Principals’ Decision-making Practices at Public Degree Colleges Sindh: Teachers’ Perceptions

ARTICLE DETAILS ABSTRACT History Revised format: 30 Nov 2019 Available Online: 31 Dec 2019 This study investigates the impact of principal‟s commitment on the power, college culture, and college effectiveness in decision-making practices at public degree colleges of Sindh and to determine the effect of participative decision-making to improve the overall performance of teachers and students. The sample comprising n=646 (n=426 (66%) male and n=220 (34%) female) teachers was randomly selected from amongst 122 colleges out of 244 public degree colleges of Sindh. The principal‟s decision-making practices were measured through four latent wellestablished constructs, which include principal‟s commitment, principal‟s power, college culture, and college effectiveness. This study is quantitative in nature wherein the researcher used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to estimate the validity and reliability of the measurement or outer model through SPSS version 19 and AMOS statistical software. However, the model fitness was ensured with the help of seven frequently reported goodness of fit indices. Results revealed that there is a statistically significant impact of principals‟ commitment on power as sig. value is .000, there is a statistically significant impact of principals‟ power on college culture as sig. value is .035 and there is a statistically significant impact of college culture on college effectiveness as sig. value is .007 in decision-making practices at public degree colleges of Sindh. Future studies may ascertain the impact of principal‟s power and commitment on the college effectiveness using college culture as mediator in participatory decisionmaking practices in the context of Pakistan.


Introduction
It has been recognized at the global level that development of nations is closely linked to education. Educational set up is not possible without teachers (Ricard& Pelletier, 2016). In spite of gigantic progress in the field of science and technology, the need of teachers is unavoidable who play a significant role in the learning process through motivation, their learning experiences and performance (Arifin, 2014). Success and failure of college or school is related with the performance of teachers (Wildman, 2015).Performance of teachers is connected to leadership qualities of school and college principals who inculcate professionalism in them through supervision (Adetula, 2005). Hence, effectiveness of learning process requires efficient leadership qualities of principals in schools and colleges (Wildman, 2015). Heaton (2016) states that being the head of a college, the prime responsibility of the principal is to run the college smoothly by taking all teachers on board. Lundgren (1983) has also put this idea forward that principal is a manager who manages all the activities with the support of people for improvement of organization. Productivity and achievement of set targets is closely linked to the management skills of principals (Ducker, 1986;Snell, Morris, &Bohlander, 2015).
The most important role of a principal is decision-making regarding academic matters through which he assigns a task to faculty members and office staff for achieving the desired results (Hussain, 2011). Recently, participative decision-making has got momentum in western countries and receiving a great deal of attention from researchers in various organizations. Teachers' participation in a decision has been given importance in the reforms of education. Therefore, participation in decisions in the context of education has great importance all over the world by researchers and practitioners (Conley, 1991;Lee &Nie, 2014;Smylie, 1992). Through this study, principal's leadership was investigated from all aspects. It was found out that whether a principal was willing to empower and include faculty members in the process of decision-making. Maheran, et al. (2009) andAl Medlej (1997) state that decision-making is the most significant activity in a day-to-day affairs of life. Managers have to take important decisions in an organization. They take decisions to execute the chalked out activities that the set objectives and goals can be achieved. Failure of quality decisions may lead the organization towards destruction or it may spoil the image of it.
Decision-making is considered as a complete process by thinkers. The process is based on various steps; starts with identifying the problem and completes with getting results. College principals make important decisions and are directly responsible to Ministry of Education. They are not only managers but also supervisors of colleges (Yambo, 2012).
Researchers have defined the process of decision-making. They are of the view that decision-making is not one-shot activity but requires a serious deliberation to reach an effective and positive conclusion. Decision-making process is based on four steps: identifying the problem, collecting information, creating and selecting alternatives, and reaching the solution (Hellriegel, Slocum &John 2011). Decision-making process requires recognizing the problem and selecting suitable solutions to reach expected results (Madali, 2016). Decision-making starts with the identification of problems and opportunities that are broken up into divisions. This activity continues until evaluation and implementation of the results (Daft, 2010). McShane, Steven, Von and Mary (2010)have also defined the decision-making process in the same way. They state that decision-making is wake process through which decisions are chosen from alternatives for reaching to the expected targets. George, Jennifer, Jones, and Gareth (2012) define that decision-making process holds up members of the organization together to choose a certain action either for the availing of opportunities or for resolving issues. Griffin,Ricky, Moorhead and Gregory(2014) state that, decision-making is to choose a favorable alternative among many other alternatives This study is different from other studies in Pakistan in the way that participation of teachers in decisionmaking at a public degree college level has been explored on the basis of ground realities in depth. Participative decision-making is the global phenomenon and being practiced in the developed countries of the world. However, leadership behaviors and activities have been tested in the context of Sindh.
The problem is that in Pakistan, participative culture hardly exists in public sector institutions. The government runs schools, colleges, and universities to educate the students at cheap rates that low-income students can acquire education (UNESCO, 2006). But the hindrances in the way of achieving the objectives of education is hierarchical power structures in which officers from top to bottom only possess authority (Bacchus, 2001;Khalid, 1996;Memon, Nazir Ali, Simkins, & Garret, 2000). In such a situation, teacher is neglected and administrators or other officers are preferred to take decisions for the students. This overall bureaucratic system does not give importance to a teacher who is the necessary part of this change process (Ali et al., 2014;Simkins, Sisum, &Memon, 2003;Tajik, 2008).
Research findings show that when teachers and stakeholders are encouraged to take part in decisionmaking, it produces valuable results. Involvement of employees in decision-making boosts up their satisfaction, motivation, morale, and self-esteem and is beneficial in implementation (Chapman & Boyd, 1986;Gamage& Pang, 2003;Hargreaves & Hopkins, 1991). Similarly, participative/shared in college or school management practices promote commitment and loyalty among employees (Beyerlein, Freedman, McGee, & Moran, 2003;Chapman & Boyd, 1986;Hargreaves & Hopkins, 1991;Wong, 2003). Likewise, researchers assert that to promote participative setup people should be provided a chance to give their views through open communication for solving the issues (Hargreaves & Hopkins, 1991;Owens, 1998).
Participative decision-making in colleges is not Aladdin"s lamp or magic to solve all problems but needs all hands together to put the institution on the road of success. It depends on the democratic style of the principals to create a favorable environment to promote a culture for collaborative leadership. Empirical studies have disclosed that there are certain factors, which have affected the decisions of principals. Among other factors commitment, power, culture, and effectiveness are most prominent. The latent constructs "Commitment", "Power", "Culture" and "Effectiveness" have been explored individually in the previous studies, however, this study focuses the association between these four variables in the participative decision-making process. The researcher aims at exploring the relationship between Principals' Commitment, Power, College Culture and College Effectiveness in the Public Degree Colleges of Sindh.

