Distributed School Leadership and Teachers’ Organizational Commitment: The Case of Primary Schools of Hawassa City Administration

The objective of the study is to investigate effects of distributive school leadership style on primary schools teachers’ organizational commitment of Hawassa city Administration. To achieve this objective, the cross sectional survey method was used. Moreover, quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed to obtain relevant information pertinent to the basic questions. Simple random sampling and purposive sampling techniques were used. Teachers were taken by simple random sampling techniques where leaders were taken by using purposive sampling techniques. Questionnaire and interview were used to collect data. The findings of the study were school culture has strong positive relationship with teachers organizational commitment and it is determinant factor for teachers commitment. Moreover, study revealed that academic status of teachers has positive relationship with teachers’ commitment. Distributed leadership inadequately practiced and affected by teachers and principals related factors, resources, lack of guidelines and manuals. As school culture is major determinant of teachers’ commitment, principals and supervisors should work to develop school common culture. To empower teachers and principals’ capacity, short and long term trainings were recommended. Further research in the area in broad and in depth was suggested.

With adoption and implementation of Education and Training Policy of 1994 in Ethiopia, more attention was given to educational organization and management. Since 1994 the government of Ethiopia has tried to decentralized, democratized, professionalized and participatory leadership in education system particularly in schools (MOE, 1994). Different guidelines directives, programs and plans of Ministry of Education confirm these attempts (MOE, 2015). Despite government and different stakeholders' efforts, studies indicated that school leadership practices were not performed as stated in policy and desired level with respect to distributive leadership practices (Dejene (2014), Asrat (2017) and Misgana (2017). Many reports indicated that performance of primary schools of the Southern Nations and Nationality Peoples Regional State (SNNPRS) particularly Hawassa City Administration are not at expectation level, and teachers' commitment and students' achievement were reported as low (MOE, 2018, SNNPR Education Bureau, 2019.
Although there are many factors that contribute for low performance of schools and low commitment of teachers in Hawassa City administration, one problem might relate with leadership practice. Complain and dissatisfaction had been expressed from teachers and educational experts in the region and education departments on lack of shared or distributed leadership practices in the schools of the study area. This was one reason that initiates the researchers to conduct this study. Moreover, as the knowledge of the researchers there were no studies that deal with effects of distributed leadership on teachers' organizational commitment.
For the purpose of this study the following objectives were stated: to assess to the extent distributed leadership practices in primary schools; to examine relationship between distributed leadership and teachers' school commitment; to assess relationship between distributed leadership dimensions and teachers' school commitment, to assess relationship between demographic characteristics and teachers' organizational commitment. The study was delimited to government primary schools of Hawassa City Administration and targeted only teachers, principals, unit leaders, and department heads.

Literature Review Distributed Leadership and Organizational Commitment
Organizational commitment indicates that the members of an organization truly incline to be the main actors and hence play their active roles in their organization. These certainly have positive effects on actions of the organization and result in such a sense of possessing high status, willing to contribute and contribute beyond what is expected out of them (Ali, 2015). Organizational characteristics of the work place, like school leadership, are believed to have an impact on the organizational commitment of teachers (Louis, 1998). Teachers have high levels of organizational commitment will increase their participation in the distributed leadership practices and strive to solve the problems. Thus, ensuring teachers commitment to school organization is important for organization to continue its existence and to reach its objectives.
Teachers' commitment has been studied and found that teachers' commitment develops through some features of organizational environments, such as school leadership (Meyer and Allen 1997;Nguni, Sleegers, and Denessen, 2006;Ross and Gray, 2006). Researches have shown that supportive school principals have positive effect on teachers' organizational commitment (Nguni, Sleegers, and Denessen, 2006;Park, 2005). Hulpia and Devos (2010) found out that the implementation of distributed leadership contributes to the teachers feel sincere attachment and commitment to their schools.

