This study aims to examine how teacher’s professional interactions influence the level of affective organizational commitment when mediating through trust in higher education institution. This is the study which was conducted at Da Nang Architecture University (DAU), Vietnam. This introduction chapter consist of four main parts, which are research background, research questions, the significance of research, and research process. The chapter begins with research background, which provides basic background information about the research topic as well as the reasons for conducting this study. It then introduces research questions that explains what the study intends to accomplish as well as research significances which is proposed to attempt to explain why this work is worth performing. The last part is a brief introduction of how this research was conducted
1.1 Research Background
I had an opportunity to work as a teaching assistant at Da Nang Architecture
University, Vietnam, in three years. During this period of time, I could realize the dynamic transformation of this ten-year old school, especially in teaching staffs. From my
observation, teachers played crucial roles in the process improvement of this school. They always tend to approach actively their colleagues to discuss or seek for advice when they have troubles related to professional matters. Despite the fact that the low income of teachers in Vietnam, particularly in this university, they still commit to this organization.
I had always been curious about this issue and tried to find the reasonable answer. Thanks to Organizational Behavior course which I attended in Master program, I had chance to know about Social Network Analysis and I think that it is a useful concept to help me find the answer for my question.
In organizational behavior field, there has been various studies on social networks, trust, and affective organizational commitment. In recent years, the topics on teacher relationships and the collaboration among them have been becoming more and more interested by educational researchers. In addition, the importance of teacher relationship and collaboration for school improvement and building individual teachers’ knowledge have been acknowledged (Moolenaar, 2012). In social science literature, trust and social interaction are often studied as interrelated elements. Trust is embedded in relationships,
and often associated with group cohesion and collaboration. Moolenaar (2012) also stated that positive experiences from prior social interactions may foster trust by reducing uncertainty about the engagement and involvement of the other party and decreasing vulnerability between individuals. As such, social ties among educators may prompt a trust-rich environment by offering a blueprint for future interactions, shaping mutual expectations and conveying information about the norms and values of social interaction within the school community. Moreover, Blake & Mouton (1984) found, trust is a key to developing affective organizational commitment. In the context of a university, Lin (2007a) stated that the strength of the relationship between an academic and the organization is believed to affect knowledge sharing behavior. Once teachers are emotionally committed to the organization, their sense of engagement towards organizational objectives and goals is higher.
In summary, this research addresses teachers’ professional network and work attitude in the context of Da Nang Architecture University in Vietnam. This study examines not only the effect of social network on trust in school, but also how trust among teachers impact their affective organizational commitment. More crucially, this study leads to an exploration regard to the degree to which professional interactions among teachers foster or restrain the affective commitment towards their organization which mediates by their trust. Therefore, this study tries to apply a social analysis, trust and affective organizational commitment theories to explain “How teachers’ professional interactions influence affective organizational commitment in higher education
institutions: The mediating role of trust”.
1.2 Research Questions
In this study, there are two questions which were inspected as following:
1. Do professional interactions among teachers contribute to positive work attitudes?
2. If teachers’ professional interactions bring positive work attitudes, what is the process?
For answering the first research question, two properties of network, which are outdegree centrality and strength of tie, were examined in the relationship with affective organizational commitment; and findings on network patterns were also used. About the
second question, trust was proposed as mediator of examining relationship, and testing the mediating effect of this variable gave the answer for this question.
1.3 Research Significance
This study is expected to contribute to social network and organizational behavior literature in theoretical as well as in practical aspects. Firstly, based on the review of literature in terms of this topic, there is still little research concerning the relationship between professional networks and affective commitment, especially within educational settings. Therefore, this study is expected to fill this gap as well as provide an empirical evidence to demonstrate the relationship between teachers’ professional networks and their affective organizational commitment through their trust among faculty members. In addition, in Vietnam, social network is a brand new research area and studies in this field is so limited, so this study may play an initial role in the spread of social network field there. Secondly, this study may illuminate further understanding to principals and teachers in this university about the importance of professional interaction among teachers and its impacts on organizational attitudes, then, leads to school improvement.
1.4 Research Process
The figure 1.1 below shows a multi-stage process that I intend to go through in order to undertake and complete this study, which includes seven steps as shown in the diagram below. It is not really a straightforward process, each stage may be revisited more than once and be revised if necessary.
Figure 1.1 The research process