Literature Review and Hypotheses 2.1
Commitment and Power Commitment means progress or product, which a person achieves through agreement with either decision or request by taking efforts on his part to implement the decisions effectively and efficiently. Commitment is vigor or strength, which shows the track to a person to achieve the targets (Herscovitch &Meyer, 2002).The term Commitment is further divided into three components; affective, continuance and normative and was adopted as a model by researchers (Allen &Meyer, 1996).
Commitment has been the most researched topic in organization (Hackney, 2012). Commitment has three dimensions i.e. affective (emotional attachment), continuance (cost of leaving and staying in the organization), and normative (obligation to continue in the organization) (Allen & Meyer, 1996). Employees at work place or Principals/ teachers attach and identify themselves with organization /school through commitment (Albdour & Altarawneh, 2014). Principals / teachers are called committed when they are strongly attached to schools/ colleges (Hellriegel, Slocum & Woodman, 1998). Moreover, commitment towards the organization is of vital significance because it stimulates employees to work with full vigor and force (Nurharani, Norshidah, &AfniAnida, 2013). Committed employees rarely think to leave an organization and work with sincerity and fervor (Pascal, Pierre-Sébastien, &Lamontagne, 2011).
Researchers have come up with conclusion that commitment has glued the educators in technical and vocational education even in the phase of transformation (Rabindarang, Khuan & Khoo, 2014). Swarnalatha (2016) found that majority of teachers in Secunderabad and Hyderabad were less committed to work, so their level of commitment was average. In conclusion, the researcher suggested and emphasized the importance of commitment of teachers. He said that without affective attachment teachers might not survive in the ever-changing circumstances.
Power is also an important factor in decision-making. Achua and Lussier (2013) state that power is potential which leaders exercise to influence their subordinates. Powerful leadership has capability to bring change in the behavior of their subordinates, control their attitude, their opinion, their purpose, their needs, and their values. The same idea was supported by Griffin, Ricky and Gregory (2014) when they confirmed that power is a potential owned by a person or group and is exercised to control a person or group of subordinates. George, Jennifer and Gareth (2012) defined that power is the capability of a person or group to get the important task done from others, which they think quite difficult or impossible. Schermerhorn and Wright (2011) express power as a capability of pursuing others to work or think for getting desired outcomes. Power is a psychological force, which helps individuals in achieving the desired results (Keltner et al., 2003;Galinsky et al., 2015). It may be concluded that power gives strength to an individual to utilize all resources for influencing other members to meet the organizational goals.
Power that is exercised in educational administration is called social power. The use of the power by college principals plays an important role in making school and college effective or ineffective and represents their styles of leadership (Nir&Hameiris, 2014). In Turkey, research studies have been carried out on principals" power bases and its various dimensions by adopting Raven"s (2008) power taxonomy. The taxonomycomprises six dimensions of power; coercive, reward, legitimate, referent and informational or persuasive power. The researchers have found a strong relationship between principals" power basis and teachers" organizational commitment (Sezgin&Kosar, 2010).
In this regard, the following hypothesis is proposed: H1. There is a statistically significant impact of Principals" commitment on power in decision making at public degree colleges in Sindh.

