The University of Chicago Press

Teachers’ Organizational Commitment: Examining the Mediating Effects of Distributed
Leadership
Author(s): Geert Devos, Melissa Tuytens, and Hester Hulpia
Source: American Journal of Education, Vol. 120, No. 2 (February 2014), pp. 205-231
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Teachers’ Organizational Commitment:
Examining the Mediating Effects of
Distributed Leadership
GEERT DEVOS
Ghent University
MELISSA TUYTENS
Ghent University
HESTER HULPIA
Ghent, Belgium
This study examines the relation between principals’ leadership and teachers’
organizational commitment, mediated by distributed leadership. Data were col-
lected from 1,495 teachers in 46 secondary schools. Structural equation modeling
indicated that the effect of principals’ leadership on teachers’ organizational
commitment is mediated by the leadership of assistant principals and teacher
leaders, cooperation within the leadership team, and participative decision mak-
ing of teachers. Therefore, principals should stimulate assistant principals and
teacher leaders to take part in leading the school, lead the school in a collegial
way with other members of the leadership team, and empower teachers to
participate in school decision making.
Introduction
Organizational commitment is a key concern in the educational system be-

cause it promotes organizational effectiveness (Park 2005; Tsui and Cheng
1999). Numerous studies have indicated that leadership is related to this or-
ganizational outcome (Dee et al. 2006; Nguni et al. 2006). However, most of
these previous studies focused only on the leadership of one person: the school
principal. Currently more attention is paid to distributed and shared forms
of leadership, where the leadership is distributed among all members of the
leadership team and where teachers can participate in school decision making.
Electronically published December 16, 2013

American Journal of Education 120 (February 2014)
䉷 2013 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
0195-6744/2014/12002-0003$10.00
FEBRUARY 2014 205

Teachers’ Organizational Commitment
A substantive amount of research on distributed leadership has been conducted

in the last decade. However, this research was mainly descriptive in nature.
Analytical studies, focusing on the knowledge base concerning the effects of
distributed leadership, are only recently emerging. For example, Heck and
Hallinger (2009) found direct effects of distributed leadership on change in
the schools’ academic capacity and small, but significant, indirect effects on
student growth rates in math. Similarly, Marks and Printy (2003) stated that
the influence of integrated leadership, for which they emphasize the impor-
tance of distributing responsibilities and sharing instructional leadership among
leaders and teachers, on the quality of pedagogy and student achievement is
substantial. Also, Leithwood and Mascall (2008) came to the conclusion that
there are modest, but significant, indirect effects of collective or distributed
leadership on student achievement. However, other researchers are more skep-
tical about the effects of distributed leadership. Silins et al. (2002) found that
the influence of distributed leadership did not extend to student engagement
or to student participation. Because the field of distributed leadership is char-
acterized by ambiguity and conflicting findings, more research is needed to
analyze which components of distributed leadership are relevant and how
these components are related to each other (Mayrowetz et al. 2007).
In the present study, we use several conceptualizations of distributed lead-
ership to build a guiding framework and to investigate the influence of the
leadership of the principal on teachers’ organizational commitment, mediated
by the leadership of the other members of the leadership team (i.e., the assistant
principals and the teacher leaders), the cooperation of this leadership team,
and the participative decision making of all teachers, taking context variables
into account.
GEERT DEVOS is an associate professor in educational administration at

the Department of Educational Studies, Ghent University. His current research
areas include educational leadership, school organization, and improvement.
MELISSA TUYTENS is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Edu-
cational Studies, Ghent University. Her main research interests are in the field
of teacher performance appraisal, teacher learning, and school leadership.
HESTER HULPIA is a former researcher at the Department of Educational
Studies, Ghent University, where she conducted her dissertation research on
distributed leadership in secondary schools. Now she is a counselor at an
expert center for education and child care in Ghent, Belgium.
206 American Journal of Education

Devos, Tuytens, and Hulpia
Theoretical Framework
Organizational Commitment
Organizational commitment is considered as a crucial concept in the man-

agement literature. Several studies indicated that teachers’ commitment to the
school can be an important predictor of teachers’ job performance because
it is positively related to job satisfaction and the dedication to attain organi-
zational goals (Dee et al. 2006; Sammons et al. 2007). Also, previous research
has consistently shown that organizational commitment is associated with
organizational citizenship behavior (Meyer and Allen 1991; Meyer et al. 2002),
which is defined as a work-related behavior that is discretionary, not related
to the formal organizational reward system, and, in the aggregate, promotes
the effective functioning of the organization (Organ 1990) and psychological
contracts (Sturges et al. 2005). A psychological contract is defined as an in-
dividual’s belief, shaped by the organization, regarding terms of an implicit
agreement between the individual and the organization (Rousseau 1995).
Hence, organizational commitment is closely related to organizational effec-
tiveness. According to Meyer and Allen (1991), organizational commitment
has three components: affective, normative, and continuance commitment.
Affective commitment refers to the employee’s emotional attachment to, iden-
tification with, and involvement in the organization. Employees with a strong
affective commitment continue employment with the organization because
they want to do so. Continuance commitment reflects an awareness of the
costs associated with leaving the organization. Employees whose primary link
to the organization is based on continuance commitment remain because they
need to do so. Finally, normative commitment reflects a feeling of obligation
to continue employment. Employees with a high level of normative commit-
ment feel that they ought to remain with the organization. Previous studies
have indicated that mainly affective commitment is dominant in explaining
organizational behavior (Meyer et al. 2002). Therefore, we limit our focus in
the present study to affective commitment of teachers.
Leadership
Research has consistently shown that leadership is a crucial predictor of or-

ganizational commitment. Scholars have stressed that especially the supportive
leadership function plays a key role in stimulating teachers’ organizational
commitment. This supportive leadership function includes several important
leadership practices that have been stressed by both instructional (Hallinger
FEBRUARY 2014 207

2003) and transformational (Leithwood and Jantzi 1999) leadership models.

