The effects of diversity management on job satisfaction and individual performance of teachers

In this research, the effects of teachers’ perceptions of the diversity management on their job satisfaction and individual performance were examined. Teachers who are working in public high schools during 2014 to 2015 academic year constituted the study group of the research. The data of the research in which quantitative method used were gathered with “Diversity Management Scale”, “Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire” and “Self-Reported Individual Performance Scale”. As a result of the analyses done, significant relationships were found between the diversity management and job satisfaction; and between the diversity management and individual performance. Also, it was found that sub dimensions of diversity management as individual attitudes and behaviors, organizational values and norms, administrative practices and policies together predict the general job satisfaction significantly.


INTRODUCTION
Organizations which are social systems are needed to retain its employees by meeting employees' individual expectations to achieve the objective (Barnard, 1982).It is inevitable that the individual needs of employees who are different from each other will be different.If organizations could assess and better manage these differences of employees, they would be much more effective.Especially in today's changing conditions and competition environment, it can be said that managing diversity is a need for organizational success.
From the perspective of organizations, it is meant with differences that collective mix of similarities and differences which are used in line with the realization of organization's objectives (Hubbard, 2004).In other words, differences are individual intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics which make individual different from or similar to others (Mujtaba, 2007;Surgevil, 2010).
Differences among employees can be grouped as primary differences such as; age, gender, ethnicity, cognitive/physical ability, race, sexual orientation and as secondary differences such as; communication style, education, marital status, military experience, organisational role and position, religion, mother tongue, geographic location, income, work experience and work style (Hubbard, 2004).
Diversity management is the ability to take quality decisions in between differences and similarities mentioned earlier (Thomas, 2010).Diversity management can be defined as creating an environment based on team work and mutual respect of employees, recognising and assessing the contributions of each employee to the organisation (Herrera, 2008).
The effective diversity management provides many contributions to the performance of organizations by encouraging employees to work together and allowing the use of employees' all skills.The discovery of creativity, more qualified personnel selection, reduction of costs, management efficiency increase, the ability of organization to adapt and provide flexibility to continue this activity are some of those contributions.Beside those organizational contributions, organizations which value differences and create the opportunity for its members to use their potential fully provides individual contributions such as comfort and confidence to employees, morale, job satisfaction, effective communication, teamwork, high performance and loyalty (Barutcugil, 2011).
In this research, it was expected that diversity management may contribute to employees' job satisfaction and performance.In the literature only one research which examines diversity management with job satisfaction and performance has been found.Pitts (2009) in his study has examined the relations between diversity management, job satisfaction and perception of work group performance.The findings of the research have shown that there is a positive and high level relation between diversity management and job satisfaction, perceived group performance.However, in this research as different from Pitts (2009), the contribution of diversity management on job satisfaction and perceived individual performance is examined.Job satisfaction which is one of the most studied variables in organizational behavior may be defined as individual's feel for his job and the distinctive aspects of the job (Spector, 1997).Individual's positive emotions to his job arise as a result of his evaluation of the job (Locke, 1976).
Many approaches have been proposed for the reason of job satisfaction.These approaches or theories can be analyzed in three main categories.First of them is situational theories.Situational theories argue that job satisfaction results from the nature of the job or other environmental features.The second one is dispositional approaches.These approaches argue that job satisfaction is shaped by the personality traits of the individuals.Job satisfaction is rooted in the personal makeup of the individual.Lastly, holistic or interactional theories argue that job satisfaction is composed as a result of the interaction between situational conditions and personality (Judge et al., 2001).
The relation between job satisfaction and the organization's management style and climate created in the organization is high.An environment which is trustworthy, honest, fair treated, has good relations and minimizes the conflict affects employee's job satisfaction positively (Basaran, 1992).Hence, job satisfaction is expected to be high in an organization which differences are respected, valued and well managed.
Another dependent variable of the research is perceived individual performance.Performance can be expressed as the productivity level of individual's behavior and outputs related to his job compared to other employees (Babin and Boles, 1998).In other words, performance is the contribution of an employee or a group to the job or the objective of the organization (Pasa, 2007).It can also be defined as employees' performing the task given and set in accordance with the features and capabilities of themselves (Erdogan, 1991;Gumustekin and Oztemiz, 2005).
Factors affecting employees' performance can be divided into three groups as factors related to work environment, personal factors and stress, and administrative factors (Odabas, 2004).Although individual performance may seem as related to person at first glance, actually it is a reality about management approach and the application type of leadership and its' perception in the organizational climate (Ozmutaf, 2007).
In line with the earlier mentioned information in this research, firstly relationships between the perception of teachers on diversity management in schools and job satisfaction, individual performance will be determined.Then, whether diversity management is a significant predictor of job satisfaction and individual performance will be examined.

