Relationships Between Kindergarten Teachers’ Empowerment, Job Satisfaction, and Organizational Climate: A Chinese Model

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the relationships between perceived teacher empowerment, job satisfaction, and organizational climate among 206 randomly sampled kindergarten teachers in Shanghai, China. Chinese versions of the School Participant Empowerment Scale, the Teacher Work Satisfaction Survey, and the Organizational Climate Scale were validated and administered. Statistically significant relationships were found between teacher empowerment, job satisfaction, and organizational climate. The results of structural equation modeling indicated that (1) teacher empowerment and job satisfaction predicted organizational climate, (2) teacher empowerment predicted teacher job satisfaction, and (3) job satisfaction partially mediated the association between teacher empowerment and organizational climate. The results obtained in this Chinese setting were inconsistent with the findings of most Western studies. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Job satisfaction
• organizational climate
• teacher empowerment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Six- and five-factor models were rejected for three main reasons: (1) insufficient internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .55), (2) very few items for individual factors (only one item loaded onto the sixth factor), and (3) low item loading on the last factor (all item loadings lower than 0.5 for the fifth factor).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, China [15YJA880028]; UNICEF [A Study on the Evaluation of Kindergarten Teacher].