Providing a shared school vision and setting directions in schools are important
to develop a committed teaching force (Nguni et al. 2006). Several studies
have indicated that school leaders who offer feedback and encouragement
increase teachers’ organizational commitment (Louis 1998; Singh and Bil-
lingsley 1998). These activities include both task-oriented support, such as
useful instructional feedback (Robinson et al. 2008), and people-oriented sup-
port, such as positive feedback and acknowledgment (Hoy et al. 1990). All
these activities are related and are influenced by interpersonal interactions
and principal-staff relations (Leithwood and Jantzi 1999; Price 2011). In this
regard, Horng et al. (2010) found that the time school leaders spent on main-
taining internal relationships within the school is positively related to teachers’
satisfaction with teaching at their school. Hence, schools with strong supportive
leadership are associated with an open school climate with higher levels of
satisfaction, cohesion around school goals, and commitment among teachers.
This leads us to the assumption that in secondary schools the supportive leadership
function of the school principal is positively related to teachers’ organizational commitment.
Distributed Leadership
Previous studies examining school leadership mainly adopted a single-person

leadership approach, and the effect of this one school leader, the principal,
was examined. However, during the last decade leadership is more and more
perceived as a process at the group level, and a distributed approach to
leadership has come into existence (Gronn 2002; Harris 2008; Spillane 2006).
Pearce and Conger (2003) stated that distributed forms of leadership are
characterized by a dynamic, interactive influence process among individuals
in groups for which the objective is to lead one another to the achievement
of the group or organizational goals or both. This influence process often
involves peer, or lateral, influence and at other times involves upward or
downward hierarchical influence. Pearce (2004) claimed that it is a simulta-
neous, ongoing, mutual influence process within a team that is characterized
by serial emergence of official as well as unofficial leaders.
In the educational management context the two leading authors concerning
distributed leadership are Gronn (2002) and Spillane (2006). Gronn (2002)
distinguished between numerical or additive leadership, which is the aggre-
gated leadership behavior of members in an organization, and the more holistic
notion of concerted action. This concerted action is understood by Gronn as
an added dynamic that is the product of conjoint activity. In this sense, lead-
ership is understood as an emergent property of a group or network of in-
teracting individuals. The concerted action of people working together takes

place within a pattern of interpersonal relationships, and group members can

pool their expertise, which brings about a situation in which the amount of
energy created is greater than the sum of the individual actions. Similarly,
Spillane (2006) considered that distributed leadership consists of two essential
elements: namely, the leader-plus and the practice aspect. The leader-plus
aspect refers to the recognition that leading and managing schools can involve
multiple individuals: the leader plus other individuals. The practice aspect
moves the focus from aggregating the actions of individual leaders to the
interaction between leaders, followers, and their situation. The latter implies
a social distribution of leadership in which the leadership functions are
stretched over the work of a number of individuals, and tasks are accomplished
through interaction between multiple leaders. This practice aspect implies that
distributed leadership is broader than a delegation of leadership tasks. Dele-
gation refers to the reallocation of work from one person to another, and the
person to whom the task is delegated is authorized to do that work in a solo
way (Rayner and Gunter 2005). In contrast, in distributed leadership, functions
are stretched over the leadership team and all members pool their expertise
and work together in an interactive way, so that the leadership function be-
comes an emergent property of a group (Gronn 2002).
Although distributed leadership is a hot topic in the educational manage-
ment literature, it remains an unclear and divergent concept, which is difficult
to capture (Harris 2008; Spillane 2006). We will consider several perspectives
on distributed leadership and explain how this and other related concepts
such as collective leadership or teacher leadership have been operationalized
in different studies. As already indicated, the concept of distributed leadership
suggests that leadership is not restricted to the principal as the head cheer-
leader, but that people in other leadership positions also have a role in the
provision of the leadership function (Spillane 2006). Other senior managers
(e.g., assistant principals) can take on leadership responsibilities in supporting
teachers. A third group of people that can be involved in the distribution of
leadership are teacher leaders (Coleman and Earley 2005). All of these formal
leadership positions can be considered as potential sources of distributed lead-
ership. However, the distribution of leadership is more than the mere aggre-
gation of formal leadership positions. As Pounder et al. (1995) have indicated,
individuals in high-level offices can influence through their traits and actions
the culture and performance of organizations. This approach leads to a more
integrated model of organizational leadership. Ogawa and Bossert (1995) con-
ceptualize leadership as an organizational quality. They indicate that all mem-
bers of an organization can lead. Thus leadership is not a zero-sum game
and the amount of leadership in organizations can rise and fall over time. In
line with this perspective and by avoiding to see leadership as a mere individual
phenomenon of people in high offices, Heck and Hallinger (2009) have con-
FEBRUARY 2014 209

sidered distributed leadership as a form of participative and collaborative

decision making. In their study, distributed leadership is measured by a com-
posite of items describing teacher perceptions about the involvement of teach-
ers, parents, and other stakeholders in collaborative decision making and
school governance. In their study on leadership, Louis et al. (2010) also con-
sidered the involvement of teachers, teacher teams, and students in schoolwide
decision making. Both studies perceive distributed leadership as a collective
form of decision making in which mainly teachers but also other stakeholders
(e.g., students or parents) take part. Leithwood and Mascall (2008) concep-
tualized collective leadership as a form of distributed influence and control.
They measured collective leadership with items concerning a single source of
influence, including district administrators, principals, other school adminis-
trators, individual teachers, teachers with designated leadership roles, staff
teams, individual parents, parent advisory groups, and students.
Another perspective that is also related to distributed leadership is the
concept of teacher leadership (Harris and Muijs 2005). There is no simple
definition of teacher leaders in schools. In general, it is acknowledged that
they play a dual, intermediary function, because they constitute a layer of
management between the senior management team and those in the workplace
(Fleming 2000). Harris and Muijs (2005) have indicated that teachers can take
on formal or informal roles in distributing leadership. On the one hand,
teacher leaders in formal roles work part-time or full-time outside their class-
room to support school- or districtwide issues (Manno and Firestone 2008).
They hold official titles such as literacy coordinator, mentor, or math coach.
Formal teacher leaders hold a middle position between teaching and admin-
istration (Firestone and Martinez 2007). Spillane and Kim (2012) demonstrated
that especially part-time formal teacher leaders are more integrated in their
school’s advice and information networks, which could be caused by their
dual role as both a leader and a classroom teacher that enables them to
maintain their peer status. On the other hand, teacher leaders in informal
roles are full-time classroom teachers who can play a coaching role to other
teachers, in which they provide help and advice for problems that other
teachers experience (York-Barr and Duke 2004). It is complex to identify and
measure the contribution of informal teacher leaders to the distribution of
leadership in schools. As this kind of leadership is informal, it is difficult to
identify who is providing this informal leadership. Moreover, as this leadership
is informal, it is a complex task to identify the true influence that this informal
leadership generates. Also, Moolenaar (2012) argues that the influence of
informal leaders might differ greatly among schools.
Another recent perspective in which social network analysis is used directs
the focus of attention to the relationship between the principal and the teach-
ers. Crawford (2012) claims that distributed leadership could be seen in the