2.2
Culture and Effectiveness According to Bedarkar, Pandita, Agarwal and Saini (2016) culture plays a vital role in the growth of any organization. Culture of all organizations is not same therefore; every organization develops its own culture, firmly maintains, and represents it as a substantial element of the organization. Culture is the most important aspect of school/college, which not only determines school or college effectiveness but also earns it distinguished position (Bolman& Deal, 1991).Every school is like a formal organization having a different culture that has been shaped by developing relationship among school leader, teachers, students and other stakeholders. Robbins and Judge (2013) defined organizational culture as a system in which all members have shared meaning and make themselves distinguished from other groups of organization. DuPont (2009) supported the idea; states that college or school leadership (Principals) is well conversant with the significance of culture, and know that positive culture creates committed teachers whose contribution guarantee sustainable achievement. A good leadership of principal develops a positive culture in educational institution. In organization, culture is a framework of certain rules, customs and values to be followed by the members of the organization. These norms denote organizational behavior of members in the organization (Monga, Monga, Mahajan, &Monga, 2015).
Researchers are also agreed that culture and leadership have brought a significant change in the organization (Burke, 2017;Cameron & Quinn, 2011;Kellerman, 2008;Quinn, 2010;Schein, 2010;Senge et al., 1999). Researchers discussed that shared management leadership may influence the culture and it increases the ability of an institution for accepting external and internal challenges (Birnbaum, 2004;Kezar, 2001;Shinn, 2004;Tierney, 2008). According to Kaplan and Owings (2013), school culture consists of values, norms, shared coordination and activities of the members. Culture is bond that holds together whole school unit. Strong culture is not only guiding force for management but it also facilitates and compensates the members (AbTalib, Don, Daud, & Raman, 2015).
In the words of Nor and Roslan (2009), school and college culture ensures a positive relationship, sense of ownership, and self-concept among teachers. Principals play their significant role in shaping school culture that students may feel self-worth and confident.
In the light of the above literature, the following hypothesis is proposed: H2. There is a statistically significant impact of Principals" power on college culture in decision making at public degree colleges of Sindh.
The effectiveness of any organization is referred as productivity, excellence, efficiency or quality. Organizational effectiveness is closely associated to the people and their performance. It depends upon the satisfaction of stakeholders; students, parents, teachers, and leaders. Many colleges are facing hindrances in the way of effectiveness because valuable teachers are not encouraged and motivated to participate in the college decisions. This conceptual framework is handy in the management of higher education and helps the principals to manage and motivate the faculty members. In this way, management and faculty members may collectively play their role in college effectiveness.
Many research studies have been conducted on the organizational effectiveness (Rojas, 2000). Cameron (1978) state that various models have been developed to measure the organizational effectiveness but in the context of educational institutions, little work has been done by the researchers. Karagöz and Öz, (2008) support the same idea that little research work is available on organizational effectiveness in the field of education.
Research studies have identified the relationship between school or college culture and effectiveness. It has also been found that organizational culture has brought significant and positive effect on subordinates or workers and ensured the satisfactory results. This is also true in the world of education where school culture may increase performance of teachers on the one hand and students" achievement on the other (Badri et al., 2014). A study was carried out to investigate relationship between culture and effectiveness in 60 Estonian secondary schools. Interviews were conducted on the basis of organizational cultural questionnaire to measure school culture through interviews from school administrators and teaching and non-teaching staff and the performance was tested on the basis of Annual results. The findings of the study revealed that the culture has a positive effect on performance of school (Aidla and Vadi, 2007). In a meta-analysis of 155 researches from 1984 to 2005 on school effectiveness, the research findings explored a strong effect of school effectiveness on students" results. The research study also found the impact of environment on the achievement of students (Scheerens, Witziers & Steen, 2013).
One of the research studies discovered difference between students output of two "sister" schools. The reason was leadership approaches of heads of schools because school principals play their roles in shaping and maintain different cultures. It was found that school culture and effectiveness is directly related to school leadership (Bhengu & Mthembu, 2014). A study was conducted on elementary school that found indirect impact of principals on effectiveness through school culture (Hallinger, Bickman& Davis, 1996).
In the light of the above literature related to different educational institutions it may be concluded that there is a strong relationship between school or college culture and effectiveness. Furthermore, school culture does not have only direct influence on effectiveness but also through teachers" performance on students" achievements (Gamoran, Secada& Marrett, 2000;Stearns, Banerjee, Mickelson & Moller, 2014). In this regard, the following hypothesis is proposed: H3. There is a statistically significant impact of college culture on college effectiveness in decision making at public degree colleges of Sindh.
In the light of the above theories the following conceptual framework has been developed.

