Organizational support as a predictor of accountability disposition

Perceived organizational support, as conceptualized by Eisenberger et al. (1986), is one of the most influential predictors of employees' work attitudes and behavior. Organizational support has a unique relevance to accountability, given the nature of accountability as an interactive phenomenon, normally between subordinate and supervisor whose support is needed. In addition, the inclusion of organizational support in the present study helped to highlight the contribution of the main study variables - cultural values - to accountability. This was achieved by examining the predictability of the cultural values above and beyond that of organizational support (see the previous discussion on the predictive value of collectivism compared to organizational support) and the contribution of the interaction between the two. For teachers, organizational support referred in the study questionnaire to school support on both individual and school level (hierarchical model), while for principals it was school board support (multivariate regression model).

The expectation that organizational support would be related to accountability was met in the present study in the case of teachers. Results showed that organizational support was significantly related to both teacher external and internal accountability as well as to audience-focused (parents, school management) external accountability on the individual-teacher level, and both when principals' accountability was added to the analytic model or not added (Tables 4.37 and 4.38, respectively). These results are generally in line with past research on accountability and attitudes toward work. Two such studies showed that organizational support was related to felt accountability (Candra-Dewi & Riantoputra, 2019; Wikhamn & Hall, 2014).

Exchange Theory (Blau, 1964) combined with Gouldner's (I960) Reciprocity Theory may explain teacher external accountability to school management as reciprocal behavior, where teachers willingly tend to be accountable in exchange for perceived care and support on the part of the focal audience (school management). These reciprocal relations were not present in the parents' case. Rewards that come from parents are scarcely attached to concrete benefits and promotion, thus are probably less motivating at work and only slightly relevant to school support. This is perhaps the reason no relations were found for teachers between school support and external accountability on school level (which is the professional collective of teachers). It should be noted, though, that the interaction of collectivism and school support on the faculty level did predict external accountability to parents. Possibly, the embracing effect of group collectivism, that may see parents as included in school community, overcame teachers’ non-recognition of parents’ legitimacy, leading to accountability to parents.

With regard to principals, indeed, organizational (board) support correlated significantly with both accountability dimensions (Table 4.39), although regression analysis (Table 4.40) did not find a direct relation of organizational support to either external or internal accountability, not even when external accountability was targeted toward the two specific audiences (Table 4.42). Results also showed a significant negative relation between the interaction of individualism and organizational support to external accountability (p=-0.22, p < .05). In other words, the less principals felt that their personal and professional needs for organizational support were fulfilled, the more their adherence to individualistic values led to increased external accountability, or the more they perceived themselves receiving organizational support, the weaker was the relation between individualism and accountability. Apparently, as described in the section on cultural values, organizational support could compensate for lower accountability due to low individualism scores. However, when external accountability was focused on the two audiences - parents and school management - the higher (not lower) support they experienced from managerial boards, the higher were relations between their collectivist values and accountability. These results raised questions, addressed next, concerning the contrast between the different predictability directions (enhancing or hindering accountability), the different roles of individualism and collectivism in the presence of organizational support in the case of principals' accountability, and the results regarding principals' general accountability compared to their audience-focused accountability.

It is possible that principals who experienced little support from school boards felt that they were left alone to be held individually accountable for school performance. Lack of support may have elicited principals' individualistic aspirations to survive and succeed at work by emphasizing their accountability. When accountability for school failure (as well as success) could not be shared by other administrative position-holders, individualistic (and not collectivistic) values led principals to willingly (and realistically) accept external accountability. However, when the accountability audience was defined by a specific school collective (parents or school management), their collectivist, not individualist, values led to higher external accountability. It is possible that specific audiences raised higher collectivistic levels of commitment among principals because accountability had a clear target. These results may attenuate and calibrate theories arguing that employees in individualistic cultures would tend to be accountable more than those in collectivist cultures (Gelfand et al„ 2004; Velayutham & Perera, 2004). Our results showed that organizational support interacted with individualism (principals) and collectivism (teachers) to affect accountability disposition. Organizational support, then, affected the way cultural values related to accountability.

Country similarities and differences in organizational support

Although the scores on organizational support do not vary widely among countries (Figure 4.9), the MANOVA showed a considerable amount of variance explained by country: 16% for teachers and 40% for principals (Chapter 4, p. 99). These amounts of variance came mainly from one country in each sample having a rather different score from most other countries: in the case of teachers, China was extreme, while for principals it was Spain. The position of Spain was discussed previously and is consistent with the results from the TALIS 2018 study (OECD, 2019). Unfortunately, China did not participate in this TALIS smdy. It seems plausible that the China teachers' experience of low organizational support was comiected to the country's Confucian tradition with a strong emphasis on hierarchy and compliance with obligations and rules. In China, teachers work in their own classrooms with very little communication with their colleagues and feelings of loneliness may result from that (e.g., Rasmussen & Zou, 2014).

Organizational support and background variables

Finally, background-variable analysis showed that organizational support seemed to be stable vis-a-vis gender: no gender differences were found for either teachers or principals. Seniority, though, had different effects for the two study samples: while correlation between organizational support and seniority was positive (though small) for teachers (r=.078, p < .05), it was insignificant for principals. Apparently, as teachers gain more experience at work they report on some increased organizational support, while seniority for principals did not make a difference in their experience of board support. These findings may attest to the strong influence of school support on teachers’ attimdes to work, with little dependence on background factors, an effect that does not exist for principals, whose sense of accountability is less dependent on organizational support to start with.

In sum, organizational support was found in the present study to be a potent job factor that is significantly related to accountability disposition directly and (when interacted with cultural values) indirectly. These results are supported by organizational-behavior literature on the powerful effect of organizational support in employees’ work life. Although the role of organizational support in the present culmre-focused study was mostly methodological (to highlight the effect of culmral values), these results added to our understanding of the important value of organizational support in securing teachers and principals' tendency to be externally and internally accountable. As accountability depends strongly on employee integrity and honesty, perceived organizational support encourages transparent work reports and acceptance of tme feedback from superiors - both essential pillars of accountability.