light of the social relationships within an organization. As a starting point for

this, the centrality and the closeness of the principal’s position in the relations
between teachers are considered. The study of Moolenaar et al. (2010) ana-
lyzed how the centrality and the closeness of the principal’s social network
position were related to teachers’ professional and personal advice seeking by
the teachers. In this study, school leadership was clearly considered as a focused
form of transformational leadership, concentrated in one individual, the prin-
cipal. Here, the analysis was concentrated on the way school principals can
influence teachers by taking on a central position in the social network of the
school. Another study by Daly and Finnigan (2010) focused on the network
of the leaders themselves without involving teachers. These authors mention
that although leaders themselves often think they have a good understanding
of the social relationships surrounding them, their perceptions have been
shown to be less accurate than they think.
It is clear from this short review of different studies that the concept of
distributed leadership is difficult to measure and that several ways of concep-
tualizing this type of leadership are possible. Several authors have urged for
the development of measurement tools that could be used in broad samples
(Neumerski 2012; Spillane and Healey 2010). In our analysis, we have tried
to include several elements in our definition of distributed leadership in order
to develop a more comprehensive understanding of distributed leadership
(Hulpia et al. 2009a). By making certain choices, we have also decided not
to include certain perspectives, not because they are not valuable, but because
it is difficult to include all possible stances, measures, and perspectives on
distributed leadership in one study. However, by making our choices in con-
ceptualizing and measuring distributed leadership more explicitly, we clarify
our conceptual and methodological definition of distributed leadership. First
of all, to capture the aggregated or numerical (Gronn 2002) and the leader-
plus aspect (Spillane 2006) of distributed leadership, we conceptualize dis-
tributed leadership as the distribution of the supportive leadership function
among the formal leadership positions in schools. This is in line with Camburn
et al. (2003) and Leithwood and Jantzi (2000) and with Leithwood and Mascall
(2008), who all consider formal positions as important sources of leadership.
The persons with formal leadership positions that we will include in our study
are the principal, the assistant principals, and the formal teacher leaders. We
believe that the teachers’ perception of the amount of leadership provided by
the different individuals in formal leadership positions is important to include
in the measurement of distributed leadership. However, we acknowledge that
this counting up of formal leadership positions is not a sufficient definition of
distributed leadership. In order to grasp also the concerted action (Gronn
2002) and the practice aspect (Spillane 2006) of distributed leadership, we
extend our conceptualization with the cooperation of the leadership team.
FEBRUARY 2014 211

Leadership in schools does not depend only on the amount of leadership that
each formal leader provides. As Spillane and Healey (2010) indicate, it is
important to move beyond the actions of the individual leaders and to look
at the collective of the leaders and their interactions. It is of major importance
that these formal leaders coordinate their actions and that they act as one.
Strong individual leaders who communicate differently or even contradictorily
can lead to more confusion and disorientation (Leithwood et al. 2007) instead
of coherence and organizational commitment. Therefore, it is important to
analyze if the team members have shared aims and objectives, if there is
mutual trust and dependency, open expression of feelings and disagreement,
and decision making by consensus (Mullins 2005). The two above-mentioned
perspectives of distributed leadership (i.e., the distribution of leadership func-
tions across formally designated leaders and the cooperation of the leadership
team) focus solely on the persons with formal leadership positions. However,
leadership should not be restricted to leaders at the top of the organization.
As stated above, some researchers believe that leadership can also be distrib-
uted among all members in the school (Elmore 2000; Heck and Hallinger
2009; Louis et al. 2010; Ogawa and Bossert 1995). This is important since
several scholars argue that teachers who participate in decision making feel
a greater sense of ownership, which leads to more organizational commitment
(Spillane and Kim 2012; Stoelinga and Mangin 2010). Therefore, we added
a third perspective to distributed leadership, namely, teachers’ participative
decision making. This reflects the extent to which teachers participate in the
decision-making process at school, and it assumes that the decision-making
processes of the group ought to be the central focus of the group (Leithwood
et al. 1999). As Leithwood et al. (2009, 7) stated, “Participative leadership is
among the lines of leadership research closely related to our meaning of
distributed leadership.” Similarly, Muijs and Harris (2006) claimed that shared
decision making, where teachers were given responsibility to make decisions
on behalf of the school, is a dimension of teacher leadership.
In the following part, we discuss our operationalization of the three per-
spectives of distributed leadership more in depth.
Aggregation of leadership positions.—Leadership in schools is no longer solely
performed by the school principal; instead leadership is an aggregated func-
tion, and other members of the leadership team with formally designated
leadership roles take part in leading the school. These formal leaders can be
the assistant principals. Also, teacher leaders with formal leadership positions
but who have no hierarchical authority over other teachers are responsible
for mentoring colleagues, coordinating curriculum activities, and providing
professional support (Firestone and Martinez 2007), and hence play a lead-
ership role. On the basis of the study of Leithwood and Mascall (2008), who
found that teachers in formally designated roles are significantly related to