Research model
This research is a descriptive research designed as a relational survey model.Relational survey model is a research model which aims to determine the presence or level of changing together of two or a great number of variables (Karasar, 1999).

Study group
The population of the study is 2,362 teachers who work in 42 public high schools in Merkezefendi and Pamukkale districts of Denizli province in 2014 to 2015 education year spring semester.The sample of the study is determined with "proportional cluster sampling".In proportional cluster sampling, population is divided into sub-populations and cluster is chosen from each sub populations according to its percentage in the whole population (Karasar, 1999).High schools were divided into sub-populations according to their types in this research.Teacher numbers included in each sub-population was given in Table 1.Then, each groups represent rate is calculated as %.The minimum numbers of teacher needed in each group or sub-population was found according to  Krejcie and Morgan (1970) and Gay (1996), it was seen that the sample size was appropriate.425 surveys were delivered to teachers as a paper form by the researcher and 400 of them were returned as completed by the teachers.Examining the returned surveys, 30 of them were seen having missing information so they were removed.As a result, a total of 370 teachers were included in the sample.

Measures
"Diversity Management Scale" developed by Balay and Saglam (2004) and revised by Memduhoglu (2007) was used to determine teachers' perceptions about diversity management in their schools.The instrument consisted of 28 items and three dimensions including individual attitudes and behaviors, organizational values and norms, administrative practices and policies.Items were rated on a Likert type scale ranging from 5 to 1 and the scoring equated to: 5 completely, 4 a lot, 3 sometimes, 2 a little, 1 never.When the scores obtained from the scale get higher; it can be said that teachers' perceptions about the diversity management increase in a positive way.The reliability coefficients of this research were calculated as 0.97 for total scale; 0.83 for the first dimension; 0.93 for the second dimension and 0.97 for the third dimension.
In order to measure job satisfaction of teachers, "Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaireshort form (MSQ)" was used.MSQ was developed by Weiss et al. (1967) and adapted into Turkish and tested for reliability by Baycan (1985).It was consisted of 20 items measuring general job satisfaction, intrinsic job satisfaction and extrinsic job satisfaction.Intrinsic satisfaction included the factors relating to the intrinsic nature of the job, such as achievement, recognition work itself and advancement.Extrinsic satisfaction included the factors related to work environment, such as organization policy, supervision, relationships with administrator, colleagues and subordinates, work conditions, salary.Items were rated on a Likert type scale ranging from 5 (very satisfied)) to 1 (very dissatisfied)).Total scores on this inventory could range from 20 to 100.It could be said that the more scores get closer to 100; the more the overall satisfaction level of teachers increase.The reliability coefficients were 0.90 for general satisfaction, 0.87 for intrinsic satisfaction and 0.82 for extrinsic satisfaction.
"Self-Reported Individual Performance Scale" was used to measure teachers' perceptions about their individual performance.The scale was developed by Staples et al. (1999) and revised by Rego and Cunha (2008) and adapted to Turkish by Donmez (2014).The reliability coefficient of translated scale was 0.92 (Cronbach Alpha).The reliability coefficient of this research was calculated as 0.89.

Data analysis
The data gathered was analyzed by the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software.In the analysis, diversity management and its dimensions (individual attitudes and behaviors, organizational values and norms, administrative practices and policies) were considered as independent variables.General job satisfaction, intrinsic job satisfaction, extrinsic job satisfaction and individual performance were dependent variables of this study.The correlation between variables was examined by utilizing a Pearson product moment.In order to determine the predictiveness of dependent variable related to independent variable, the multiple regression analysis was used.Significance level was 0.05 and 0.01.

