A Study of the Relationship Between the Personality Characteristics and the Organizational Commitment of the Principals and Teachers of Elementary, Secondary and High schools of Khansar

The main goalof this research was to investigate the relationship between principals’ and teachers’ personality characteristics and their organizational commitment in Khansar schools. The research hypotheses were examined taking into consideration the five personality characteristics (neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) and the three dimensions of organizational commitment (affective, continuance, and normative). The research method was descriptive-correlational. The target population of the study consisted of a total of 266 principals and teachers ofelementary, secondary and high schools in Khansar in the school year 2009– 2010. The sample of the study included all 30 principals (selected through census method) and 140 teachers selected (through proportional stratified random sampling method). The data collection instruments of this study were Costa and McCrae's NEO Five-factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) with 60 items and a reliability coefficient of 0.79 and Allen and Meyer’sorganizational commitment questionnaire with 24 items and the reliability coefficient of 0.75. A use was made of SPSS software to analyze at inferential and descriptive levels. The research findings revealed that there was a significantly positive relationship between principals’ and teachers’ personality characteristics and their organizational commitment. The results of stepwise multiple regression analysis also indicated that among the fivedimensions of personality neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness were potentially predictive of the affective aspect of organizational commitment, and neuroticism and conscientiousness were potentially predictive of the continuance aspect of organizational commitment, and conscientiousness was potentially predictive of thenormative aspect of organizational commitment.