Organizations do not operate in a vacuum, but are constantly under the influence and pressures which are imposed upon them from within themselves and outside. These changes and developments in the modern era always create opportunities and threats to organizations. In such a situation, successful organizations are those that adapt themselves to the circumstances and comply with changes (Sharifzadeh, 2009).

Only organizations can act in such a way that their employees enjoy high spiritual Intelligence. Hence, some theorists of management recommend the issues of spirituality in work and spiritual intelligence to cope with changes of today’s complex world (Cavanagh, 1999).

Some believe that spirituality involves the highest levels of cognitive, moral, and emotional, and personal growth. In other words, spirituality itself is a growth area and an attitude requiring the extreme human experiences (Samadi, 2006).   Intelligence is a concept that human has long been interested to investigate and study about its dimensions, protests, characteristics, and types. One of the dimensions of intelligence entitled "Spiritual Intelligence" is an area that few coherent and systematic studies have been conducted to explain and understand its features and factors which can boost this type of intelligence in people (King, 2001).

The concept of spiritual intelligence was firstly proposed by Stevens in 1996 and later expanded by Emmons in 1999. Emmons defines spiritual intelligence as the adaptive use of spiritual information to solve everyday problems and the process of achieving the goals. He also adds that spiritual intelligence can be defined as an intelligence giving meaning and value to problem solving and through which life and actions can be applied to a context that is deeper and wider in terms of meaning; and it can be assessed that that way of life is more efficient, effective, and meaningful than other ways (Sohrabi, 2008). Spiritual intelligence is defined as a set of mental capacities which contribute to the awareness, integration, and adaptive application of the nonmaterial and transcendent aspects of one’s existence, leading to such outcomes as deep existential reflection, enhancement of meaning, recognition of a transcendent self, and mastery of spiritual states. Four core components are proposed to comprise spiritual intelligence: 1) critical existential thinking, 2) personal meaning production, 3) transcendental awareness, and 4) conscious state expansion. Personal meaning production is a person's ability to stimulate both physical and psychological experience of the person with personal meaning that comes with a sense of satisfaction (King, 2008). Transcendental awareness is the ability to understand one's relationship with a higher power, all the creatures, man and the environment (Vaughan, 2002). Conscious state expansion is the ability to enter a state of spiritual awareness or higher (King, 2008).

According to George (2006), the most important function of spiritual intelligence in the workplace is to provide peace of mind, create mutual understanding and rapport between colleagues, increase job satisfaction, and reduce job stress.

Creativity, honesty, trust, a sense of personal engagement, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, job involvement, job consciousness, and motivation level of employees can be increased with the growth of spirituality in an organization. All of these directly lead to improved organizational performance and effectiveness (Farhangi et al., 2006).

Feldman and Arnold (1983) showed that respect for employees increases their job satisfaction and capabilities, causing lower absenteeism and job stress. Increased job satisfaction resulting from spirituality in the workplace can be said that is mostly due to job changes and absenteeism. Job satisfaction is an important factor to increase productivity, sympathy of staff with the organization, sense of belonging and attachment to the workplace, quality and quantity of work, humanistic and good relationships in the workplace, correct communications, and morale and enthusiasm and also to reduce job stress (Houman 2002).  

Decreased job satisfaction leads to high absenteeism, low efficiency, and transfer and movement of employees (Rafiee 2003).

Okpara and Wynn (2008) studied the relationship of work ethics with job satisfaction and organizational commit-ment in Nigeria and concluded that work ethics has a significant relationship with job satisfaction and organizational commitment. 

Khorshidi and Ebadi (2011) studied the relationship between spiritual intelligence and job satisfaction and stated that there is a significant positive relationship between spiritual intelligence and job satisfaction.

Yahyazadeh and Lotfi (2012) studied the relationship between spiritual intelligence and job satisfaction in teachers. Their findings showed that there is a significant relationship between spiritual intelligence and job satisfaction in teachers and also there is a significant relationship between spiritual intelligence of teachers and their scientific levels. They reported a significant relation-ship between spiritual intelligence and five components of job satisfaction (awareness of job nature, attitude towards supervisors, relationships with colleagues, opportunity for promotion, and working conditions), but they observed no significant relationship between spiritual intelligence and another components of job satisfaction (salary and benefits).

