Influence of School-Based Environmental Factors on Teachers’ Discretionary Work Effort in Public Secondary Schools in Isiolo County, Kenya

Abstract

The premise for this study was discretionary work effort. Work effort that an employee could give voluntarily without expecting rewards or recognition from the reward system. Organizations including schools, consider employees’ work effort as a critical factor towards achieving market competitiveness and future sustainability. Understanding how to manage employees’ discretion, adopting a workable school environment, nurturing new innovations and maximizing short-term profits, is an evidence of managers ensuring viable future for their organizations. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of school-based environmental factors on teacher’s discretionary work effort in public secondary schools in Isiolo County, Kenya. The study focused on the influence of teaching and learning resources, the principal’s leadership style, teachers work characteristics and the influence of school culture on teacher’s ability to expend discretionary work effort. Literatures show that research on employee discretionary work effort is still in its initial stage hence, a need for more studies is evidence especially on academic sector. This study was grounded on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory which provides a general framework viable for employee’s professional development. The study adopted mix-method research design since it involved selection of a sample from a large population of subjects, application of both questionnaires and interview schedule as research instruments for data collection was affected. Forty eight principals, 720 teachers and two county directors constituted the target population of 770 individuals. Using 30% criteria, through simple random sampling, a sample of 18 principals, 216 teachers and two county directors purposively sampled was determined totaling to a sample size of 236 participants. Data from principals and teachers was gathered by use of questionnaires while interview schedules were used to get information from both Directors. Research instruments prepared were pre-tested using test-retest to ensure their validity and reliability. Cronbach's Alpha level of above 0.7% for all sentiment was realized. This study adopted both descriptive and inferential statistics to analyze data collected. Analyses show positive and significant relationship between all the independent variables and dependent variable at a positivity rate of 52.7% with work characteristics at 84.74%, school culture at 81.5%, teaching and learning resources at 76.5% and leadership style at 64.30%. Therefore, all the null hypotheses were rejected. The findings will provide TSC with strategies to enhance teacher management processes, provide useful information on how to manipulate school environmental factors to induce teachers’ discretionary work effort, add to existing literature on school environmental factors and teachers discretionary work effort. Finally, the findings will broaden teachers’ knowledge on the benefit of deriving discretionary work effort from work environment. It was recommended that employers should ensure adequacy of teaching and learning resources, principals and managers should practice blended leadership styles and TSC should ensure teachers are conversant with emerging teaching and learning pedagogies. Finally, it is recommended that both principals and teachers should adopt values, practices and work habits that provide unique work characteristics