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The aim of this research is to shed light on the phenomenon of citizenship pressure as a team-level construct. Building on the conservation of resources theory, the study used a moderated-mediation model to explore whether team organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) mediates the relationship between team citizenship pressure and team citizenship fatigue and whether this mediation is moderated by perceived supervisor support. Results from a study of 91 professional teams in the educational system indicate that team citizenship pressure had a significant and positive relationship with team OCB, as well as with team citizenship fatigue. The results also support the overall moderated-mediation model, but contrary to the hypothesized pattern of interaction, we found that team citizenship pressure was significantly and positively correlated with OCB when perceived supervisor support was low, but not when it was high. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.

Over the last two decades, research has reached the conclusion that educator teamwork is necessary to ensure the achievement of school goals. No attempts, however, have been made to provide integrative evidence regarding its contribution to school effectiveness. To fill this void, the authors review two decades of professional team research in the context of schools. Specifically, the article has two objectives: (1) To review the existing conceptualizations of the terms 'team' and 'teamwork' in the school context; (2) To provide a systematic review of the impact of teamwork on school effectiveness. The systematic search resulted in 23 papers reporting three non-empirical and 20 empirical studies. The results of the review revealed a lack of agreement concerning the conceptualization of the terms 'team' and 'teamwork', which may affect comparability among studies. Furthermore, no comprehensive picture emerges regarding the consequences of teamwork for the individual teacher, the team, or the school as a whole. Indeed, studies refer to a wide range of variables within different contexts and configurations. This review contributes several important insights that may set the agenda for the next wave of research on teamwork in schools.

The study of student participation in decision making has been characterised by conceptual vagueness and an absence of empirical tools to compare participatory practices in various contexts and to ...

This study is situated in the paradigms of positive organizational scholarship (POS) and positive organizational behaviour (POB). It draws upon the theoretical mechanisms of social learning and emotional contagion to suggest that psychological capital may spread through work teams to impact team outcomes such as performance, innovation, and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The degree to which team psychological capital (TPsyCap) mediated the relationship between leader psychological capital (LPsyCap) and team outcomes was also tested (n = 94 teams; n = 94 leaders; n = 550 employees). Using structural equation modelling, LPsyCap and TPsyCap were both related to team-level organizational citizenship behavior, team performance, and team innovation. However, the relationship between LPsyCap and TPsyCap was not significant. These findings support the positioning of psychological capital as an important resource for optimal team functioning but also suggest that workplaces cannot expect that leaders, through their own psychological capital alone, can create team-level psychological capital. Instead, the current research suggests that other organizational initiatives and experiences are needed to enhance LPsyCap. The results contribute to a better understanding of POS and POB in general and, specifically, to the recently emerging construct of team psychological capital.

Purpose Research has provided accumulative evidence that the willingness of teachers to invest in organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is a fundamental component for achieving school effectiveness. However, most studies examined OCB of the individual teacher, while neglecting the fact that such behavior might grow in a context. Furthermore, educational scholars have focused almost solely on OCB of teachers, and have almost completely neglected to address the concept through a managerial prism. By taking a contextual perspective, the purpose of this paper is to postulate a positive link between leader OCB and team OCB, and suggest that organizational justice serves as a moderator in this relationship. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected through a survey from multiple sources, to avoid one-source bias. The sample included 82 schools: 82 management teams and their 82 principals, as well as 246 teachers, who were not members of management. Findings Results of the hierarchical regression analysis confirmed the hypotheses. The authors found a positive association between leader OCB and team OCB and revealed that this positive relationship was significant under high levels of organizational justice, but non-significant under low levels. Practical implications The importance of leader OCB in promoting team OCB can inspire the educational system to learn how to develop organizational mechanisms that encourage principals to perform citizenship behaviors and to take this component into consideration in screening processes and succession planning. Originality/value The contribution of the study is in identifying leader OCB as a key instrument that may encourage teams to invest in OCBs. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study ever to examine the link between leader OCB and team OCB. The finding that there is a positive association between the two constructs may imply that leader OCBs contribute to the school, not only directly, by exhibiting behaviors of helping and support, but also indirectly, through the leader’s impact on his or her team’s behavior.

