Chapter 2: Relevant Literature
2.10 External Societal Changes and its Impact on Schools
Positive consequences: Organizations composed of highly committed members are more likely to be effective, which is as a result of the lower levels of turnover, absenteeism, and tardiness where there are increased efforts from members in pursuit of the organization’s goals (Angle & Perry, 1981). Organizations composed of highly committed members may be more attractive to individuals from outside the organization. Employees of these organizations describe it in positive terms leading to a greater ability of the organization to attract non-organization members of high- quality employees (Mowday et al., 1982).
Negative consequences: Organizations composed of highly committed members may suffer from lower innovation, creativity, and adaptation as these highly committed members are less likely to question policies and recognize strategic opportunities that involved leaving past practices (Mowday et al., 1982).
2.10.1 Socio-Normative Changes
Socio-normative changes are concerned with correct or acceptable behaviors in schools. It has its impact on the work environment through the pre-entry beliefs, thoughts and ideas that teachers have before joining the school from their socialization process, and through the post-entry beliefs that other workers bring to the organization;
this is in addition to an individual’s general knowledge of what is happening in society, based on the media, communications, and travel. These socio-normative changes have effects on the nature of work ethic, aspiration levels, trust and attitudes toward the organization and its work (Mowday et al., 1982).
In every education system that undergoes reform, such as ADEK, it is expected that school environments require significant effort to create positive socio-normative changes to address both the pre-entry beliefs and the post-entry beliefs that teachers may have. Therefore, commitment of teachers’ levels in ADEK government schools may be altered equivalently.
2.10.2 Demographic Changes
Mowday et al. (1982) studied demographic changes and related them to the changes in the composition of the labor force and characteristics that were expected to have diverse impacts and outcomes. These changes include the level of education of the labor force, their average age, the percentage of females and minorities, especially at the management level (Mowday et al., 1982). In the case of schools in the ADEK education system, demographic changes, for example, have led to the creation of heterogeneous groups of teachers, with females in proportionately larger numbers,
compared to males who are diminishing in numbers in teaching roles, especially UAE nationals.
The diverse labor force, according to Mowday et al. (1982), has different aspirations or expectations from their jobs. They may request other types of incentives or different work supervision types. With the diversity of this heterogeneous group of teachers, schools and education system, there is a need to respond to them differently, and not as a single group (Mowday et al., 1982).
2.10.3 Economic Changes
The general economic environment in the country may have different effects on employees and their motivation to maintain their membership to their current organizations, or to look for other more attractive opportunities in other organizations (Mowday et al., 1982). When applying this to teachers as employees, low salaries compared to other occupations in UAE impact upon their socioeconomic status and may lower their commitment to teaching jobs. Low retirement salaries, where teachers are paid less than 50% of their actual paid salaries in accordance with the UAE federal law number 7 of 1999 on pensions and social security (United Arab Emirates General Pension and Social Security Authority, 1999); suggest a prolonged working career for some teachers that may show some attitudes or behaviors of absenteeism and tardiness, but still keeps them attached to their teaching jobs. Some families have only a one family member who is employed, and they are therefore dependent on them; this might explain some teachers’ willingness to join and stay at their school, where they perform at an exceptionally high level and with high commitment level (Mowday et al., 1982).
The economic status of the country may affect how a teachers’ leisure time spent, in comparison to the time they spend teaching, which occupies a relatively
greater portion of their total daily lives, especially with ADEK’s new reform requirements and constant changes. Similarly, although it is not strictly an economic effect, job transfers may not be resisted by teachers where their experiences, skills, and education levels are valued in jobs elsewhere when they look for alternative employment. These factors may lower commitment of teachers to their teaching jobs.
2.10.4 Technological Changes
Changes in technology may result in an abundance of information being more widely available than before, as well as the transfer and communication of the information that is exchanged, which becomes more advanced. It has been suggested that by using technology, employees can learn about other organizations more efficiently and can identify more attractive alternative job opportunities (Mowday et al., 1982).
On the other hand, organizations may retain their most valuable employees as a direct consequence of information transferred by technology. Furthermore, organizations will have more specializations and expertise from other countries and assuming greater input from new employees (Mowday et al., 1982). The increase in technical knowledge in organizations is associated, as stated by Mowday et al. (1982), with a shift in focus from employee to a focus on the profession (i.e., in sociological terms, it is a shift from a local to a diverse international orientation) (Mowday et al., 1982).