Correlation analysis
According to analysis, there were significant positive relationships between individual attitudes and behaviors and general job satisfaction (r=,48), intrinsic satisfaction (r= ,37), extrinsic job satisfaction (r= ,53), individual performance (r=,19).Similarly, significant positive relationships were found between organizational values and norms and general job satisfaction (r= 0.47) intrinsic job satisfaction (r= 0.35) extrinsic job satisfaction (r= 0.51).But there was no significant relationship between organizational values and norms and individual performance (r= 0.10).Lastly there were significant positive relationships between administrative practices and policies and general job satisfaction (r= 0.54) intrinsic satisfaction (r= 0.39) extrinsic job satisfaction (r= 0.62) and individual performance (r= 0.13).When analyzing the Table 2 the highest relationship between independent and dependent variables was found between administrative practices and policies and extrinsic job satisfaction (r= 0.62).

Regression analysis results for the predictiveness of job satisfaction
In order to determine the predictiveness of job satisfaction related to dimensions of diversity management, the linear multiple regression analysis was used.Firstly, general job satisfaction was considered as a dependent variable.Then, the same analysis was performed for the dependent variables of intrinsic job satisfaction and extrinsic job satisfaction.As shown in Table 3, it was found that sub dimensions of diversity management as individual attitudes and behaviors, organizational values and norms, administrative practices and policies together predict (R = 0.567, R² = 0.322, p<0.01) the general job satisfaction significantly.In other words, the results indicated that three sub-dimensions of diversity management together explained about 32% of total variance in the teachers' general job satisfaction.This result can be interpreted as 68% of the changes in general job satisfaction can be explained by other variables.In examining the t-test results regarding the significance of regression coefficients, "individual attitudes and behavior" and "administrative practices and policies" were found as the significant predictors on general job satisfaction.But the dimension of organizational values and norms did not have a significant impact on general job satisfaction.
Multiple regression analysis results for the predictiveness of intrinsic job satisfaction related to dimensions of diversity management were presented in Table 4.According to Table 4, all dimensions of diversity management together predict (R = 0.417, R² =0.174, p< 0.01) intrinsic job satisfaction significantly.This result indicates that diversity management explained 17% of total variance in intrinsic job satisfaction.Thus, the remaining 83% of changes in intrinsic job satisfaction can be explained by other variables.
When sub-dimensions were examined separately, even though "individual attitudes and behavior" and "administrative practices and policies" predict intrinsic job satisfaction significantly; dimension of organizational values and norms doesn't predict it significantly.Multivariate regression analysis results for determining the predictiveness of extrinsic job satisfaction related to dimensions of diversity management were statistically significant.It was found that sub-dimensions of the diversity management together explained 41% of the changes in extrinsic job satisfaction (R= 0.641, R²= 0.411, p< 0.01).This result can be interpreted as 59% of the changes in the extrinsic job satisfaction can be explained by other variables.
According to Table 5 it was seen that even though the three sub-dimensions of the diversity management together predict 41% of extrinsic job satisfaction.the dimensions significantly predicting the extrinsic job satisfaction were "individual attitudes and behavior" and "administrative practices and policies".

Regression analysis results for the predictiveness of individual performance
It is understood from Table 6 that the sub-dimensions of diversity management together predict (R = 0.199, R² = 0.040, p< 0.01) individual performance significantly.In other words, the results indicated that three sub-dimensions of diversity management together explained about 4% of total variance in the teachers' individual performance.Even though the sub-dimensions of diversity management together predict individual performance significantly.the only dimension significantly predicting the individual performance was individual attitudes and behaviors.