Theoretical Framework
The effect of distributed leadership on teachers' organizational commitment can be explained by distributed leadership theory developed by Elmore (2000Elmore ( , 2002. Elmore developed his distributed leadership theory based on the loose-coupling theory. Elmore (2002Elmore ( , 2008 stated that all members of school or organization can lead where they have knowledge and capability. Distributed leadership began with leaders delegating responsibilities among various groups in the organization while working toward common values, culture, symbols and rituals. He goes on saying that to bring change or better results, leadership roles and activities should be shared or distributed. Thus, leaders identified tasks and distributed to expertise, and develop a common culture. Elmore (2002Elmore ( , 2008 developed five key dimensions of distributed leadership that influenced teachers' commitment as well as student achievement. These dimensions comprise: mission, vision and goals; school culture; decision-making; evaluation and professional development; and leadership practices. Gordon (2005) conducted a study to determine the effect of distributed leadership on student achievement using the Distributed Leadership Readiness Scale (DLRS). Gordon reduced to four dimensions (mission, vision and goals; school culture; leadership practices; and shared responsibility). For this study we used Gordon's (2005) framework / model and add demographic variables. Because it enables us to assess the distributed leadership practices and its effects on school context. The variables in the model explained as follows. Mission, Vision and Goals: In order to distribute leadership, the school must have a common vision with clear goals concentrating on students' achievement (Gordon, 2005). When distributed leadership team is working on a shared goal, this type of distributed leadership leads to greater organizational performance and commitment (Yukl, 2002). As Sergiovanni (2001) indicated if there is common vision or goal in school, teachers respond with increased motivation and commitment. On the other hand, the lack of shared mission, vision and goals led the school to de-motivated students and teachers with incompatible priorities (Storey, 2004). School Culture: Distributed leadership needs a shared school culture. Murphy (2005) pointed out that school culture comprises the values, beliefs and norms of the teaching profession. Effective distributed leadership requires guidance and direction from multiple expert sources with a shared culture. It is the common values, or culture, that facilitates the school to attain their mission through distributed leadership (Elmore, 2000). Leadership Practices: Leadership practices demonstrate the tasks or activities used in the performance of a routine; who is responsible for the task; what tools are necessary to perform the tasks; and the leadership function is designed to address. The leadership practices showed not only leader interaction, but also leaders collaborating with other leaders in order to work toward the shared goal of school (Spillane, 2006). Shared Responsibility: Elmore (2000) found that sharing of responsibilities for teachers improve their motivation, commitment and school performance. The vital element of effective distributing leadership requires the expertise and responsibilities of the staff to be extended over people in different roles rather divided among them (Spillane et al. 2004). Demographical characteristics: Studies on organizational commitment revealed that demographical characteristics of individual teachers are interrelated to their commitment to the school. For example, Reyes (1992) and Singh and Billingsley (1998) discovered that female teachers are more committed to the school compared to their male colleagues, and that more experienced teacher's feel less committed to the school than less experienced teachers. Others found that the effect of distributive leadership practices is nearly insignificant on teachers' commitment (Bogler, 2005;Culver, Wolfle, & Cross, 1990). For this study sex, age, gender, and experience are considered.
To conceptualize this study, the independent and dependent variables were identified. Dependent variables were teachers' organizational commitment and independent variables were distributed leadership dimension practices and demographic characteristics.

Conceptual Model of Distributed Leadership on Teachers School Commitment
Source: Gordon, 2005 Research Methods Cross sectional survey design using quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed to obtain relevant information to meet the objectives stated. In order to select the research participants, simple random sampling was used. There were 23 government primary schools in the Hawassa City. From these 9 primary schools, 143(39.4%) teachers were taken and distributed to sample schools proportionally. The size of teachers was based on Cohen, Manion, and Morrison (2007) appropriate sample size table.
To gather data self-developed questionnaire and interview were employed. The questionnaire consists four parts: a demographic survey, distributed leadership dimensions organizational commitment and organizational commitment variables. We adapt Distributed Leadership Readiness Scale (DLRS) that was developed by the Connecticut Department of Education and later modified by Gordon (2005) was used. The semi-structured interview guide was prepared and employed for supervisors. For data analysis both descriptive and inferential statistics were used.  Vol.11, No.13, 2020 Results and Discussion Background of Respondents The gender of the participants was 89(63.1%) male and 54(36.9%) female. Concerning age of the respondents the majority found in the age ranges of 18-30 years and 31-40 years which accounts 59(41.8%) and 54(38.3 %) respectively. In relation to academic qualification 44 (31.2%) diploma holders while the rest 97(68.8%) of respondents were first degree and above graduates. This indicates that the academic qualification of majority of respondents hold first degree and above. The teaching experience of respondents reported as the majority had teaching service from 7 up to 10 and above 10 years which account 44(31.2) and 59 (41.8%) respectively. This shows that the majority of these respondents had ample service in teaching.

