Analyzing the Relationship between Positive Psychological Capital and Organizational Commitment of the Teachers

In this study it was aimed to determine the relationship between teachers’ positive psychological capital levels and organisational commitment. The study was conducted as a correlational survey which is one of the quantitative methods. The sample group consists of 244 teachers selected by using random sampling method among 1270 teachers working in primary, elementary and high schools in Erzincan city center in 2015-2016 academic year. The data was collected with Positive Psychological Capital Scale and Organisational Commitment Scale. The data was analysed by using correlation and regression analyses. The findings show that there was a significant positive relationship between the teachers’ positive psychological capital levels and organizational commitment in terms of both total scores and sub-dimensions.


Introduction
The fact that human is the most important source to carry out organisational objectives in today.This reality has been directed organisational managements to the new pursuits on human resources.It is a desired and welcomed situation that the human resource in an organisation should be motivated in the direction of the organisational objectives and performed in this direction.Organisational managements apply various methods to increase the performances of the employees.One of these applications can to increase the psychological capital of the employees.
The psychological capital term is stated as the most recently used term within an organisation today (Akdoğan & Polatcı, 2013).Psychological capital is a factor increasing the performance of the employees in the organization.It is also a strong management tool which provides a performance increasing on the employees and contributes the organisational assets (Luthans et al., 2005).
As a sub-system within an education system the function of the school is considered to achieve objectives and respond to the social demands.For this purpose, a set of activities like educational and management activities are conducted.For this purpose the schools need individuals who are motivated to achieve their objectives and who are highly identified with their schools.To reach school objectives, the school employees should have high organizational commitment level (Balay, 2000;Buluç, 2009).The commitment of the employees to the organization and the institution they work would contribute to them to adopt, to embrace and internalize their organizations.Considering in this respect, organizational commitment will ensure that the employees become integrated with the organization, and it will provide that the organization is a livable place for the employees.
The role of the school within social structure is quite important.To reach the formal structure called school to its objectives, the importance of the school managers and the teachers are considerably big.The fact that the school manager and the teachers are bond with the school and their work at heart in school life, they have higher job satisfaction, they communicate effectively with the students, parents and other teachers, that is, the shareholders of the school can be considered to be the basic necessity for a school to achieve its objectives (Erdem, 2010).Based upon these approaches, we can say that the effect of the commitment of the school managers and the teachers on their performance, job satisfaction, organizational climate and success would be undeniable.

Positive Psychological Capital
Among the affecting factors the individuals behaviors in their work life are the characteristics of the individuals and the quality of the work, job environment and job specifications, besides those, emotional life of the employees also takes up a lot of room.Psychological and emotional changes of the employees in work life affect the work life of the employees and their motivation for work.In this sense, the emotional features of the employees and their experiences in the job environment have effects on their work life and their commitment to the organization they work (Özdevecioğlu, 2004).
Psychological capital can be defined as a whole of features which can be improved with experience or education in particularly increasing the performance of the employee in work life and improving organizational performance (Luthans, 2002).In this context, positive psychology and positive organizational behavior will contribute more to the organization on condition that the positive psychological capital levels of the employees in the work life are higher (Erkuş & Fındıklı, 2013).
Positive psychology is that the individuals focus on their strong aspects rather than their problematic aspects.In this direction, positive psychology contributes to the organizations in defining characteristics that make the individuals more positive (Erkmen & Esen, 2012).
It is suggested that the psychological features explain ideally the psychological capital that these features are hope, psychological durability, optimism and self-sufficiency (Luthans, 2002).In the scale developed by Tösten and Özgan (2014), hope, psychological durability, optimism, self-sufficiency, confidence and extroversion features of the scale were dealt with.

Organizational Commitment
The organizational commitment is considered today as one of the most important subjects in providing success.Organizational commitment is an important term for an organization aiming to be effective and productive.Organizational commitment can be considered as the effort of an organization to preserve its presence in the social structure.
The organizational commitment term is defined as the identification and integration level and the feelings of an individual about an organization (Sağlam-Arı, 2003).The psychological commitment of an individual include participation the work, loyalty and beliefs to the organization values (Ölçüm- Çetin, 2004, p. 90).Because, employees with high organizational commitment in an organization conduct their duties in harmony with other employees, with high job satisfaction, more productive, with higher commitment and responsibility (Balcı, 2003).
High commitment level of the teachers to school objectives is one of the most important factors to achieve the school its objectives.The desire keeping at the job, the commitment, working with enthusiasm, job satisfaction, work life quality, motivation, etc. of the teachers increase the school commitment.
One of the most important problems of the education system is that the enthusiasm and commitment of the teachers towards their work get lower and lower.The reason of this situation can be stemmed from the problems in the social, psychological and physiological life and the problems within organizational structure.The lower organizational commitment of teachers can be listed among these reasons.It can be said that the high concordance between the teachers' personal values and organizational values are produced the higher performances by teachers (Özkan, 2008).
In various studies carried out about the organizational commitment of the employees, it was determined that the employees with higher organizational commitment display more performance.
It can be stated that increasing the organizational commitment is related to the factors such as performance, motivation, commitment to the organization, job satisfaction of the employees.Consequently, the psychological and emotional aspects of the employees should be improved, professional development opportunities should be increased, their abilities and personal characteristics should be developed (Uğurlu-Kara, 2014).