This study investigated the phenomenon of citizenship pressure (CP) - a job demand in which employees feel pressured to engage in citizenship behavior - among teachers, by exploring its nature, sources, and consequences. Results of in-depth semi-structured interviews provide initial support for the validity of the concept in the school context. Interviewees referred to both external and internal pressures, with the former seemingly more prevalent. Results indicate that CP impacts individuals as well as the school as a whole. Findings suggest that principals should encourage teachers to exhibit citizenship behaviors voluntarily, without paying the costs of acting under undesirable pressure.

This research studied the nature of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among elementary and middle school students. While much is known about OCB in a large variety of contexts (Jimmieson, Hannam, & Yeo, 2010), this research is the first ever to study the unique construct of student OCB. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with principals, teachers, and students. The interviews were analyzed using thematic network analysis, revealing five dimensions of student OCB: OCB toward studenthood, helping behavior toward students, OCB toward school personnel, OCB toward school community, and OCB toward external society. Practical implications and significance for future research are discussed.

This chapter seeks to help fill a critical void in work-family conflict (WFC) research by exploring cross-national differences in individual coping strategies to ease such conflict. It discusses a classification of countries on two key dimensions that are critical for WFC research: “individualism-collectivism” (I-C) and “gender-role ideology.” WFC is bidirectional, consisting of two components: work interference with family and family interference with work. Systematic cross-cultural comparisons of WFC are few, and those that exist focus mostly on the antecedents and consequences of WFC. I-C is an analytical dimension that captures the relative importance people accord to personal interests and to shared pursuits. Individualistic cultures emphasize self-reliance, autonomy, control, and priority of personal goals, which may or may not be consistent with in-group goals. An individual feels proud of his or her own accomplishments and derives satisfaction from performance based on his or her own achievements.

Background/ContextIncreasingly, educational leadership research has stressed that leadership is not solely embedded in formal roles but often emerges from relationships between individuals. Senior management teams (SMTs) are an important expression of a formal management structure based on the principle of distributed leadership. Such structures may require a reconceptualization of school leadership and the role of the principal in such a way as to better meet new challenges and enable principals to manage SMTs more effectively. Accordingly, it is proposed that to improve effectiveness, principals engage in boundary activities, the principals’ internal activities directed toward the SMT aimed at dealing with internal team matters and the principals’ external activities directed toward external agents in the team's focal environment to acquire resources and protect the team.Purpose/ObjectiveThe present study attempts to advance a theoretical model of principals’ internal and external activities toward their SMTs. This study's purpose is twofold: First, the study tries to determine which of the internal and external activities principals engage in more frequently and less frequently and to what extent. Second, the study attempts to determine how these activities are related to the SMT effectiveness outcomes: in-role performance and innovation. Taking on a distributive perspective to school leadership, our goal is to extend our knowledge about the activities that might facilitate SMT effectiveness, by highlighting the principal boundary activities as fundamental.Research DesignQuantitative study.Data Collection and AnalysisData were collected from two sources to minimize problems associated with same source bias: 92 SMTs and their principals from 92 public schools in Israel. Principals evaluated the SMTs’ effectiveness through validated surveys of team in-role performance and team innovation, and SMT members evaluated the internal and external activities of the principal.Findings/ResultsANOVA analyses indicate significant mean differences between the principal's internal and external activities. Results from Structural Equation Model indicate that internal activities were related to SMT performance, whereas external activities were related to SMT innovation.Conclusions/RecommendationsPrincipals who manage both the internal SMT dynamic by promoting SMT identity and building team trust, while also promoting a common mission, serve the role of coordinator between SMT members and constituencies external to the SMT, enhancing SMT effectiveness. It may be, then, that studying new models of school leadership and management, including the relationship of the principal and the SMT, may deepen our understanding of the increasingly complex role of principals today.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to use a model to broaden the understanding of the organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) phenomenon in educational teams and examines team OCB’s mediating role in the relation of the contextual variables of team justice climate (distributive justice, procedural justice, interpersonal justice) to team psychological capital (PsyCap) and team innovation. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected through a survey consisting of validated scales. The sample covered 78 disciplinary teams, 78 coordinators and 13 school principals at 13 junior-high schools. Findings The PROCESS test confirmed the mediating role of team OCB, showing positive relations between team procedural justice and team PsyCap and team OCB, and also between team OCB and team innovation. Research limitations/implications By taking a team perspective, the findings offer evidence that despite the usual approach treating OCB as an individual phenomenon; it may be regarded as shared norms of behaviors at the team level. Practical implications The team-level approach may urge principals and other educational leaders to realize that teachers’ willingness to invest extra effort in school is mainly the result of an appropriate team context, which can be shaped and developed. Originality/value The present study explored team OCB by from a context perspective. This is important because to date most studies on OCB in schools have focused on teacher OCB as an individual phenomenon, disregarding its contextual nature.