Distributed Leadership Dimensions Practice
An attempt was made to identify the practices of distributed leadership dimension in schools and reported by teachers This shows that school leaders more have worked with teachers in setting and developing school mission, vision and goals. This dimension was reported as more distributed than others. This implies that principals in sample schools were more distributive in their leadership responsibilities when designing school mission vision, goals and plans while they are less distributive with respect to school culture, leadership practices and shared responsibility to teachers.
Information obtained from the supervisors' interview revealed that practice of distributed leadership in schools was moderate. One of the interviewed supervisor mentioned that practices vary from school to school, principal to principal. Moreover, it depends on willingness of teachers, skills and knowledge of principals and rules and regulations or administration guidelines.
Another supervisor from other cluster pointed out that Distributive leadership style in schools depends on decision of principals, competence and experiences of teachers, and election by teachers. In addition it also depends on interest, willingness, commitment and performance of teachers, subject matter (concerned), and school criteria. He goes on saying that friendship, and closeness with school management also determines its practice. .

Relationship between Distributed Leadership Dimensions and Teachers' Commitment
Pearson's correlation was employed to identify the size and magnitude of the relationships among the predictors' variables and teachers' school commitment. The first item addresses the correlation between school mission, vision and goals and teachers' organizational commitment. The test is significant, r (141) =.469. P<0.01.This shows that there is a positive and moderate significant linear relationship between mission, vision and goals and teachers' organizational commitment. This implies that participation of teachers in designing and setting school mission, vision and goals increase teachers' school or organizational commitment. This means that the more teachers' participation and involvement increase in school mission, vision and goals increase, the more teachers' are committed.
The second item is about correlation between school culture and teachers organizational commitment. From the table, the test is significant, r (141) =.529. P<0.01.This shows that there is direct and strong significant linear significant relationship between school culture and teachers school commitment. This implies that as shared school culture increase in schools, the more teachers' organizational commitment increase. Elmore (2000) found out that the common values, or culture, that increase teachers' effort to attain school mission.
For item 3, (r=.359; p=0.000) is positive and moderate statistically significant relationship. This implies that school leadership style has a direct and significant effect on teachers' commitment. Researches have shown that there is a positive relationship between the teachers' commitment and organizational leadership practices. Distributed leadership encourages teachers to be involved in decision making, particularly on matters related to teaching and learning (Meyer and Allen, 1997). Moreover, from above Table one can realized that the magnitude of leadership practice correlation is less than other distributed leadership dimension. This shows that distributed leadership practices are less practiced.
For the fourth item, r (141) =.477. P<0.01.This indicated that shared responsibility has positive and moderate relationship and influence on teachers' organizational commitment. Elmore (2000) found similar findings that that sharing of responsibilities for teachers improves their motivation and school performance.
In general as observed from the data, all dimensions have positive and strong correlation. Moreover, school culture has more strong correlation with mission, vision, and goals (r=0.796, P<.001), leadership practice (r=0.625, P<.001), and shared responsibility (r=0.763, P<.001). This implies that positive school culture has positive effects on teachers' commitment and other leadership aspects.

Demographic Factors and Distributed Leadership Dimension
One of the objectives of the study was to explore the relationship between distributed leadership and demographic factors. To this end, T-test analysis was used and presented hereunder.  Vol.11, No.13, 2020 Table 5 shows that school culture( , = 0.095; = 0.00) is the only significant factors among the listed four factors. This implies that the variation in teachers' service significantly determine the level of teachers engagement in school culture.