Rastegar et al. (2012) studied the relationship between spiritual intelligence and job satisfaction of employees in banking industry of Iran and found no significant relationship between these two variables.

Soleymani et al. (2012) conducted a study entitled “Relationship of job ethics with job satisfaction and job stress of employees in vocational education organization of Tehran’’. Their findings showed that there is a significant positive relationship between employees' perception of work ethics and job satisfaction, while there is a significant negative relationship between employees' perception of work ethics and job stress.

Kauor (2013) studied spiritual intelligence in high school teachers and its relationship with job satisfaction. The results indicate a significant positive relationship between spiritual intelligence of teachers and their job satisfaction. No significant difference was reported between private and state high school teachers in terms of spiritual intelligence and job satisfaction. The results of this study also showed that spiritual intelligence and job satisfaction are not affected by gender. Diharma and Lakshmi (2014) also reported a significant relationship between spiritual intelligence and job satisfaction.

According to several studies on the relationship between spirituality and variables such as job satisfaction, creativity, trust, and commitment, most leading organizations and institutions are paying more attention to improve spirituality, capability, creativity, spiritual intelligence, and job satisfaction employees in order to develop human resources and enhance job performance. In this context and given the growing volume of scientific and educational activities in schools, having an efficient, creative, and capable organization seems to be essential for promotion of scientific and educational level of schools. Hence, the present paper aimed to study the relationship between spiritual intelligence and job satisfaction among female high school teachers in Isfahan in order to propose necessary strategies to improve educational conditions and job satisfaction, enhance spiritual intelligence and also to what extent spiritual intelligence is the ability to predict job satisfaction and high school teachers. For this purpose, the researcher sought to examine the following hypotheses:

1- Spiritual intelligence and its components have a relationship with job satisfaction in female high school teachers.

2- Components of spiritual intelligence are capable of predicting job satisfaction of female high school teachers.

Participants

Population of this study included all female high school teachers of Isfahan in the academic year 2013-2014. Sample size was calculated as 320 teachers by Krejcie and Morgan (1970). Age 49/7 percent of participants in the study were between 31 to 40 years. 0/45 percent of participants in the study were graduate education and work experience 33/8 percent of the participants were between 16 and 20 years.

Instrument

Spiritual Intelligence Questionnaire: Spiritual Intelligence scale was developed by King in 2008; this questionnaire contains 24 items and is answered based on 5-point Likert scale (high scores indicate high spiritual intelligence and vice versa). The questionnaire consists of four components which are critical existential thinking, personal meaning production, transcendental awareness and conscious state expansion. Cronbach's alpha coefficient (reliability) of the questionnaire was obtained; it was 0.89 by Marzabadi et al. (2011, 2012) and 0.85 in this present study.

Job Satisfaction Questionnaire: Job Satisfaction Questionnaire, which is developed by Spector in 1998, includes 38 questions and is answered based on 5-point Likert scale. Cronbach's alpha coefficient (reliability) of the questionnaire in the present study was 0.79.

Procedures

The present study was a descriptive correlation research. Statistical population included all female high school teachers of Isfahan (2015) in academic year 2013-2014.302 questionnaires of total 320 were completely filled out and given back.

Data analysis

Collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, frequency, and percentage) and inferential statistics (Pearson correlation coefficient, stepwise regression, multivariate analysis of variance).

Spiritual intelligence and its components have a relation-ship with job satisfaction in female high school teachers.

Descriptive indices of studied variables are shown in Table 1.

According to Table 1 mean of critical-existence thinking, creating personal meaning, transcendental consciousness, creating an alert status and job satisfaction was 28.21, 19.67, 27.67, 20.29 and 114/01 respectively.

** p≤ 0.01                       

Table 2 showed that the correlation coefficient of spiritual intelligence and the components of creating personal meaning and transcendental consciousness with job satisfaction were significant. This means that there was significant relationship between spiritual intelligence and job satisfaction (r =0.218). According to the coefficient of determination (r²), variance of spiritual intelligence was shared with variance in job satisfaction by 4.8%. So, the hypothesis that spiritual intelligence and its components (creating personal meaning and transcendental consciousness) had significant relationship with job satisfaction was confirmed. The relationship of critical-existence thinking and creating an alert status with job satisfaction is not significant. Components of spiritual intelligence are capable of predicting job satisfaction of female high school teachers.