The present research examines the functioning of subject coordinators as boundary managers. According to this approach, effective team leaders move back and forth across the team boundary, by means of internal activities, which focus on internal team processes, and external activities, which focus on connecting the team with the external environment in which it operates. The research model suggests that internal and external boundary management activities will promote team learning, which in turn will advance team outcomes (innovation and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)) as well as organizational outcomes (academic achievements of students). Eighty-three subject coordinators and 260 teachers from elementary and junior high schools were studied. In general, structural equation modeling supported the mediating role of team learning in the relationship between boundary management and outcomes. The findings revealed positive relationships between internal and external activities and team learning, as well as between team learning and innovation and OCB. No significant relation was found between team learning and academic achievements. Implications, limitations, and future research directions pertaining to the boundary-related roles of subject coordinators are discussed.

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) refers to all behaviors outside the formal role definition but which contribute to organizational functioning and performance. To date research has focused on teachers’ OCB in an attempt to identify the causes and consequences of such behavior for the individual and the organization. Questions that have yet to be addressed in the literature are: Do principals also engage in OCB? And if so, how do they interpret OCB, and what are its characteristics?Since this is the first study to inquire into the phenomenon of OCB in the context of principalship, the qualitative method was chosen for the investigation. Fifteen post-elementary school principals were interviewed. Our findings identified four categories of principals’ OCB: effort invested in the school community; initiatives; supporting the local community; and other exceptional behaviors. We conclude by delineating the findings’ theoretical and practical implications and by introducing a proposed platform for new directions in OCB research.

The study aimed to examine the impact of team resources - learning values and team leader optimism - as moderating variables affecting the relationship between team psychological capital (PsyCap) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), measured as a team outcome. Eighty-two management teams involving 395 participants from educational organizations responded to a quantitative questionnaire. Hierarchical regression analyses confirmed interactive effects of both moderating variables, which serve as positive resources for the team by enhancing the impact of team PsyCap on the willingness of the team to engage in OCB. Team PsyCap functioned as a positive team resource that brings about an environment that induces exhibition of high levels of OCB. This relationship is strengthened when both team learning and team leader's optimism are high. The findings provide support for the relevance of contingency theories by emphasizing the necessity of certain situational features existing in order to have an impact on organization outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is defined as performance that supports the social and psychological environment in which a task is conducted. Teachers’ OCB can be directed toward particular individuals (OCBI) and/or toward the organization (OCBO). Despite their beneficial impact on school, these could entail personal costs for the teacher. The present study argues that OCB contributes to teachers’ strain through the mediating impact of role overload, role ambiguity, and role conflict, while job autonomy buffers it. The structural equation modeling results from a sample of 483 Israeli teachers and their principals confirmed the main hypotheses for OCBO. Role overload and role ambiguity fully mediated the relation of OCBO to teachers’ strain; the relation of OCBO to role stressors was significant for teachers with low job autonomy, but was non-significant for teachers with high job autonomy. This study opens an exploration of the positive and the negative consequences of OCB for teacher a...

