Relationship between Thinking Styles and Organizational Commitment

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between thinking styles and organizational commitment of high school teachers. It was carried out by descriptive correlation method. The participants of this study were 4090 teachers that were all high school teachers of Isfahan. 351 teachers were selected to participate in the study by using sample size formula and stratified random sampling. Data collection tools were a standard questionnaire of Sternbergʹs thinking styles (1962) consisting of 65 items and Allen and Meyerʹs organizational commitment questionnaire (1985) consisting of 24 items in a 5- point likert scale format. The face validity of them was verified by experts. Reliability of both questionnaires was also calculated using Cronbachʹs alpha coefficient which was 0.85 for thinking styles questionnaire and 0.80 for organizational commitment questionnaire. In order to analyze data, descriptive statistics including frequency, percentage and mean, and inferential statistics including Pearson correlation coefficient, multiple regression and multi-way ANOVA were used. Data analysis showed that there was a significant relationship between exclusive thinking style and organizational commitment (r=0.40, p < 0.01), legislative style and organizational commitment (r=0.27, p < 0.01), judicial style and organizational commitment (r=0.33, p < 0.01), monarchical style and organizational commitment (r=0.33, p < 0 .01), hierarchical style and organizational commitment (r=0.40, p < 0.01), oligarchic style and organizational commitment (r=0.39, p < 0.01), anarchic style and organizational commitment (r=0.26, p < 0.01), global style and organizational commitment (r=0.23, p < 0.01), external style and organizational commitment (r=0.36, p < 0.01), liberal style and organizational commitment (r=0.21, p < 0.01) and conservative style and organizational commitment (r=0.39, p < 0.01). However, there wasnʹt a significant relationship between internal style and organizational commitment (r=0.08, p < 0.01). Among variables in regression, the best predictor of organizational commitment of teachers in the first step was hierarchical style and in the second step was conservative style.