teachers’ capacity, motivation, and work setting, it can be assumed that, next
to the principal, these other members of the leadership team (i.e., assistant principals
and formal teacher leaders) influence teachers’ commitment to the school.
Cooperation within the leadership team.—As mentioned before, Spillane (2006)
claimed that distributed leadership is more than the aggregation of leadership.
It is also about the concerted action (Gronn 2002). Therefore, we focus on
the cooperation within the leadership team. We consider all formal leaders
in the school—the principal, the assistant principals, and the formal teacher
leaders—as part of the leadership team. The leadership team is ideally char-
acterized by three components: (1) role clarity or the presence of clear role
divisions and clear management structures among the members of the lead-
ership team; (2) goal orientedness or a clearly formulated vision and mission
that is shared by all members of the team; and (3) group cohesion or the
openness of the team members, their mutual trust, communication, and co-
operation (Holtz 2004). In the present study we assume that the cooperation at
the level of the leadership team is related to teachers’ commitment to the school. This is
based on the study by Friederich et al. (2009), who noted that simply having
multiple leaders, or a top management team, is not sufficient for positive team
effectiveness and organizational outcomes. Rather, it is the effective sharing
of information, collaboration, and joint decision making among leaders that
are critical. They also believed that the utilization of diverse expertise within
a team is beneficial to team performance and organizational outcomes.
Furthermore, the cooperation within the leadership team is assumed to be related to
the size of the leadership team. On the basis of Leithwood and Jantzi (2000), who
found that more leadership actually detracts from clarity of purpose and sense
of mission, we assume that more members in the leadership team may lead
to more complexity in the organization and communication at the team level.
Participative decision making of teachers.—Several researchers believe that dis-
tributed leadership should not be restricted to those in formal leadership
positions; instead, all teachers should be involved in leading the school (Elmore
2000; Heck and Hallinger 2009). In line with Leithwood et al. (2009) and
Muijs and Harris (2006), we consider that participative leadership is, among
the lines of leadership research, closely related to distributed leadership. As
participative decision making of teachers may lead to greater acceptance of
jointly made decisions, an increased sense of responsibility, and motivation to
accomplish organizational goals (Leithwood and Mascall 2008), we assume
that participative decision making is related to teachers’ organizational commitment.
Although numerical scholars believed that leadership is distributed within
a group or team of individuals rather than localized in any one individual
who serves in the role of supervisor (Pearce and Conger 2003), research has
consistently shown that the school principal remains a key actor in defining
how the leadership is distributed (Harris 2008; Spillane 2006). For example,
FEBRUARY 2014 213

Friederich et al. (2009) stated that someone must be the banker, who is re-
sponsible for the efficient distribution of leadership. Leithwood et al. (2007)
claimed that school principals have a great deal of responsibility for making
distributed leadership work in the school. Also, Cox et al. (2003) stated that
the vertical leader retains a range of important responsibilities in shared lead-
ership contexts. Therefore, we assume that the leadership of the principal influences
the distributed leadership dimensions. More specifically, in line with previous re-
search, we assume that the leadership of the principal is related to the lead-
ership of the assistant principal and the teacher leaders (Hughes and James
1999). For example, Sanders (2006) found that a lack of support from the
principal was a key obstacle for effective teacher leadership. Furthermore, the
school principal facilitates the work of the leadership team, which influences
the role clarity, group cohesion, and goal orientedness of the team (Chrispeels
et al. 2000). Also, Wageman (2001) indicated that how leaders design and
support or coach their team defines the effectiveness of the team. Finally,
previous studies found that the principal influences the participative decision
making of teachers. For example, Silins and Mulford (2004) stated that in
schools where the principal promotes a trusting and collaborative climate and
establishes school structures and processes that support shared decision mak-
ing, teachers can take initiative and participate in school decisions. As Davis
and Wilson (2000, 349) stated, “Several authors have theorized that leadership
plays an important role in creating an empowering environment, one that is
positive and motivating, one that promotes self-determination and efficacy.
. . . According to Vogt and Murrell [1990], leaders can nurture intrinsic
empowerment in the workplace by encouraging and . . . facilitating decision
making [of teachers].” So, again, the school principal plays a critical role in
stimulating others to take lead in the school.
Next to distributed leadership variables, teachers’ organizational commit-
ment can be influenced by context variables. We first focus on demographic
variables: seniority and gender. On the basis of previous research (Brunetti
2001; Hulpia et al. 2009b), we assume that teachers with more job experience
tend to be less committed to the school, compared to teachers with less job
experience. Concerning teachers’ gender, some research revealed that female
teachers are more committed to the school than male teachers (Reyes 1992).
However, other scholars did not find a significant difference between male
and female teachers (Park 2005). Furthermore, we pay attention to structural
school variables that are related to distributed leadership, more specifically,
the school type. Concerning the school type, we assume that leadership is
differently distributed in schools providing general education and schools pro-
viding technical and/or vocational education. In the latter school type, more
formal leadership functions exist. More specifically, in schools providing tech-

nical and/or vocational education, there are technical advisors who are re-
sponsible for organizational and administrative aspects of the technical and/
or vocational departments in the schools. Hence, if we assume that aspects
of distributed leadership can be related to teachers’ organizational commit-
ment, we need to examine the relation between school type and teachers’
organizational commitment. However, although many researchers have as-
sumed that context variables influence organizational commitment, other re-
searchers have suggested that the influence of context variables diminishes
when perceptions of the respondents on school leadership are included in
predictive models (Meyer and Allen 1991; Meyer et al. 2002). Given these
inconsistent views, we include context variables in our research and explore
whether they are related to teachers’ organizational commitment.
Research Questions
On the basis of the theoretical framework, the main aim of the present study
is to examine whether the relationship between the leadership of the school
leader and teachers’ organizational commitment is mediated by the distributed
leadership variables, more specifically, the leadership of the assistant principals
and the teacher leaders, the cooperation at the level of the leadership team,
and the participative decision making of teachers. Also, the relation between
demographic variables such as gender and job seniority and/or structural
school variables such as school type and size of the leadership team and
teachers’ commitment to the school is examined. This leads us to the following
research questions:
1. What is the direct and indirect relation between the leadership of the
school principal and teachers’ organizational commitment?
2. Is the relation between the leadership of the principal and teachers’
organizational commitment mediated by (a) the leadership of the assistant
principals and the teacher leaders, (b) the cooperation within the lead-
ership team, and (c) the participative decision making of teachers?
3. What is the direct relation between context variables (i.e., gender, job
seniority, school type) and teachers’ organizational commitment?
4. What is the indirect relation between the size of the leadership team
and teachers’ organizational commitment mediated by the cooperation
within the leadership team?
Figure 1 summarizes the research model.
FEBRUARY 2014 215