Methodology 4.1 Sample and Data Collection
The author has taken quantitative study from his own doctoral research (Dissertation). This study was quantitative in nature for computing the latent constructs in order to generalize the findings and to present a clear picture of large scale-social trends and relationship between the latent variables. The experts in the field of education analyzed the face and content validity of survey questionnaire and then it was sent to the teachers of public degree colleges of Sindh. A workable data were received from a sample n=646 (including n=426 (66%) male and n=220 (34%) female) respondents.

Composition of Data
There were twenty indicators in the survey inventory related to four latent constructs such as principal"s commitment, principal"s power, and college culture and college effectiveness. The research participants were asked to rate their responses on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Analysis and Results
This research study performed reliability, CMVB, and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) through SPSS version 19, and hypotheses testing through statistical software i.e. AMOS version 19.

Common Method Variance Bias (CMVB)
The result of Harman"s single factor test reveals that one single factor in this study accounted for only 19.992% of the total variance which is less than 50% threshold value. Then it is concluded that the data that has been collected for analysis in which there is no Common Method Variance Bias (CMVB) issue with the data set. It indicates that the researcher can proceed for further data analysis.

4.4
Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) EFA technique was used to ensure the validity of the decision-making inventory.

KMO and Bartlett's Test
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy.
.000 Table 3 shows that sample adequacy is quite good as the benchmark for KMO should be > 0.5whereas the value of KMO = 0.784 and Bartlett"s Test is excellent as Sig. value is < 0.05 which is Sig. value = 0.000. It indicates that the researcher can proceed for further analysis.  Table 4 illustrates that there are 4 factors and the surrogate items which include CE6 = .803, CC5 = .799, P3 = .905, and C2 = .799. All the items values are quite good as they are > 0.60. From the Rotated Component Matrix (RCM), it is concluded that the researcher ensured the convergent validity because all the items are loaded with their respective factors. Secondly, the construct validity was ensured in a way that all the loaded items are greater than .60, which is a very strict criterion for the researcher to meet for further analysis. Finally, the discriminant validity was also ensured that there is not any single item which is loaded into any other different factor which means that there is no cross loading in RCM table. Therefore, the decision-making inventory is quite valid and authentic to proceed with further analysis, which means the researcher can proceed for CFA model.

Hypotheses Testing
In the light of model fit indices (See Table 5) and standardized regression weights, which are quite good because all are greater than .6 for the CFA model (See Figure No 2).Therefore, the CFA model is quite fit for testing the hypotheses. Structured Equation Modeling (SEM) was performed to test the hypotheses (See Table 6).  H1: There is a statistically significant impact of principals" commitment on principals" power at the public degree colleges of Sindh.
 H2: There is a statistically significant impact of principals" power on college culture at the public degree colleges of Sindh.  H3: There is a statistically significant impact of college culture on college effectiveness at the public degree colleges of Sindh.