The Determinant Factors of Teachers' School/ Organizational Commitment
In order to identify the independent variables that can significantly predict teacher's commitment and the relations of each independent variables on the dependent variable, the researchers employed the linear regression model. The model contained 4 independent potential variables distributed leadership dimensions (mission, vision, and goals, school culture, and leadership practice and shared responsibility). The above Model Summary offers the multiple r and coefficient of determination (r 2 ) for the regression model. As one can see r 2 = .298 which indicates that 29.8% of the variance in teachers organizational commitment can be explained by the regression model.  Table 7 shows the ANOVA test associated with the prediction of teachers' commitment from independent variables distributed leadership dimensions (mission, vision and goals, school culture, and leadership practices and shared responsibility). This test is used to identify whether the regression analysis is a better way of expressing the relationship between dependent and independent variables. The verification is done at 5% significance level. From the table, the test is significant, F (4,136) = 14.435, p < .001. This suggests that the regression analysis is a better way of expressing the relationship between performance and predictors.

Goodness of Fit of the Regression Model
Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1735 (Paper) ISSN 2222-288X (Online) Vol.11, No.13, 2020  Under this study factors, relationship with mission, vision, and goals (t = 1.031, p = 0.304), leadership practices (t = -0.187, p = 0.852) and shared responsibility (t =1.474, p = 0.143) failed to be significantly predict the teachers' organizational commitment of primary school teachers of Hawassa City Administration. Out of those identified variables only one variable school culture found to be statistically significant, the three variables; school mission, vision and goals, shared responsibility , and leadership style were found to be not significant  Table 9, the estimated t-test value for gender ( = −0.059, = 0.953) for level of commitment was statistically failed to be significant (P>0.05). This implies that both male and female teachers have similar level of organizational commitment. On the other hands the estimated t-test value educational status ( = −2.297, = 0.023) for level of commitment was statistically significant (P<0.05). From this one can say that the higher level of academic status led for better organizational commitment. 3.39 0.46 The estimated F-taste value of age groups ( , = 0.454; = 0.715) is statically not significant at = 0.05 level. This shows that there is no significant level of commitment variations among the age of teachers. From this one can conclude that teacher's age cannot significantly predict the level of organizational commitment. On the same way, the estimated F-value ( , = 1.090; = 0.356) is failed to be significant. This indicated that there is no significant level of difference in commitment among the groups of teacher's service years. This implies teachers' services year is not a significant factor to determine the variation on the level of teachers' commitment.

Findings and recommendations
Concerning the extent of distributed leadership practices in the schools, respondents rated school culture, leadership practices and shared responsibility as moderate, it was also reported that school leadership is distributed based on interest, commitment, capacity and performance of teachers and school administration guidelines, school based criteria, principals' decision, friendship and closeness with principals. These showed that there is no clear pattern and system for implementation of distributed leadership in primary schools. It was also found that all distributed leadership dimensions were statistically significant and positive relationship with teachers' organizational commitment. Moreover, school culture and teachers' organizational commitment has positive strong relationship.
The study found out that shared responsibility dimension found to be significant with service years and school culture. Among distributed leadership dimensions, school culture significantly predicts teachers' organizational commitment which implies that increment or improvement in school culture leads to about 23.3% increase in teachers' school/ organizational commitment. It was also reported that higher level of academic status led for better organizational commitment. On the other hand, it was found that there is no statistically significant difference between sex groups, service years, age of teachers; and teachers' organizational commitment.
Based on the findings it can be concluded that practices of distributed leadership were conducted insufficiently and in unorganized manner. Thus, the Regional Education Bureau and City Education Department has to organize short and long term training to create awareness on distributed leadership and develop capacity of teachers and principals. Shared school culture is determinant factor for teachers' commitment. Therefore, school principals and supervisors should work to create positive and shared school culture to improve teachers' commitment. Academic status is also reported as one factor in determining teachers' organizational commitment. Thus, in service training or up grading program should be designed to improve teachers' academic status.

Limitations of the Study
The researcher did not believe that the study is free from any limitation. There were factors that contribute to limitations. One problem of the study was the scope of the study was delimited in some aspect of distributed leadership. The second one was there are different school community members who involve in leadership but the study targeted on teachers and principals only. The study also focus only government schools, it also