Method
As it was aimed in this study to determine the relationships between the positive psychological capital levels and organizational commitment of the teachers, correlational research design was used.Correlational research is defined as "a research model which aims to determine the correlations between two or more variables (Karasar, 2012).

Participants
The study group consists of 244 teachers.The study group was determined by using random sampling method among 1270 teachers working in primary, elementary and high schools in Erzincan city center in 2014-2015 academic year.126 (51.6%) teachers were males, and 118 (48.4%) teachers were females.129 teachers work in primary school, 77 teachers work in primary schools, and 38 teachers work in high schools.205 teachers were married, and 39 teachers were single.48 teachers have 1-5 year job seniority, 65 teachers have 6-10 year, 33 teacher have 16-20 year, and 45 teacher have 21 and more year job seniority.

Data Collection Tools and Data Collection
Positive Psychological Capital Scale and Organizational Commitment Scale were used as the data collection tools.

Organizational Commitment Scale:
Organizational Commitment Scale developed by Balay (2000), and consists of 27 items.The Organizational Commitment Scale has included three sub-dimensions.The sub-dimensions are (1) adaptation, (2) identification, and (3) internalization.Each dimension was considered as a subscale.The reliability co-efficient for adaptation sub-dimension was α = .68,α = .80for identification sub-dimension and α = .90for internationalization sub-dimension.Cronbach Alpha co-efficient of Organizational Commitment cale was determined as α = .77.

Positive Psychological Capital Scale:
Positive Psychological Capital Scale developed by Tösten and Özgan (2014) consist of six dimensions namely; self-sufficiency, optimism, extroversion, psychological durability, and hope.Positive psychological capital scale consists of 26 items.Reliability analsis was conducted by Tösten and Özgan (2014).Cronbach's Alpha values were calculated as .80 for self-sufficiency, .80 for optimism, .83for confidence, .79 for extroversion, .76 for psychological durability, .73 for hope, and respectively sub-dimension as .93.In analyses for this study, the Cronbach's Alpha values were determined as .74for self-sufficiency, .86 for optimism, .69 for confidence, .80 for extroversion, .83for psychological durability, .81 for hope, and respectively as .92.

Data Analysis
Before analyzing, the data was reviewed in terms of missing values, extreme values, normality, multivariate; the forms left one or more scores are blank were not included in the evaluation.244 forms were included in the evaluation.SPSS was used for data analyses.The correlation and regression analysis were conducted.

Findings and Results
In Table 1 the regression analysis on positive psychological capital levels and teachers' organizational commitment is seen.In Table 2, it is seen that positive psychological capital level explains 8% of the total variance of hope dimension (R 2 =.080).According to the standardized regression coefficient (β), it is seen that the importance of predictive variables on the hope sub-dimension is ranked as hope, confidence, extraversion, psychological durability, optimism and self-sufficiency.On analyzing Table 3, it is seen that the sub-dimensions of positive psychological capital altogether explain 20 % of the total variance of identification dimension (R 2 =.20) of organizational commitment.It can be said that optimism, extraversion and psychological durability sub-dimensions are significant predictors of identification sub-dimension of organizational commitment.The order of importance of the predictive variables on the identification sub-dimension of organizational commitment is extraversion, psychological durability, optimism, self-sufficiency, confidence and hope.In Table 4, it is seen that the sub-dimensions of positive psychological capital altogether explain 30% of the total variance of internalization dimension (R 2 =.30).The importance of the predictive variables on the internalization sub-dimension is ranked as the extraversion, psychological durability, optimism, confidence, self-sufficiency, and hope.