Purpose– Despite growing research on school aggression, significant gaps remain in the authors’ knowledge of team aggression, since most studies have mainly explored aggression on the part of students. The purpose of this paper is to focus on understanding the phenomenon of workplace aggression in school teams. Specifically, the purpose of the study was to examine whether team affective conflict in school teams mediates the relationship between team injustice climate (distributive, procedural, and interpersonal injustice climate) and team aggression.Design/methodology/approach– Data were collected from a survey of 43 school teams at different schools using questionnaires.Findings– Results showed that team affective conflict played a role in fully mediating the relationship of team procedural and interpersonal injustice climate to team aggression.Research limitations/implications– The present results empirically support the notion that workplace aggression can be considered not only an individual phenomenon but also a team phenomenon. Furthermore, it highlights the significance of organizational factors in predicting this phenomenon. The study should serve to encourage principals to reduce the level of team aggression and develop a supportive climate characterized by fair procedures and respect.Originality/value– A review of the literature also reveals that little investigative effort has been made by scholars to examine aggression on the part of teachers. Evidence for this can be seen in the scarcity of publications on this topic. The current literature’s call to address this issue in schools and at the team level (Fox and Stallworth, 2010) stimulated the present study by highlighting the importance of exploring the contextual factors, rather than the individual ones, responsible for school team aggression.

Psychological capital is a positive psychological state that influences employees’ behaviors and attitudes. Research has only recently begun to examine the phenomenon as a shared psychological team state. The purpose of this research is to examine the mediating role of team psychological capital in the relationship between learning climate and outcomes at the individual and team levels. The findings, which were carried out among 82 school management teams, indicated a positive relationship between learning climate and the team’s psychological capital, and between the team’s psychological capital and the individual’s job satisfaction and the team’s organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). It was also found that team’s psychological capital mediates the relationship between the team’s learning climate and job satisfaction, and between learning mechanisms and the team’s OCB. The findings might encourage research into psychological capital as a team phenomenon and encourage decision-makers to develop ways of reinforcing psychological capital among teams.

To fill the gap in theoretical and empirical knowledge on workplace aggression by teachers working in teams, this study explored its components, its targets, and its contextual determinants. Data were collected through three observations at different schools and at different times on 29 math, homeroom, language, and science studies teams. Qualitative analysis found the components of team teachers’ aggression to include obstructionist behaviors and expressions of hostility to colleagues. Determinants of the aggression such as injustice and sense of workload were identified. Theoretical and practical implications for the educational system and educational research are suggested. Principals are strongly encouraged to establish a school environment that promotes justice and reduces work overload. Educational leaders should create workshops for teachers coping with the negative effects of aggression and implement dispute resolution systems. New directions for research on teachers’ role in preventing aggression...

This chapter focuses on the phenomenon of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in the context of service organizations. Specifically, our aim was to challenge the common approach to OCB by delineating the unique characteristics of service organizations. The chapter begins by capturing the distinctive features of services: their intangibility, inseparability, and heterogeneity. Next, we argue that these characteristics compel service organizations to rely primarily on their employees’ OCBs. Paradoxically, the more committed managers are to service delivery, the less control they have over service quality compared with their counterparts in manufacturing. We then discuss how service characteristics shape the nature of OCB in this unique context and propose an integrated typology for better understanding OCB in service organizations.