FIG. 1.—The hypothesized research model
Method
Sample
In the present study there was a stratified random selection of 46 secondary

schools in Flanders, Belgium, taking the geographic region and the denomi-
nation (i.e., community, subsidized private, and subsidized public) into account
(N p 360 schools). We opted for secondary schools with more than 600 pupils
because these schools have a formal management structure with a minimum
of one assistant principal. The mean school size was 977 pupils (minimum
600, maximum 2,930) and 121 teachers (minimum 55, maximum 410). The
principals of the 46 schools were contacted, the research purpose was ex-
plained, and basic information about the school and the leadership team was
requested. For each school the identities of the principal, the assistant prin-
cipals, and the teacher leaders were established during an initial interview
with the principal, and the questionnaires were adapted accordingly. In ad-
dition, the leadership team was defined as the sum of all formal leaders. During
the initial interview with the principal we verified that the leadership team of

the school, as defined in the questionnaire, corresponded with the existing

executive committee of the school that could easily be identified by the teach-
ers. Also, all participating respondents received a cover letter explaining the
study purpose, procedures, and methods to protect anonymity. The number
of leadership team members was a minimum of three and a maximum of 23,
with a mean of 11. In the 46 schools all teachers of the second stage (14–16-
year-old pupils) participated in the survey; 1,522 teachers returned the ques-
tionnaire, representing a response rate of 64%. This general response rate
mirrors the response rate per school. The minimum response rate per school
was 50%. The average response per school was 33 teachers. Because of item
nonresponse on the question of job seniority, the data of 1,495 teachers are
used in the present study. The sample comprised 58.1% women, and partic-
ipants’ average job seniority was 13 years. These numbers reflect the frequency
of female teachers and the average for job seniority of the entire population
of Flemish teachers in secondary schools.
Data Collection
On the basis of the theoretical framework used in this study, we developed a

self-report questionnaire: the Distributed Leadership Inventory (DLI; Hulpia
et al. 2009a). The DLI measures the supportive leadership of formal designated
leaders (i.e., principal, assistant principal, teacher leaders), the cooperation
within the leadership team, and participative decision making of teachers.
More information concerning the questionnaire is provided in appendix A,
available online.
Supportive leadership function of the principal, assistant principals, and teacher lead-
ers.—First, respondents are asked to rate the individual leadership function of
the school principal, the assistant principals, and the teacher leaders. In the
present research, we limit our focus to the “supportive” leadership function,
characterized by providing a school vision, setting directions to teachers, and
providing instructional support to teachers, because previous research revealed
that the quality of the supportive leadership function is related to organiza-
tional outcomes (Hulpia et al. 2009b). For each formally or informally des-
ignated leader the items are rated on a five-point Likert scale ranging from
zero (never) to four (always). The scales used in this first part of the DLI were
selected on grounds of demonstrated validity and reliability in previous re-
search: strength of vision (De Maeyer et al. 2007), supportive behavior (Hoy
and Tarter 1997), providing instructional support, and providing intellectual
stimulation (Leithwood and Jantzi 1999).
Cooperation within the leadership team.—Second, respondents are asked how
they perceive the cooperation at the level of the leadership team; this measure
FEBRUARY 2014 217

tapped into teachers’ perceptions of the role ambiguity, the group cohesion,
and the degree of goal orientedness among the members of the leadership
team, adopted, respectively, from Litwin and Stringer (1968), Rizzo et al.
(1970), and Staessens (1990). Participants are asked to rate each statement on
a five-point Likert scale ranging from zero (strongly disagree) to four (strongly
agree).
Participative decision making of teachers.—Third, in the next part of the DLI,
the validated subscale of Leithwood and Jantzi (1999), developing structures
to foster participation in school decisions, was applied. Participants were asked
to rate each statement on a five-point Likert scale ranging from zero (strongly
disagree) to four (strongly agree).
Organizational commitment.—The organizational commitment of teachers is
also investigated. We used a translation of the organizational commitment
questionnaire (Mowday et al. 1979). Participants rate each statement on a
five-point Likert scale ranging from zero (strongly disagree) to four (strongly
agree).
Context variables.—Finally, demographic variables of teachers (e.g., years of
job experience and gender [male 1, female 0]) and structural school variables
(e.g., school type [general 1, technical and/or vocational 0] and size of the
leadership team) are integrated in the questionnaire.
Data Analyses
We tested the model presented in figure 1 using AMOS 18 for structural

equation modeling. In evaluating the model fit, we supplement the model x2
statistic with both absolute and incremental fit indices (Bentler and Bonett
1980) because the x2 is highly sensitive to sample size. Absolute fit indices
evaluate how well an a priori model reproduces the sample data. We report
the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) for which a value less
than 0.06 indicates a good model fit (Hu and Bentler 1999), and a value less
than 0.08 suggests a reasonable model fit (Schreiber et al. 2006). Incremental
fit indexes evaluate the model fit by comparing a target model to a baseline
model. Typically, the null model in which all observed variables are uncor-
related is used as a baseline model. We report the comparative fit index (CFI),
the Tucker-Lewis index (TLI), and the adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI),
which have cutoff values close to 0.90 (Kline 1998) or 0.95 (Hu and Bentler
1999).
A multiple mediation model was examined in the present study, which
involves simultaneous mediation by multiple variables (Preacher and Hayes
2008). To test these mediation effects, we used Sobel’s (1982) test and the
bootstrapping approach to calculate whether the mediating effects are signif-