As Table 3 showed, among the studied variables in regression, transcendental consciousness was the best predictor of job satisfaction in the first step. Accordingly, coefficient of transcendental consciousness in the first step explains 10% of job satisfaction variance.

Results in Table 4 indicated that one unit increase of beta  coefficient in  transcendental consciousness increases job satisfaction by 0.315 units. Equation of prediction for the research hypothesis was as follows:

Transcendental consciousness (1.053) + Constant coefficient (84.290) = Job satisfaction

According to the findings of the present study, correlation coefficient of spiritual intelligence and its components with job satisfaction indicates a significant positive corre-lation between these two variables. This is consistent with findings of Yahyazadeh and Goodarzi (2012), Khorshidi and Ebadi (2011), Soleymani et al. (2012), Kauor (2013), Diharma and Lakshmi (2014), Okpara and Wynn (2008) and McVicar (2003). This indicates the importance of considering the role of spiritual intelligence in organizations. Typically, a person with high spiritual intelligence is more satisfied with his/her job. The increasing studies on the relationship between these variables suggest the expansion of paying attention to the role of spiritual factors in managing today’s organizations. Hence, mangers try to use them to approach organizational goals. In fact, a spiritual workplace directly affects the success of organizations and their employees, because such an environment reduces employees’ transfer, stress, fatigue, and absenteeism. In addition, transcendental consciousness causes job satisfaction. In contrast, this result is inconsistent with the findings of Rastegar et al. (2012) and Marzabadi et al. (2012), who state that there is no relationship between spiritual intelligence and job satisfaction. Several factors may be involved in this result. For example, if the present study had been conducted in another time and place, the relationship between spiritual intelligence and job satisfaction would have been significant. Additionally, components of spiritual intelligence and job satisfaction would be rooted in different philosophical and cultural contexts, so  the  relationship between intelligence and satisfaction could not be manifested.

The findings of the present study revealed the role of spiritual intelligence on job satisfaction of teachers. The results indicate that spiritual intelligence of teachers can directly heighten their job satisfaction level, while low level of spiritual intelligence reduces job satisfaction level somewhat, causing job dissatisfaction and reluctance. This issue should be taken seriously by the officials of Education Ministry. Generally, it can be stated that mangers can improve the teachers’ perception of their job through measures such as job enrichment, empowerment of teachers, and adding joy to work. In fact, creating a friendly atmosphere based on cooperation instead of competition can increase job satisfaction and a sense of solidarity and unity among the staff which is kind of investment in an organization. Managers should also be aware of the spiritual needs of their teachers and try to create a dynamic organizational atmosphere. With such measures it can be hoped that teachers enjoy doing their tasks and be more satisfied.

According to the results of the present study, some of the things that are very effective in promoting spirituality in educational organizations and require managers to pay special attention to are as follows:

1. The use of appropriate material and spiritual triggers in order to improve employees’ spiritual intelligence in organizations. One of the most common of these triggers is the attempt to provide the minimum material needs of employees.

2. Solving common problems in organizations such internal disputes, violation of the rights of teachers and students, and neglecting the clients (parents) in order to create job security and peace for employees and satisfaction for parents.

3. Establishment of spiritual supporter groups (Religious workers) among the teachers in order to provide advice in the event of problems for each teacher and improve personal spirituality.

Results of this research are only for educational organization (among female High School teachers) of Isfahan, therefore similar studies in other organizations or between male High School teachers cannot be compared. Finally, it should be noted that the present study is limited to teachers in Isfahan in academic year 2013-2014, therefore the results should be generalized to different time and other organizations should be very cautious. Other limitation of this study is variables were assessed by self-report. The variable of the study can be studied on different sample groups by using qualitative research methods.  

We would like to thank all high school teachers of Isfahan who helped us to conduct this study. 

The author(s) have not declared any conflict of interests.