DISCUSSION
In this research, the effect of teachers' perceptions of the management of diversity on their job satisfaction and individual performance were tried to be examined.Firstly, the relationships between diversity management (individual attitudes and behaviors, organizational values and norms, administrative practices and policies), job satisfaction (general job satisfaction, intrinsic job satisfaction, and extrinsic job satisfaction), and individual performance were analyzed.As a result of the analysis, significant positive relationships were found between three sub-dimensions of diversity management and general job satisfaction, intrinsic job satisfaction, extrinsic job satisfaction.Buckingham (2010) has found a positive correlation between diversity awareness and employees' job satisfaction.Based on the result of the study, Buckingham indicated that employees' job satisfaction might be affected by the elements of diversity management.Likewise, Demirel et al. (2012) and Choi (2008) also found a positive relationship between diversity management and job satisfaction in their studies.There are many studies confirming a positive relationship between diversity management and job satisfaction in the literature (Choi, 2008;Pitts, 2009;Buckingham, 2010;Asif et al., 2011;Demirel et al., 2012;Stazyk et al., 2012).However, any studies that address this issue in educational organizations have not been encountered.Having done in educational organizations may be the distinctive aspect of this study.
When studies examining diversity, diversity management and performance relation is reviewed.a positive relationship between diversity management and performance has been found in some of the studies (Allen et al.. 2007;Choi and Rainey, 2010;Asif et al., 2011).Studies done indicate that different working groups have a higher level of potential to achieve performance than homogenous groups.Groups including diversity bring along many knowledge, skills, talents and perspectives.Researches show that different groups bring more ideas and solutions towards problems than homogenous groups (Hubbard, 2004).
In some studies, a negative relationship or no relationship between diversity and performance was found (Chatman and Flynn, 2001;Ancona and Caldwell, 1992).The lack of unity on this issue can be considered as one of the grounds for this study.In this research when the relationships between sub-dimensions of diversity management and individual performance were examined; a significant positive relationship was seen between individual performance and "individual attitudes and behaviors"."administrative practices and policies" subdimensions.No significant relationship between "organizational values and norms" and individual performance was seen.
After relationships between diversity management and job satisfaction and performance were identified; the predictive power of diversity management on job satisfaction and individual performance was examined.When results were considered, it was seen that three sub-dimensions of diversity management together predict general job satisfaction, intrinsic satisfaction, and extrinsic job satisfaction.Likewise this research's results, Stazyk et al. (2012) in their study reported that employees who believe that there are well defined and effective diversity management policies in their organizations have higher goal clarity.In a similar manner, Pitts (2009) stated that the most satisfied employees are the ones who perceive managing diversity as strong in their units by noting a significant positive relationship between diversity management and job satisfaction.
Lastly. it was seen that three sub-dimensions of diversity management together predict the individual performance significantly.Based on this finding, it can be said that employees who think that diversity is well managed in their schools perceive their individual performance better.Sabharwal (2014) in the study stated that when diversity management combined with the leader's support and employees were incorporated into decision, organizational performance will be realized most effectively.Administrative attitudes and organizational culture might increase performance (Jehn and Bezrukova, 2004;Choi and Rainey, 2010).
To sum up, in this study significant relationships between diversity management and job satisfaction and individual performance were found.Hence, it can be said that teachers who think diversity is well managed in their schools have a higher job satisfaction and individual performance perception.It can also be said that if teachers think diversity is seen as richness, different ideas are accepted natural, there is an absence of discrimination, and equal opportunities are provided to all teachers in their schools.they will have a greater satisfaction and exhibit better performance.Indeed.according to Adams' equity theory in individual's job success and satisfaction their perceived equality or inequality degree is important.According to Adams.an individual proportions outcome he gained from workplace to what he added to job that is input.and compares this ratio with others' inputs and results they gain in the same workplace.If his own ratio is less than others.the perception of inequality occurs in people (Luthans, 2011).In this case.it can be stated that especially school managers should appraise and manage differences among teachers and create a climate in such a way in their schools.

LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
This study has a number of limitations.The most important limitation of the study can be said as all variables are measured on the basis of teachers' perceptions.That is to say, diversity management in schools.teachers' job satisfaction and determination of their performance are based on teachers' perceptions.Another limitation is that the study was done only in Denizli.Turkey and in high schools.Based on the research's findings, it can be suggested that seminars and trainings on diversity and diversity management can be organized especially for school managers in schools.In further studies, besides individual performance, organizational performance and group performance might be addressed.The predictive power of diversity management besides job satisfaction and performance, on different variables such as organizational climate.Motivation, communication and attachment might also be discussed.School managers besides teachers can also be included in the same research.

Table 1 .
The study group of the research.
percentages based on calculated sampling number.An appropriate sample size to represent the population was found out with Cochran (1962)'s formula proposed.According to this formula, appropriate sample size should be at least 330.Also, according to the table proposed by

Table 2 .
The correlation values between diversity management, job satisfaction and individual performance.

Table 3 .
Multiple regression analysis results for the predictiveness of general job satisfaction related to dimensions of diversity management.

Table 4 .
Multiple regression analysis results for the predictiveness of intrinsic job satisfaction related to dimensions of diversity management.

Table 5 .
Multiple regression analysis results for the predictiveness of extrinsic job satisfaction related to dimensions of diversity management.

Table 6 .
Multiple regression analysis results for the predictiveness of performance related to dimensions of diversity management.