Discussion
The overall results of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) reveal that the principals" commitment has positive significant impact on power, as p. value is .000, which indicates that commitment clearly predicts the power of the principal at public degree colleges of Sindh. Secondly, statistical result shows that principals" power has a positive significant impact on college culture, as p. value is .035, which reflects that principals" power clearly predicts the college culture at public degree colleges of Sindh. Thirdly, college culture has a positive significant impact on college effectiveness, as p. value is .007, which clearly reflects that college culture predicts the college effectiveness at public degree colleges of Sindh.
The findings of this study are in consistent with the previous studies such that in Turkey researchers have found a strong relationship between principals" power basis and teachers" organizational commitment (Sezgin & Kosar, 2010). Commitment moves teachers or principals towards the fulfillment of objectives. When principal is committed, he uses his power to put the institution on the path of success. According to Kaplan and Owings (2013), school culture consists of values, norms, shared coordination and activities of the members. Culture is bond that holds together whole school unit. Strong culture is not only guiding force for management but it also facilitates and compensates the members (AbTalib, Don, Daud, & Raman, 2015). In the words of nor and Roslan (2009) school and college culture ensure positive relationship, sense of ownership, and self-concept among teachers. Principals play their significant role in shaping school culture that students may feel self-worth and confident.
Research studies have identified the relationship between school or college culture and School/college effectiveness. It has also been found that organizational culture has brought significant and positive effect on subordinates/workers and ensured the satisfactory results. This is also true in the world of education where school culture may increase performance of teachers on the one hand and student"s achievement on the other (Badri et al., 2014). One of the research studies discovered difference between students output of two "sister" schools. The reason was leadership approaches of heads of schools because school principals play their roles in shaping and maintaining different cultures. It was found that school culture and effectiveness is directly related to school leadership (Bhengu&Mthembu, 2014). In the light of the research studies, it can be concluded that there is a strong relationship between school/college culture and effectiveness. Furthermore, school culture does not have only direct influence on effectiveness but also through teachers" performance on students" achievements (Gamoran, Secada&Marrett, 2000;Stearns, Banerjee, Mickelson & Moller, 2014).

Conclusion
This study examined the impact of principals" commitment on power, college culture and college effectiveness in participative decision-making practices at public degree colleges of Sindh. It was statistically established that the principals" commitment plays a pivotal role in predicting the power, power influences culture and culture influences effectiveness in participative decision-making practices in public degree colleges of Sindh.
Based on the findings of this study, the following main conclusions could be drawn concerning decisionmaking practices of principals in public degree colleges of Sindh. The results were very clear that principals do have the realization that participatory decision-making is important and could have farreaching effects for the organization as well as employees. They believe that it is in the interest of both the organization and the employees to follow and practice participatory decision-making process. Despite the fact,the principals do not practice participatory decision making very often because of inherent internal cultural norms of distrust, the propensity of non-cooperation, culture of unhealthy and undue pressure, lack of sense of responsibility and unwillingness on the part of subordinates to participate in decisionmaking process.

Theoretical Implications
This study contributes in providing practical implications for different stakeholders to address the issues.
 Participative decision-making cultivates component of self-worth in subordinates since they feel honor and respect when their ideas are given importance in decisions.  The administrative higher authorities make sure that Principals are free from any undue pressure from different quarters. They must be supported in making merit-based decisions. At the same time, however, they should be convinced to adopt participative decision-making culture in the organization and take all the subordinates on board to achieve the goals of the organization.  The results have clear implications for professional development and training providers to develop the capacity of principals in developing a team spirit in the organization and take subordinates on board in the decision-making process. They should be professionally trained to develop a culture of participatory decision-making and management in the organization.

Limitations and Areas For Future Research
Interesting results of this study provide many opportunities and space for further research to explore further about this issue.  This study may be replicated in other parts of the country and the results may be compared with the results of this study.  This study should be expanded to a larger sample of respondents drawn from the entire country to ensure wider generalization of the findings. The same inventories can be employed for data collection to explore the issue related to decision-making practices.  The study is limited to the perceptions or views of the teachers to achieve the objectivity for generalization of the results. However, the mediation and moderation is not the scope of this study.