Content area
Full Text
Sex Roles (2007) 57:187199 DOI 10.1007/s11199-007-9246-9
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Israeli Teachers Perceptions of Lateness: A Gender Comparison
Orly Shapira-Lishchinsky
Published online: 19 June 2007 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2007
Abstract The study examines the relationship between distributive justice and teachers lateness, focusing on the mediation effect of organizational commitment and taking into account gender differences. The sample consisted of 1,016 teachers from 35 high schools in Israel. Results, based on multi-level analysis, showed that, for women, organizational commitment partially mediated the relation between perceived distributive justice and lateness. No such effect was found for men. The findings are explained in terms of women using lateness behavior to establish a balance between their amount of effort and the measure of their perceived reward.
Keywords Gender . Lateness . Distributive justice . Organizational commitment . Culture
Introduction
Employee lateness, which is ubiquitous in many organizations, influences employees perceptions and behavior, as well as the organizational climate and effectiveness, and carries financial costs (Blau 1994), such as loss of productivity. In high schools, it causes loss of time for principals, who have to find solutions for the teachers lateness. It also disrupts the daily schedule and affects learning effectiveness and student achievement. When lessons do not start on time, teachers who want to complete planned material often continue their lessons into the break, which detracts from needed down
time and can cause students to be late to their next class. Moreover, when the lessons become shorter, teachers may not cover all the material needed for final exams, leaving students to make up the difference on their own. This is clearly not as effective as studying and discussing these subjects in school. A tardy teacher may also have a negative influence on teachers who do arrive on time and are required to supervise the latecomers class to prevent it from disturbing other classes. Such behaviors also impacts shared ethical values (Sims 2002), which are influenced by ones membership in a community or culture (Alder 1999; Payne and Landry 2006).
The purpose of this paper, then, is to investigate the effect of work ethics on teacher lateness, examining the mediating effect of organizational commitment and differences between men and womenan issue that has not received empirical attention thus...