Discussions and Conclusion
Human resource has an important place in achieving the organizational goals.The factors such as the employees have high motivation levels, their commitment to their job, the quality of their work life, they are satisfied with the work they do, they have positive psychological and emotional life in the workplace, etc. are considered to be important factors to increase the productivity of the employees and make the organization successful by making it effective.In the schools whose importance and role is highly greater in the social structure, it is expected that the commitment of the teachers are high.Many factors can be referred in terms of increasing the commitment of the teachers to the school.One of these factors is positive psychological capital.
In this study the relationship between the positive psychological capital levels and teachers' organizational commitment were analyzed.The results are discussed below.
There is a significant relationship between the positive psychological capital levels and organizational commitment of the teachers.According to this result, it can be said that the reason why the organizational commitment of the teachers is high is that their positive psychological capital levels are high.This result obtained from the study is parallel with the results of the studies conducted formerly.
In the previous studies conducted by Çetin (2011) and Peng et al. (2013), it was determined that psychological capital affects organizational commitment positively.In another study by Shahnawaz and Jafri (2009), it was stated that psychological capital effect private and public institutions in terms of organizational commitment.In the study conducted by Çoban (2013), it was determined that psychological capital has a complete mediation effect on interactional justice and organizational commitment.
In a study conducted by Genç (2014), it was determined that psychological durability affects organizational commitment in a positive way.Similarly, in a study conducted by Murray et al. (2010), it was determined that there is a positive relationship between psychological capital and organizational commitment.Hodges (2010) determined in his study that psychological capital has a positive effect on the commitment of the employees.In a study conducted by Çetin (2011) positive psychological capital support the organizational commitment in hope and optimism sub-dimensions.Luthans et al. (2008) determined that there is a positive relationship between the psychological capital and organizational commitment.In the study conducted by Simons and Buitendach (2013), it was stated that there is a positive and significant relationship between psychological capital and organizational commitment.Moreover, it was determined that there is a positive significant relationship between the sub-dimensions of psychological capital and organizational commitment.In study conducted by McColl-Kennedy and Anderson (2005), it was stated that there is a positive relationship between the optimism sub-dimension of the psychological capital and organizational commitment.Saks (2006) determined in his study that there is significant relationship between self-sufficiency and organizational commitment.In the study conducted by Avey et al. (2008), it was concluded that the psychological capital of the employees affects their commitment.
It was determined that there is a positive significant relationship among the adaptation sub-dimension and self-sufficiency, confidence, extraversion, psychological durability and hope sub-dimensions of positive psychological capital.It can be said that if the characteristics of the teachers including being able to motivate themselves, having a set of capabilities to fulfil the tasks, being enthusiastic and showing the required effort in reaching the objectives, enduring the difficult and uncertain conditions, having higher self-confidence are increased, they display more positive behaviors in school.
There is a positive significant relationship among the identification sub-dimension and the self-sufficiency, optimism, confidence, extraversion, psychological duration and hope sub-dimensions.It can be stated that there is a positive significant relationship among the identification sub-dimension and the self-sufficiency, optimism, confidence, extraversion, psychological duration, and hope sub-dimensions.According to this result, it can be said that the teachers have the desiring to accomplish individual and organizational objectives, having the ability to fulfil a task in the best way she/he realizing his/her skills, being able to show the optimistic perspective against the events occurring within organizational life, being able to show strong and positive social behaviors in social and school life, trusting other teachers within the school and perceiving as a trustworthy human by others makes the teachers to integrate their values with the values of the school and internalizing the school more.
It was seen that the positive psychological capital is a significant predictor of organizational commitment.It was determined that the sub-dimensions of positive psychological capital are not significant predictors of the adaptation sub-dimension of organizational commitment.It can be stated that the optimism, extraversion and psychological durability sub-dimensions are the significant predictors of the identification sub-dimension.The optimism, confidence, extraversion and psychological durability sub-dimensions of positive psychological capital are significant predictors of internalization sub-dimension.
In a study conducted by Shahnawaz and Jafri (2009), it was determined that psychological capital explains about 6% of organizational commitment.In the study conducted by Simons and Buitendach (2013), it was stated that psychological capital is a significant predictor of organizational commitment.In another study conducted by Çoban (2013), it was determined that psychological capital has a partial mediation role in the relationship between procedural justice and organizational commitment, and psychological capital has a complete mediation role in the relationship between interactional justice and organizational commitment.As a result, it can be said that the positive psychological capital levels of the teachers are an important factor in explaining and increasing the organizational commitment of the teachers in terms of both total scores and sub-dimensions.

Recommendations
In this study, the relationship between positive psychological capital and organizational commitment was analyzed.The study can be conducted on different occupational groups.Further researches can be conducted on the relationship between positive psychological capital and other variables such as satisfaction, motivation, work life quality, job satisfaction.This study was conducted in public institutions.The same study can be conducted in public and private institutions comparatively.Training activities can be organized for the school managers about how to improve the positive psychological capital levels of the teachers.It can be analyzed that how various variables affect the positive psychological capital levels and organizational commitment of the teachers.

Table 4 .
Regression analysis results related to the prediction level of positive psychological capital levels of the teachers for internalization sub-dimension of organizational commitment