This study examined how leaders’ internal and external activities mediate the relationship of functional heterogeneity and interteam goal interdependence to team effectiveness (in-role performance and innovation) in interdisciplinary teams. The results of the structural equation model from a sample of 92 interdisciplinary teams indicate that leaders’ internal activities fully mediate the relationship of team functional heterogeneity and interteam goal interdependence to team in-role performance. The leaders’ external activities were found to fully mediate the relationship of interteam goal interdependence to team innovation. We discuss the implications of these findings for both theory and practice.

The purpose of this study is to broaden our understanding of team boundary activities in promoting team innovation. The model examines the mediating role of boundary activities in the relationship between the structural variables of inter-team goal interdependence and team functional heterogeneity and team innovation. Sixty teams from high-technology companies were studied involving 196 team members and their 60 corresponding team leaders and unit managers to whom the leaders report. Results identified two dimensions of boundary activities: boundary-loosening activities and boundary-tightening activities. Overall, the results of the structural equation model confirmed the mediating role of team boundary activity. The results indicated a positive relationship between the two structural variables and boundary-loosening activities, a negative relationship between functional heterogeneity and boundary-tightening activities, and a positive relationship between the two dimensions of boundary activities and team innovation. Implications, limitations, and directions for further research on team boundary activities are discussed.

PurposeWith a twofold aim, the purpose of this paper is to focus on the service climate, including its antecedents, consequences, and a moderator. First, it examines whether task‐ and goal‐interdependent configuration facilitates the level of service climate; second, it tests the strength of the moderating role of service climate between service climate levels and service behavior.Design/methodology/approachAmong 54 nursing units at six hospitals, the data were collected using multiple methods (surveys, observations, administrative data).FindingsMixed‐linear model analyses indicated that the joint effects of task and goal interdependence related significantly to service climate level. Service climate strength moderated the relationship of service climate level to quality service behavior.Research limitations/implicationsThe research approach may diminish the generalizability of the research results. Further work should test the propositions in other research contexts.Practical implicationsQuality service behaviors and the service climate could be promoted through well‐designed task‐ and goal‐interdependence structures within units. Assimilating a service climate in units is not enough. To promote high quality service behaviors, managers must direct their efforts toward finding agreement among team members with regard with the importance of service in their unit.Originality/valueThe paper's findings offer empirical support to the persistent social interaction explanation of climate formation and point to the important role of interdependence for creating and maintaining service climate levels and promoting service behaviors in units.

Investing in citizenship behaviours could entail personal costs for the employee. Specifically, we argue that OCB contributes to employee's strain above and beyond the impact of role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload. To study the buffering role of leader support and participation in decision making (PDM) on this relationship, we collected data from 457 employees at various organizations at different time points from multisources. The results supported our hypotheses: Higher levels of OCB were related to higher levels of employee's strain, above and beyond the impact of role overload, role ambiguity, and role conflict; and the relationship between OCB and strain was weaker for those enjoying a high degree of leader support or PDM.

Gender role ideology is defined as an individual's attitudes to how the roles of women and men are and should be shaped by sex. Accordingly, gender roles are social and psychological constructs, not biological. Gender role attitudes determine the distribution of males and females into social roles in society, and consequently impact individuals' occupational choice, type of role as a worker, spouse, or parent, and many other aspects in life; on the macro-level they affect work–family relations and labor force patterns. Gender role ideology falls into three types: traditional, transitional, and egalitarian. The first reflects the expected differences in roles for men and women: men should be responsible for livelihood, therefore are more likely to be assigned work-related roles; women should be responsible for the family, therefore are more likely to be assigned domestic roles. Egalitarian perceptions hold that roles should not be segregated by gender. Men and women might hold equal roles at work as well as at home. Transitional perceptions lie midway between traditional role segregation and egalitarian attitudes. Keywords: gender difference; gender socialization; socialization; women in development/gender and development

An extensive body of research acknowledges that participative leadership offers a variety of potential benefits, particularly for workers’ mental health and job performance; however, the work intensification, added challenge, and responsibility required may actually be harmful to some employees, creating more pressure engendering psychological strain. Taking a contingency approach and based on the Conservation of Resources theory, the study suggests that participative leadership may yield different results depending on employees’ personality traits from the Big Five typology. The proposed model aimed to investigate the moderating role of the Big Five traits on the participative leadership–inrole performance relationship and on the participative leadership–psychological strain relationship. In a study of 153 employees and their managers, hierarchical regression analyses showed that the personality dimensions of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism served as moderators in the rela...

