INTEGRITY IN THE CLASSROOM: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WORKPLACE ETHICS AND TEACHERS’ JOB SATISFACTION IN PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

Abstract

The ethical climate experienced at work is an important determinant of the health of the institution, employee performance and satisfaction in organizations of the modern era. The present empirical study was conducted to explore the direct effect of workplace ethical climate on job satisfaction of school teachers in Public Sector Elementary Schools of District Pakpattan, Punjab, Pakistan. This study quantitatively explored the relationship between shared perceptions of systematic and casual ethical boundaries and the contentment of early educators through a theoretical lens that builds on the ethics climate paradigm of Victor and Cullen and the value-percept theory of Locke. The approach used was positivist paradigm with descriptive-correlational survey research design, and the population of the study was primary school teachers in both public and managed schools in both rural and urban areas, randomly sampled of 400 primary school teachers. Two research instruments specifically designed to measure data were used: The Multi-Dimensional Ethical Climate Scale (MDECS) with dimensions Self-interest, Personal Morality, School Profit, Team Interest, Efficiency, and Social Responsibility and the Job Satisfaction Scale (JSS) by Steven W. Schmidt (focus: Satisfaction with Training, and Employee Feelings about Development). Descriptive analytic, Cronbach's alpha reliability indices, independent samples t-tests, Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, and simple linear regression analysis were used to analyze the data. The factor-wise internal consistency values were found to be very high ranging from 0.670 to 0.876. Results showed that there was a statistically significant, strong positive correlation between school ethical climate and teachers' job satisfaction (r = 0.636, p < 0.001). Moreover, the results of linear regression analytics show that the ethical atmosphere is a strong positive predictor of teachers' job happiness, explaining a high amount of variance in teachers' satisfaction profiles (B = 0.635, t = 14.824, p < 0.001). Remarkably, independent samples t-test analysis revealed that there were no significant differences between the overall teachers' perception of the institutional ethical climate between males and females suggesting that a clear and ethical environment is beneficial to both male and female scholars. School leaders, policy makers, and primary education leaders need to design caring, organized, collaborative work environments and to intentionally establish clear leadership guidelines and strategies for involving and engaging peers to ensure optimal use of institutional resources, high-quality teaching staff, and improved teaching results.