icant. The aim of the mediation analyses is to test whether the relationship
between leadership provided by the school principal and organizational com-
mitment is partly explained because of a mediation effect of the leadership
of the assistant principal, the leadership of the teacher leaders, the cooperation
within the leadership team, and/or the participative decision making of teach-
ers. According to the Sobel test, if the z-score of the difference c ⫺ c of the
overall effect (c) of the independent variable (i.e., leadership of the principal)
on the dependent variable (i.e., teachers’ organizational commitment) and its
direct effect independent of the mediator variables (c ) is statistically significant,
then mediation exists. If the direct effect (c ) of the independent variable on
the dependent variable is reduced to zero in relation to the total effect (c),
then perfect mediation exists. If the direct effect decreases, but not to zero,
partial mediation exists. In addition, the bias-corrected bootstrapping ap-
proach estimates the indirect effect by sampling with replacement (in this case
5,000 samples), estimating a standard error of the indirect effects, and deter-
mining a 90% confidence interval of the population effect (Preacher and Hayes
2008). If the confidence interval of the indirect effect does not include zero,
then the indirect effect is significant (p ! .05) and mediation exists.
Results
Descriptive Results
The descriptive results, presented in table 1, reveal that according to the

respondents of the present study, the principal is the main actor in leading
teachers (M p 2.58). Also, the assistant principal is involved in the leadership
(M p 2.45) as well as teacher leaders (M p 2.27). The results in table 1 also
TABLE 1
Means and Standard Deviations

TEACHERS
(n p 1,495)
Mean SD
Leadership:
Principal 2.58 .87
Assistant principal 2.45 .87
Teacher leaders 2.27 .86
Cooperation within the leadership team 2.68 .66
Participative decision making of teachers 2.44 .66
Organizational commitment 2.96 .71
FEBRUARY 2014 219

suggest that leadership teams are mainly perceived as cooperative (M p 2.68)

and that the participative decision making is valued moderately positively by
teachers (M p 2.44). In terms of the outcome variables, the results show that
teachers feel committed to the school (M p 2.96).
Mediation Model
We next discuss the study results for the research model in which we examine
the hypothetical model, which assumes that the relationship between the lead-
ership of the principal and teachers’ organizational commitment is mediated
by the distributed leadership variables, taking context variables into account.
The first path model did not reveal satisfactory model fit results: x2 p
1,246.968 (df p 32; p ! .001), CFI p .733, TLI p .625, AGFI p.740,
RMSEA p .159. Given the inadequate fit of the first model, we respecified
the model on the basis of the modification indices and an examination of the
fitted residuals. In the second path model, the error terms of measurement
associated with the distributed leadership variables are correlated. These cor-
relations are theoretically justified because convergence between the distrib-
uted leadership variables is assumed (Cole et al. 2007). Furthermore, the school
type and the size of the leadership team are correlated: schools providing
technical and/or vocational education, in general, have larger leadership teams
because they can appoint technical advisors who are responsible for organi-
zational and administrative aspects of the technical and/or vocational de-
partments in the schools. The second path model revealed satisfactory model
fit results: x2 p 231.41 (df p 27; p ! .001), CFI p .955, TLI p .925, AGFI
p .938, RMSEA p .071.
The final model, represented in figure 2, shows the direct standardized
regression coefficients (b weights) as well as the explained variance (R 2) for
the endogenous variables. For the sake of clarity, the correlations among the
error terms are not depicted in figure 2. However, these correlations are
presented in appendix B, available online. Concerning the effect of the dis-
tributed leadership variables, and the context variables on teachers’ organi-
zational commitment, the direct, indirect, and total effects are presented in
table 2. Also, the results of the Sobel analyses and the bootstrap confidence
intervals are depicted in table 2.
In line with our theoretical model (fig. 1), the results show that the school
principal strongly influences how leadership is distributed. More specifically,
teachers’ perception concerning the leadership of the school principal is
strongly related to the leadership of the assistant principal, the leadership of
the teacher leaders, the participative decision making of teachers, and the
cooperation within the leadership team. For each of these mediating variables,

FIG. 2.—Final model. Values represent standardized estimates as well as the ex-
plained variance for the endogenous variables (R 2).
we report the R 2 or the explained variance. We observe that the leadership

of the principal contributes for each mediating variable to the explained var-
iance of the variable (e.g., 20% of the variance in leadership of teacher leaders
is explained by the leadership of the principal; 36% of the variance in par-
ticipative decision making is explained by the leadership of the principal).
Furthermore, the results indicate that mainly the cooperation at the level
of the leadership team is directly related to teachers’ commitment to the school.
This implies that teachers who believe that their leaders share the same goals,
have clear roles, and trust each other can identify with and are involved in
their school. The other distributed leadership variables influence teachers’
organizational commitment in a moderate way. There is not a strong direct
relation between teachers’ perceptions concerning the leadership of the assis-
tant principals, the leadership of the teacher leaders, teachers’ participative
FEBRUARY 2014 221