The aim of this study was to test three alternative models – additive, interactive, and reciprocal – of the relationship between personal coping strategies and formal organizational family-friendly supports in mitigating work-family conflict (WFC). Altogether 474 employees in Israel having a partner and children and representing diverse professions and organizations were surveyed. The additive model, that is, personal coping and organizational supports together, were associated with decreased WFC, received support. However, the reciprocal model was also supported, as WFC decreased when individuals perceived the investments between their efforts in personal coping strategies and the organization's efforts in organizational supports as equal. The interactive model, namely personal coping and organizational supports compensate each other in decreasing conflict, received marginal support. Nevertheless, in each model personal coping strategies proved a better approach to mitigating WFC than formal family-frien...

This study investigated team innovation as a process phenomenon by differentiating the creativity stage from the implementation stage. Based on the interactional approach, the authors argue that team composition (aggregated individual creative personality and functional heterogeneity) affects team creativity, which in turn promotes innovation implementation depending on the team’s climate for innovation. Results from a study of 96 primary care teams confirmed that aggregated individual creative personality, as well as functional heterogeneity, promotes team creativity, which in turn interacts with climate for innovation such that team creativity enhances innovation implementation only when climate for innovation is high.

Approaches to nurses’ safety in health care organizations, including modifying individual behavior through enforced compliance with safety rules and mandatory participation in safety training, have been of only modest benefit in reducing injuries. Apparently, what matters is not the existence of guidelines, but their implementation. The aim of the present study was to explore nurses’ implicit safety theories concerning when to comply with safety rules. Using a multimethod approach, including semistructured interviews (perceptions), observations (real-time behavior), and documentary evidence from 15 nursing units (90 nurses), we found that nurses developed implicit rules for when and how to protect themselves. These included: (a) continue providing care for the patient even at the price of protecting yourself, (b) do not disturb other nurses’ work, (c) it cannot happen to me!, (d) be aware of recently occurring accidents, and (e) protect yourself when significant others are present. These implicit rules seemed to be reinforced by personal, social, and contextual factors at the unit, limiting the likelihood that the decision makers (nurses) would discover their fallacy.

Purpose – This study seeks to explore the moderating role of teachers' personality traits from the Big Five typology on the relationship between participative management and teacher outcomes with respect to performance, satisfaction and strain. The study suggests that participative management may produce different results depending on teachers' personality factors.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from a survey of 153 elementary school teachers and their principals in Northern and Central Israel. Teachers were asked to complete questionnaires about participative management, workplace satisfaction and strain, as well as to fill in the Big Five personality questionnaire. Teacher performance was evaluated by the school principal.Findings – Hierarchical regression analyses show that the personality dimensions of extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism served as moderators of the relation between participative management and teacher performance, satisfaction and strain. H...

This study examined how different stakeholders in school (principals, teachers, parents) conceptualize teachers' role breadth, i.e., whether they define given behaviors commonly assumed to be OCBs as in-role or extra-role behaviors. Drawing on a survey of 29 principals, 245 teachers and 345 parents, the results showed that principals and teachers defined more teachers' OCBs in general and toward the school as in-role behaviors than parents did; parents defined more teachers' OCBs toward the student as in-role behaviors than teachers did. A wide variety of possible school interventions is indicated, each with the potential for far broader improvements in school effectiveness.

