to invest effort in work-related tasks, as well as employees who feel strong affective commitment are ready to go for ‘extra mile’.

However there is a lack of studies conducted examining the relationships between teacher personal responsibility for educational outcomes and teacher OC.

Therefore, this study aimed to fill the gap in the research of teacher organizational commitment and how it is linked to teacher responsibility, including the influencing factors of relationships and emotions.

For this purpose, a questionnaire was administered to a sample of 120 primary school in- service teachers (women 100% ; mean age: 46.95; SD: 9.11). The instrument included the Organizational Commitment of Teachers (COBE, Jo, 2014; 6 item); Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS, Watson, Clark & Tellegen, 1988; 20 item), the Teacher Responsibility Scale (Lauermann & Karabenick, 2013; 12 item) and 15 items to measure relationships with colleagues (5 items), principal (5 items) and with the local educational authorities (Jo, 2014). Responses were rated on 5 point Likert scale

Multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine the relative contributions of relationships, emotions, and teacher responsibility to the teacher OC.

Preliminary results show that teacher OC is significantly predicted by teacher responsibility for student motivation (RSM) (β = .32, t(90) =2.09, p < .05) , by positive emotions (β = .38, t(90) =3.78, p < .001) and by perceived positive relationships (β = .22, t(90) =2.13, p < .05).

Findings will be discussed according to previous research and practical implications will be considered.