TABLE 2
Direct, Indirect, and Total Effects and Sobel’s Test

Standardized Standardized Standardized Sobel’s Test for
Total Effects Direct Effects Indirect Effects Mediation Effect
Leadership:
Principal .545* .152* .393*
(.515; .574) (.107; .198) (.359; .427)
Assistant principal .131* .131* 4.92*
(.086; .172) (.086; .172)
Teacher leaders .079* .079* 3.38*
(.040; .120) (.040; .120)
Cooperation within the lead-
ership team .267* .267* 8.83*
(.218; .314) (.218; .314)
Participative decision making .182* .182* 6.45*
(.135; .227) (.135; .227)
School type ⫺.054 ⫺.054
(⫺.092; ⫺.023) (⫺.092; ⫺.023)
Teachers’ gender .039 .039
(.006; .072) (.006; .072)
Teachers’ seniority ⫺.111* ⫺.111*
(⫺.143; ⫺.080) (⫺.143; ⫺.080)
Size leadership team ⫺.010 ⫺.010 ⫺2.85
(⫺.019; ⫺.003) (⫺.019; ⫺.003)
NOTE.—The upper and lower bounds of the 90% confidence interval (shown in
parentheses) were based on the findings from a bias-corrected bootstrapping analysis
(5,000 bootstrap samples).
* p ! .001.
decision making, and teachers’ organizational commitment. In total, we ob-

serve 44% of explained variance (R 2) in teachers’ organizational commitment
explained by the diverse variables in our model (i.e., mainly the mediating
distributive leadership variables and leadership of the principal).
Also, the direct influence of the leadership of the principal on teachers’
commitment to the school is rather weak. However, our analysis revealed a
strong total effect of the leadership of the school principal on teachers’ com-
mitment to the school, suggesting that teachers’ perceptions concerning the
distributed leadership variables mediate the relation between their perception
concerning the leadership of the principal and their commitment to the school.
This partial mediation of the principal’s leadership is also confirmed by Sobel’s
test. Additionally, given that none of the 90% confidence intervals contained
zero, the results from the bootstrapping analyses were consistent with the results
from the Sobel tests, suggesting that the data are consistent with partial me-
diation.
Finally, the results of the structural equation model indicated that seniority
is the only context variable that is significantly related to teachers’ organi-
zational commitment: teachers with more job experience tended to be less
committed to the school than teachers with less job experience. This finding

is in line with the view of Brunetti (2001), who found that experienced teachers
feel less committed and satisfied than less experienced teachers. Also, Sammons
et al. (2007) came to the conclusion that sustaining commitment is likely to
be more difficult for teachers in the later years of their professional lives.
Furthermore, the results reveal insignificant regression weights between gender
and school type as exogenous variables and organizational commitment as an
endogenous variable. This corroborates previous research of Park (2005) and
Tsui and Cheng (1999), who stated that context variables do not have a strong
or consistent influence on teachers’ organizational commitment. Also, the
meta-analysis of Mathieu and Zajac (1990) revealed that the correlations be-
tween context variables and organizational commitment tended to be fairly
small. Finally, the size of the leadership team was not significantly directly
related to teachers’ perceptions concerning the cooperation within the lead-
ership team nor indirectly to teachers’ organizational commitment. This im-
plies that leadership teams with more members were not characterized by
role ambiguity or a lack of goal orientedness or group cohesion and thus did
not influence teachers’ commitment to the school.
Discussion
The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationship between an

integrative framework of distributed leadership and teachers’ organizational
commitment. Previous research has addressed mainly a direct relation between
the leadership of one “heroic” leader, the school principal, and teachers’
organizational commitment. We based our theoretical model on the distributed
leadership framework, and we define leadership as a collective endeavor (Spil-
lane 2006). The concept of distributed leadership is difficult to define. Several
studies have considered distributed leadership in a different way, and scholars
have used related concepts such as collective leadership, participative lead-
ership, or teacher leadership. We have defined distributed leadership from
three different perspectives. First of all, in line with Camburn et al. (2003),
Leithwood and Jantzi (2000), and Leithwood and Mascall (2008), we consid-
ered the individuals in formal leadership positions as important sources of
leadership. We have included principals, assistant principals, and teacher lead-
ers who work part-time or full-time outside the classroom as formal leaders.
Second, in order to grasp the concerted action of distributed leadership (Gronn
2002), we have included a second perspective, the cooperation between the
formal leaders in the leadership team. We have analyzed teachers’ perceptions
of the role ambiguity, the group cohesion, and the degree of goal orientation
between the members of the leadership team. Third, certain researchers have
suggested that leadership is distributed among all members in the school. The
FEBRUARY 2014 223

involvement of teachers in the decision-making process (Heck and Hallinger

2009; Leithwood et al. 2007; Louis et al. 2010; Muijs and Harris 2006) has
been considered as an important element in distributing leadership. Therefore,
we have included teachers’ participative decision making as a third perspective
of distributed leadership.
We proposed and investigated a model that examines the relation between
the leadership of the school principal and teachers’ organizational commitment
mediated by the leadership of other members of the leadership team (i.e., the
assistant principal and the teacher leaders), the cooperation at the level of this
leadership team, and participative decision making of teachers. In order to
test this mediation model, structural equation modeling is used.
The results showed that the leadership provided by the principal and teach-
ers’ organizational commitment were related to the mediation of the distrib-
uted leadership variables. This integrative approach makes a theoretical, meth-
odological, and practical contribution to existing educational management
literature in which leadership was mainly studied from a single-person per-
spective.
Our study revealed that teachers’ perception of the cooperation at the level
of the leadership team is directly related to teachers’ organizational commit-
ment. This finding is in line with Friederich et al. (2009), who claimed that
increments in organizational outcomes are associated with the extent to which
the leadership team share information, collaborate, and make decisions to-
gether. The relevance of cooperation at the leadership team level can be an
indication of the importance of planful alignment as one of the patterns of
distributed leadership identified by Leithwood et al. (2007). Planful alignment
is a leadership configuration in which the tasks or functions of those providing
leadership have been given prior thoughtful consideration and agreements
have been worked out among the organizational leaders and teachers about
which leadership practices or functions are best carried out by which source.
Leithwood et al. found that planful alignment is a more effective pattern of
distributing leadership than other patterns that are not planned (spontaneous
alignment) or are not implemented systematically (spontaneous misalignment)
or a distribution of leadership on which leaders and teachers do not agree
(anarchic misalignment). Although we did not analyze the degree of planning
and consideration in advance of the different tasks in the leadership teams in
our study, we found that teachers with higher organizational commitment
perceive the cooperation between the leadership team as well structured, with
clear goals and a clear task division that is implemented consequently. In
addition, group cohesion and the degree of goal orientation of the different
leadership team members were of major importance for the way teachers
perceive the cooperation within the leadership team. Future research should
analyze more systematically if the degree of planning and consideration in