The increasing emergence of participation in decision making (PDM) in schools reflects the widely shared belief that flatter management and decentralized authority structures carry the potential for promoting school effectiveness. However, the literature indicates a discrepancy between the intuitive appeal of PDM and empirical evidence in respect of its sweeping advantages. The purpose of this theoretical article is to develop a comprehensive model for understanding the distinct impacts of PDM on school and teachers’ outcomes. The proposed analytical framework is set within contingency theory and is aimed to predict the distinct impacts of PDM on school outcomes: innovation, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and productivity; and on teacher outcomes: job satisfaction and strain. It contains mediator-moderator components, where the mediator factors explain the relationship between PDM and school and teacher outcomes and the moderator factors influence the strength and/or the direction of these relationships. Specifically, the framework suggests that two mechanisms, one motivational and one cognitive, serve as mediators in the PDM-outcomes relationship. Then, by taking a multilevel perspective, the author posits moderators that may facilitate or inhibit the PDM effect: teacher personality (the Big Five personality characteristics) at the individual level, principal-teacher exchange (leader-member exchange; LMX) at the dyadic level, structure (bureaucratic/ organic) at the school level, and culture (individualism/collectivism) at the environmental level.

The emergence of team-based organizations requires shifting the focus from intrateam to interteam activities in order to understand organizational functioning. This article develops a model of interteam boundary activity and proposes that boundary activity is contingent on interteam goal and task interdependence. In addition, the authors propose that team heterogeneity, interteam power relations, organizational culture, and external environment moderate the relationships between interteam interdependence configuration and boundary activity. The preferred boundary activity further determines whether higher team performance fully translates into higher organizational performance. The article concludes by considering the research and practice challenges implied by the proposed model.

Purpose: The current literature's call for a more ecological approach to violence theory, research, and practice stimulated the current study. This model postulates that teachers' willingness to engage in behaviors intended to tackle violence in school as part of their in-role duties (role breadth) will affect school violence. Specifically, the model examined the mediating role of teachers' role breadth in the relationship of the organizational-level factors of participative management and job autonomy with school violence. Method: Data were collected from a survey of 1,512 teachers and their principals at 119 elementary schools in the northern and central parts of Israel. Findings: The structural equation model confirmed the main hypotheses and indicated that for both job autonomy and participative management only the indirect paths (job autonomy—role breadth— school violence; participative management—role breadth—school violence) were significant. These results indicated that role breadth fully mediated the relationship between participative management and job autonomy and school violence. Conclusions: These results carry important practical implications for administrators to help schools cope with the phenomenon of violence. Understanding why teachers choose to broaden their role is important in decreasing school violence. Schools that encourage staff members to see themselves as part of the picture in all aspects of school functioning by involving them in the decision making process, and by providing them with opportunities for discretion, will benefit teachers who believe that student safety is possible and are willing to tackle the phenomenon of violence in schools as part of their in-role duties.

The present study explores the dynamics of conflict management as a team phenomenon. The study examines how the input variable of task structure (task interdependence) is related to team conflict management style (cooperative versus competitive) and to team performance, and how team identity moderates these relationships. Seventy-seven intact work teams from high-technology companies participated in the study. Results revealed that at high levels of team identity, task interdependence was positively associated with the cooperative style of conflict management, which in turn fostered team performance. Although a negative association was found between competitive style and team performance, this style of team conflict management did not mediate between the interactive effect of task interdependence and team identity on team performance. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Purpose: Although conflict has traditionally been considered destructive, recent studies have indicated that conflict management can contribute to effective teamwork. The present study explores conflict management as a team phenomenon in schools. The author examined how the contextual variables (task interdependence, goal interdependence) are related to team conflict management style (integrating vs. dominating) and school team effectiveness (team performance). Research Design: Data were collected from 149 school teams (including team coordinators and team members) at 149 elementary schools. Results: Hierarchical regression analyses demonstrate, as expected, a positive relation between conflict management of integrating and team performance and a negative relation between dominating and team performance. In addition, there are positive relations between the congruent low-low or high-high combinations of task and goal interdependence and integrating and positive relations between the incongruent low-high or high-low combinations of task and goal interdependence and team conflict management of dominating. Moreover, results indicate that the highest level of integrating is under the condition of high task interdependence and high goal interdependence, whereas the highest level of dominating is under the condition of high task interdependence and low goal interdependence. Finally, a team's conflict management was partially mediated by the combination of task and goal interdependence and team performance. Conclusions: The present results provide additional empirical support for the notion that conflict management can be considered a team phenomenon. The study should serve to encourage educational administration researchers to focus more attention on characteristics of organizational and team context as related to team conflict management and team effectiveness.

