A Systematic Review of Empirical Evidence on Teachers’ Organizational Commitment 1994–2018

ABSTRACT

This article aims to integrate over two decades of empirical research findings on teachers’ organizational commitment (OC) to explore its antecedents and outcomes. Via a criteria-based approach, 68 peer-reviewed quantitative empirical articles published between 1994 and 2018 were identified and included for analysis. A systematic review revealed three core themes: demographic, within-person, and role-related predictors of teachers OC; interpersonal and contextual predictors of teachers’ OC; and outcomes of teachers OC. Our review detected major “blind spots” related to antecedents, mediators, and moderators, and outcomes. Recommendations are provided to help advance knowledge on teachers’ OC in upcoming decades.

Acknowledgment

We thank Avishay Zilka for his valuable assistance in the early stage of the research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Notes

1. Jesson et al. (2011) define systemic review as “a review with a clear stated purpose, a question, a defined search approach, stating inclusion and exclusion criteria producing a qualitative appraisal of articles” (p. 12). According to Armstrong et al. (2011, p. 147) systemic review involves transparent and orderly procedures used with the purpose “to define a research question, search for studies, assess their quality and synthesize findings qualitatively or quantitatively.”

2. Only SJR ranked peer-reviewed journals were used in the study.

3. See Berkovich, (2018).

4. See Luthans et al. (2015).

5. “Participative work model” refers to participation in a spectrum of out-of-classroom activities such as curriculum and administrative team activities, participation in school in disciplinary policies, and senior management team activities.

6. Organizational climate is defined as “the meanings people attach to interrelated bundles of experiences they have at work”; organizational culture refers to the basic assumptions about the world and the values that guide life in organizations” (Schneider et al., 2013, p. 361). The distinction between the two is not always clear. Some have suggested that organizational climate is a subset of the broader construct of organizational culture (Schoen & Teddlie, 2008).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Open University of Israel.