advance of the different tasks of the leadership team in schools is related to

teachers’ organizational commitment.
Also, participative decision making emerges as a determinant for teachers’
commitment to the school. This corroborated the study of Dee et al. (2006),
who concluded that teachers’ empowerment is associated with higher levels
of commitment to the school organization. However, the direct relation be-
tween teachers’ perceptions concerning their own voice in school decision
making and their organizational commitment is only moderate. We assume
that teachers still perceive leadership as a function of formal leaders, and not
as a task for classroom teachers. This could imply that the majority of teachers
still have a restricted professional orientation (Hoyle 1980). Also, Opdenakker
and Van Damme (2007) claimed that in Flemish secondary schools there is
a rather limited existence of a strong participative professionally oriented
leadership, which could explain the lack of an effect on school practice char-
acteristics.
Concerning the direct effects of the supportive leadership of the school
principal, the assistant principals, and the teacher leaders, our study reveals
moderate results. More specifically, teachers are more committed to the school
when teachers perceive their principal, their assistant principals, and their
teacher leaders as supportive leaders, who provide a clear school vision, set
directions for teachers, and provide instructional support to teachers. At the
level of the school principal, our study affirms previous research of Nguni et
al. (2006) and Singh and Billingsley (1998), who came to the conclusion that
the leadership of the principal is associated with teachers’ commitment to the
school. However, the direct effects of the different members of the leadership
team are clearly less important than we anticipated. But our results do not
suggest that leadership is unimportant. In contrast, the Sobel test and the
bootstrapping procedures confirm the statistical significance of partial medi-
ation effects. This implies that the indirect effect of the school principal,
mediated by the distributed leadership variables, is strongly related to teachers’
commitment to the schools. Also, the 44% explained variance in teachers’
commitment shows that both leadership of the principal and the distributed
leadership variables contribute to the variance in teachers’ organizational
commitment in our model. Our findings indicate that the school principal
remains a pivotal player who should stimulate distributed forms of leadership
in the school. This is in line with Harris (2008) and Spillane (2006). More
specifically, teachers feel more committed to the school when the principal
provides opportunities for the assistant principals and the teacher leaders to
perform leadership roles. Next, in schools where the school principals create
a sense of we-ness among the members of the leadership team and where
they stimulate their colleagues of the leadership team to work together in a
cooperative way, to have group cohesion, role clarity, and goal orientedness,
FEBRUARY 2014 225

teachers feel more committed to the school as an organization. Finally, when

the principal stimulates teachers to participate in school decision making,
teachers will be more committed as well. In general, our study implies that
school principals should learn the art of creating and facilitating the process
of distributing leadership in order to have committed teachers in their school.
As in any empirical research, our study has some limitations, which reveal
interesting avenues for further research. First, the data were gathered using
self-report questionnaires, which could lead to same source bias. In future
research other measures of the leadership variables, based on the perceptions
or observations of both school internal and external respondents, could be
used. Second, our study revealed that the study variables are only moderately
related to teachers’ organizational commitment. It is likely that factors other
than distributed leadership factors and context variables may affect teachers’
commitment to the school. For example, a direct and indirect relation between
organizational (e.g., job characteristics, school culture) and work-related an-
tecedents (e.g., personal factors; Schultz and Schultz 2006) and teachers’ or-
ganizational commitment can be investigated in further research. Third, we
used teachers’ organizational commitment as the dependent variable. Further
research could elaborate the dependent variables. For example, the relation
between school leadership and student performance mediated by the distrib-
uted leadership dimensions could be studied. However, on the basis of Op-
denakker and Van Damme (2007), who found that in Flemish secondary
schools, school leadership did not affect the school practice of students, we
did not examine this relation. Finally, the cross-sectional design does not allow
for conclusions concerning causality. Future research using longitudinal studies
could unravel the reciprocal relations between the leadership of the school
principal, the distributed leadership variables, and teachers’ organizational
commitment.
Nevertheless, our results support our main assumption that teachers’ dis-
tributed leadership variables (leadership of the assistant principals and the
teacher leaders, cooperation within the leadership team, and participative
decision making) mediated the predictive relation of teachers’ perceptions
concerning the leadership of the school principal and teachers’ commitment
to the school.
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Teachers’ Organizational Commitment: Examining the Mediating Effects of Distributed

This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 2 Oct 2015 02:46:59 AM

Organizational commitment is a key concern in the educational system be-

Electronically published December 16, 2013

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A substantive amount of research on distributed leadership has been conducted

GEERT DEVOS is an associate professor in educational administration at

206 American Journal of Education

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Organizational commitment is considered as a crucial concept in the man-

Research has consistently shown that leadership is a crucial predictor of or-

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2003) and transformational (Leithwood and Jantzi 1999) leadership models.

Previous studies examining school leadership mainly adopted a single-person

208 American Journal of Education

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place within a pattern of interpersonal relationships, and group members can

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sidered distributed leadership as a form of participative and collaborative

210 American Journal of Education

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light of the social relationships within an organization. As a starting point for

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212 American Journal of Education

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214 American Journal of Education

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Figure 1 summarizes the research model.

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FIG. 1.—The hypothesized research model

In the present study there was a stratified random selection of 46 secondary

216 American Journal of Education

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the school, as defined in the questionnaire, corresponded with the existing

On the basis of the theoretical framework used in this study, we developed a

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We tested the model presented in figure 1 using AMOS 18 for structural

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The descriptive results, presented in table 1, reveal that according to the

Means and Standard Deviations

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suggest that leadership teams are mainly perceived as cooperative (M p 2.68)

220 American Journal of Education

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we report the R 2 or the explained variance. We observe that the leadership

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Direct, Indirect, and Total Effects and Sobel’s Test

decision making, and teachers’ organizational commitment. In total, we ob-

222 American Journal of Education

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The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationship between an