The present study addressed the issue of teams in schools and the ways in which they contribute to school effectiveness. Specifically, the present research suggested an input (frequency of meetings and functional heterogeneity)–process (interaction processes of exchanging information, learning, motivating, and negotiating)– outcome (team performance and innovation) model for predicting school effectiveness. Two hundred twentyfour school teams (including team coordinators, team members, and school principals) were surveyed. The results indicated that, regarding team innovation, frequency of meetings and functional heterogeneity were positively associated with the 4 interaction processes, which in turn fostered team innovation. However, regarding team performance, the results indicated that only frequency of meetings was positively associated with the interaction process of exchanging information, which in turn enhanced team performance. The findings serve to draw important theoretical and practical conclusions as to the best ways to structure schools and to improve their interaction processes for the enhancement of team performance and team innovation.

Purpose: Most writings on Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) to date have focused on analysis at the individual level and paid less attention to other analytical frameworks at the group level (i.e., team, unit, or organization). This article approaches OCB from the less conventional perspective of group-level activities and uses it to develop and validate a scale of Group-level Organizational Citizenship Behavior (GOCB) in the education system.Data Collection: Data were collected from a survey of 206 Israeli teachers and their principals at 13 schools.Findings: The scores were found to be statistically valid and demonstrated a high degree of reliability. In addition, two intra-factors (GOCB-I [group-level OCB toward individuals] and GOCB-O [group-level OCB toward the organization]) that are quite similar to those suggested in previous OCB literature emerged as key components.Conclusions: The advantages of the group-level scale over other individual-level scales are explored and discussed in detail. The article ends with theoretical and practical implications for future studies that may focus on the “good platoon syndrome” of educational and other administrative systems rather than merely on the “good soldier syndrome.” The authors elaborate on the potential reconstruction of group-level measures of OCB that can enrich studies on organizational climate, culture, and social norms. Finally, the authors argue that their results as well as those suggested in previous research may direct future studies to develop the idea of “organizational citizenship climate” in the educational system and beyond.

Purpose: The success of schools fundamentally depends on teachers’ willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty, namely, to exhibit organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Attempts to understand the causes of OCB frequently focus on individual characteristics; only recently have researchers begun to direct their attention to more contextual variables. The present study continues this line of research and proposes an integrative model. This allows the authors to examine simultaneously the relative impact of individual characteristics (dispositional variables of positive affectivity, negative affectivity, and teacher attitude) to perceived superior support and an organizational characteristic (of organizational values of individualism versus collectivism) on OCB at school. Method: Data were collected from a survey of 104 teachers and their principals at eight elementary schools in northern Israel. Results : A mixed models analysis demonstrates that perceived supervisor support and collectivism were positively related to OCB, whereas a negative relation was found between negative affectivity and OCB; no relation was found between positive affectivity and OCB. However, when these variables were examined simultaneously, the organizational variable of collectivism proved the most effective predictor of OCB. Implications: The present results should serve to encourage OCB researchers to focus more attention on characteristics of organizational context as related to OCB. Schools are powerful suppliers of norms to their teachers, and exchange relationships that form within schools, as well as collective values, may partly determine the level of OCB in them.